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Posts tagged with “emotions”

How Our Emotional Triggers Can Actually Be Great Gifts

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“Be grateful for triggers, they point to where you are not free.” ~Unknown

Your triggers are your responsibility. I know, it doesn’t land so nicely, does it? But it’s the truth. The moment you truly understand this, you let others off the hook and you’re able to actually see triggers as gifts pointing to where you’re not whole.

I’ve heard this many times before and felt like retorting with, “But, he/she/they did
.” Just because your triggers are your responsibility doesn’t mean that others won’t do hurtful or infuriating things. It just means the only thing you can control is your …

How to Process Intense Feelings with Mindfulness: 4 Powerful Steps

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“Feelings come and go, like clouds in the sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to find ourselves caught in a whirlwind of intense emotions.

Whether it’s the stress of looming deadlines, the anxiety of an uncertain future, or the frustration of unexpected setbacks, intense feelings often hijack our mental well-being, leaving us feeling drained and powerless in their wake.

In such moments, our instinctual response is often to either suppress these emotions or allow them to dictate our actions, leading to a cycle of reactivity and emotional turbulence.

Growing up, …

How to Free Yourself from Pain from the Past

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“There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body.” ~Eckhart Tolle

When I read this quote, it stopped me in my tracks. So much of our pain and suffering in the present is caused by us repeating cycles and dwelling on pain from the past. We want so badly to resolve our suffering. But our search for resolution often involves repeating the painful cycles we have already been through, in the hope that someone or something will change.

…

Why I Love My Anger and How It Can Be a Force for Good

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“Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“I don’t know why I’m so angry,” my mother said.

It was 3 a.m., and my mother was standing outside my door. I had awoken suddenly to hear feet stomping up and down the hallway on one of my last visits to my childhood home before dementia and breast cancer really took hold of her.

“Phht, me either.” I tried to empathize, but inside of me rose my own fear and anger, as my siblings and I had watched her decline over the years, yet at the same time, …

How to Transform Your Relationship by Feeling Your Feelings

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It was late at night, and my husband and I were having an argument about the same subject we’d been arguing about for two decades—cooking and cleaning.

The argument seemed to come out of nowhere. We were having a nice evening together, the kids were asleep, we were watching a movie and chatting. And then all of a sudden, the conversation went off on a tangent, and it felt like the ground we were standing on suddenly split and a deep dark cavern opened up between us.

Here we were now, standing on either side, an insurmountable ravine between us, …

How to Release the Fear That Keeps Our Lives Small

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“Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer.” ~Gabor Mate

It was late at night, and I couldn’t sleep. I could almost hear the thudding of fear that was exploding in my chest. I tried to identify the singular cause of the fear, but it didn’t feel like there was just one thing.

There were so many things.

It was the world at large and problems in it; it was how my kid was feeling this morning when they got home from school. It was the rift between my husband and …

7 Steps to Deconstruct Your Anger So It No Longer Controls You

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“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~Buddha

For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with anger.

My earliest memories of my anger are from junior high school, but it was around much earlier than that.

The only emotion that was ever shown in my house growing up was anger. My dad had an anger problem, and my mother showed no emotion at all. This is what emotional normal looked like to me—either nothing or anger.

I was the …

How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Other People’s Strong Emotions

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“It is not your responsibility to figure out what someone else is feeling and why. Let go of the illusion that ‘fixing’ their bad mood will make you feel better.” ~Sarah Crosby

Some years ago, I was talking to my husband on the phone. He sounded annoyed about something to do with his work, but I noticed an intense emotional reaction in myself. Immediately, my heart contracted and my stomach lurched. I could feel a runaway train of emotions activate within me.

My whole body was awash with nausea, and I felt so very uncomfortable. 

This was a familiar and …

How I Calm and Release Intense Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Frustration

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“You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared, or anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a ‘negative person.’ It makes you human.” ~Lori Deschene

In November, I was on an emotional roller coaster full of sudden unexplainable fits of anger, hysterically crying for no reason, barely sleeping, feeling urges to physically kick, hit, and scream.

One of the main triggers was when my partner would go out without me.

He’d go out with his friends to play pool and I would immediately shut down, shut him out, and turn …

Stop Catastrophizing: How to Retrain Your Brain to Stress and Worry Less

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“Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown

A couple years ago, I entered a depressive state as I sat through many long, eventless days while on partial disability due to a bilateral hand injury. I was working one to two hours a day max in my job, per doctor’s orders. The medical experts couldn’t say if or when I would feel better.

As I sat in pain on my sofa, day after day, running out of new TV series to occupy my time, I couldn’t help but catastrophize my future

What’ll happen if I can’t use the computer again? My whole …

Releasing Fascia: A Simple Way to Reduce Tension, Pain, and Disease

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“Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live.” ~Jim Rohn

I hear this happens to so many, but when it happens to you, it’s unsettling. I didn’t know what was going on with me, and I wasn’t getting any satisfying answers either.

Most days were good, and I felt fine and went about my regular routine wearing my many hats: mother of two young kids, human mom to three fur babies, a household-manager-of-all-the-things and full-time dental hygienist. And then out of the blue, it could hit me like a ton of bricks
 the backache, neck …

How Pain Can Be a Teacher and Why We Need to Stop Avoiding It

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“The strongest hearts have the most scars.” ~Unknown

I always hated pain when growing up. For as long as I can remember I tried to avoid it. Physical pain was uncomfortable, but emotional pain was the real torture. It was sometimes easier to have a fight and stop communicating than to have a challenging conversation.

Disconnecting emotionally and withdrawing from painful experiences was my de facto subconscious strategy. I still pursued goals and succeeded, but this didn’t feel painful to me because I used my passion and bravado to drive through the long hours and grueling work.

If I wasn’t …

To All the Highly Sensitive Souls Out There – The World Needs You

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“Highly sensitive beings suffer more but they also love harder, dream wider and experience deeper horizons and bliss. When you’re sensitive, you’re alive in every sense of this word in this wildly beautiful world. Sensitivity is your strength. Keep soaking in the light and spreading it to others.” ~Victoria Erickson

I am lying next to my son in his bed before turning the light off one night, in that relaxed space between awake and asleep where he allows himself to feel and share. He tells me that he feels very lonely at school.

He shares his loneliness in the middle …

How I Learned That My Pain is Valid and Worthy of My Own Empathy and Love

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“Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Dr. Rebecca Ray

It’s July 2022 and I’m in the middle of a red tent at Shambala Music Festival in British Columbia.

I sit elbow to elbow, knee to knee, heart to heart with a group of women who I am meeting for the first time.

It’s hot and we’re sweaty.

A teacher is leading a healing womb meditation, and she prompts …

It’s Not Your Responsibility

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7 False Beliefs That Will Keep You Trapped in Your Head Forever

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“There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” ~Anthony de Mello

When people come to me suffering from anxiety, fear, anger, self-judgment etc., there are five things they invariably believe to be true.

Let’s take anxiety as an example. Most (if not all) people with anxiety believe that:

1. It’s bad or wrong to feel anxious.
2. It shouldn’t be there.
3. There’s something wrong with me (for being anxious).
4. My mind should be peaceful.
5. I …

When We Avoid Emotions We Don’t Like, Our Lives Get Smaller and Smaller

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“Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer.” ~Gabor Mate

Most of us avoid experiences not necessarily because we don’t like them or want them, but because we don’t want to feel how we will feel when we go through that experience.

Our lives become altered by the emotions we don’t want to feel because we don’t want to move toward the thing that could bring strong emotions like fear, shame, sadness, or disappointment.

We don’t want to go to that party because we’ll probably feel awkward and embarrassed.
We …

If You Stuff Your Emotions Down: You Gotta Feel It to Heal It

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“Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Dr. Rebecca Ray

I’ve spent much of my life resisting my true feelings.

Anger made me feel wrong. Sadness made me feel weak. Neediness made me feel “girly.” Love made me feel scared.

I became an expert at hiding when I was feeling any of the above.

Some people numb their feelings with alcohol, drugs, shopping, or sex. I numb with control. …

Healing from Abandonment Trauma: 3 Things I Learned from Being Cheated On

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“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~Rumi

I want to share an experience I went through that hurt like hell, but that helped me so much in the long run.

The experience was being “cheated on,” though the woman wasn’t my girlfriend. Nevertheless, I was very attached and it felt awful.

So, let me start with the backstory.

I met Diana through mutual friends in late 2021. I thought she was cute, and a little anxious, which I seem to gravitate toward. That’s just my savior complex coming out, which is another story for …

3 Things That Turned My Suffering into Blissful Peace

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“To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.” ~Jill Bolte Taylor

I’d just spent over six years trapped in my own worst nightmare. Then in a split second, my whole reality shifted to an experience of exquisite peace and bliss. Walking through the streets of my home city, I seemed to be radiating unconditional love out and into everything around me.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d just tasted the ultimate state of …