Can you read the emotions of others, or are you simply projecting your own emotions? The answer to this question isn’t simple, but there are ways to tell the difference, and ways to develop your empathic abilities and accuracy so that you’re not simply projecting your own emotional state at others. Ten possibilities to explore Sometimes, people will tell you that an emotion you sensed isn’t … Read More
Hello and welcome to the year of Embracing Anxiety! There is a lot going on in our world, but luckily, we have an emotion whose genius can help us envision, plan, and work toward a healthy future: it’s anxiety! Really! Learning how to embrace your anxiety I’m excited to announce my newest book, Embracing Anxiety, which will be released in June. You can preorder now! Many … Read More
What did you learn about emotions? Most of us grew up hearing very negative things about emotions, such as: “Big boys don’t cry. There’s nothing to be afraid of! You shouldn’t feel angry! Boredom means you have no imagination! Envy is a sin!” And so on. Instead of being taught helpful things about our emotions, most of us were just shamed about them. Most of us … Read More
Personal confession: I love to swear. I developed my freaking excellent swearing habit when I worked as a radio newscaster. On the air, I and everyone at the station had to have perfect manners, perfect diction, and perfect timing while we ran our engineering boards, cued up tapes and CDs, and monitored the clocks. We absolutely could not swear while we were on the air (the … Read More
Hello! After studying empathy and emotions for five decades, I’ve developed a very simple and accurate way to know whether you’re an empath or not. Are you ready to find out? Karla McLaren’s Amazingly Accurate Quiz for Empaths Question 1: Are you breathing? Yes/No (choose one) Yes? You’re an empath. No? Take a breath and start over at Question 1 (spoiler alert). Congratulations! You’re an empath! That’s … Read More
How does anger work? In my work with emotions, I identify what’s happening when people feel specific emotions. For instance, when we say we’re angry, what is occurring? What are the situations that call forth an anger response and how does the anger address what’s happening? How does anger support or impede us, and what is anger’s purpose? Over the decades, I’ve asked that question of … Read More
Escaping Utopia (Routledge, 2017), which I co-authored, tells the stories of 65 people from 39 different cults in more than a dozen countries. My co-author, sociologist Janja Lalich, PhD, is an internationally renowned expert on cults, indoctrination, extremist groups, and terrorist groups, and she is a cult survivor. So am I. Janja knows cults from the inside out, and she shows that a cult is simply a … Read More
Escaping Utopia (Routledge, 2017), which I co-authored, tells the stories of 65 people from 39 different cults in more than a dozen countries. My co-author, sociologist Janja Lalich, PhD, is an internationally renowned expert on cults, indoctrination, extremist groups, and terrorist groups, and she is a cult survivor. So am I. Janja’s work on cults is groundbreaking because she knows cults from the inside out, and she … Read More
Escaping Utopia (Routledge, 2017), which I co-authored, tells the stories of 65 people from 39 different cults in more than a dozen countries. My co-author, sociologist Janja Lalich, PhD, is an internationally renowned expert on cults, indoctrination, extremist groups, and terrorist groups, and she is a cult survivor. So am I. Janja’s work on cults is groundbreaking because she knows cults from the inside out, and she … Read More
My book Escaping Utopia (Routledge, 2017) tells the stories of 65 people from 39 different cults in more than a dozen countries. My co-author, sociologist Janja Lalich, PhD, is an internationally renowned expert on cults, indoctrination, extremist groups, and terrorist groups, and she is a cult survivor (as I am). Because we both have first-hand knowledge of living inside cults, our book doesn’t focus on just … Read More