In the 1930s, there was an excellent radio show called The Shadow that enchanted millions of people, my father included. The Shadow was a serialized detective show, and each week, the announcer would ask in a deep baritone voice: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!“ In 1937, the young Orson Wells lent his voice to the radio show and … Read More
Last week, I spoke at two bookstores here in California. During one Q&A, someone asked me about the ideas a current spiritual teacher has about emotions. This teacher says that emotions are the body’s responses to thoughts. I blurted out “Oh, he’s full of sh!t.” Out loud. I experienced a complete failure of my internal monologue system. Oh shiiiite! You could hear a pin drop, and … Read More
People are very interested in increasing their intuition, and there’s a fascinatingly mistaken idea about intuition in many circles, which is that intuition has nothing to do with thoughts or emotions — that it comes from another place altogether. In point of fact, intuition isn’t otherworldly or extrasensory; it’s clearly an empathic skill that we all possess, and it comes directly from our emotions. In my … Read More
Are you dealing with Passive-Aggressives? These people fall through on their promises and responsibilities and then blame everyone and everything but themselves. They also have the charming tendency to blame you or bring up grievances when you call them on their non-performance. What is going on with these people? Passive Aggression was once seen as a mental illness or personality disorder, but further research showed that … Read More
I spent a great deal of my life dealing with depression, and I learned amazing things about it. But one reason that I learned so much is that I tried to manage my depression without competent help. I grew up in the alternative medicine community, and I didn’t have access to mental health care. I have early-onset double depression (major depression and dysthymia), and I managed … Read More
Last week, we looked at a questionable study on empathy, and many of us took the test the study is based upon. In the comments section, Lorelei shared her high empathy score (68 out of 70) and commented that “it can be a bit overwhelming” to feel so much for and from others. I empathize with that! Before I knew how to manage my extreme empathy, … Read More
Hello Again! I’m doing lots of interviews about The Language of Emotions, and people are consistently asking me what makes my work different. First, of course, is that I don’t see emotions as problems to be eradicated. Instead, I listen to the emotions to discover what they’re for, what they want, and what they do. And in the early days, I did that with what I … Read More
I just did a radio interview with Natasha Dern on a Canadian show called Buddha Lounge. We talked a bit about the practice of Conscious Complaining, which I created to help people access their emotions in a healthy and supportive way. Natasha has used something similar herself for many years, which is to write all of her complaints into a journal so they don’t fester inside … Read More
Back on April 2nd, I posted on World Autism Awareness Day and wrote about my sense that my friends on the Autism Spectrum didn’t have a problem with their mirror neurons (oops! see the comments section for an update). Instead, I felt that they had a problem with sensory overload. And I’m not the only one! Neuroscientist Ilan Dinstein and colleagues performed an fMRI brainscan study … Read More
How many times have you heard people say something like, “We can’t talk if you’re going to be all emotional about it!” It’s funny that we give nonsense like that a pass, because if you aren’t emotional — if you don’t have access to your emotions — you’re not going to be able to communicate properly at all. I love pure rationality as much as … Read More