My newest book is here! I am so pleased to present my newest book, Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of This Vital Emotion! When I wrote my book, The Language of Emotions, way back in 2009, I didn’t understand anxiety well at all. I mistakenly saw it as a problem, but I’m not alone in making that mistake! As I did my … 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
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
Where do we go from here? We are in a new and deeply troubling world, where pundits, writers, philosophers, social scientists, and spiritual leaders are churning out endless opinion pieces about how we got here. We’ve all been consuming these opinions, and that’s a natural response. But I don’t know if it’s helping us regulate and ground ourselves. I want to focus on the current emotional … Read More
Providing responsible information about suicide When famous people commit suicide, and breathless news reports glorify or confuse the situation, there is the danger that others will follow their lead. Careful and sensitive reporting can reduce this risk, and providing straightforward information about depression and suicide can help suffering people find help. If you are feeling suicidal here in the U.S., you can contact the 988 Suicide … Read More
We’ve all seen it. Something is said or written, and someone will go off. I mean off. Rage, hatred, or both at once. A fight starts, and maybe these intense emotions get handled between two people, or maybe they don’t (online interactions specialize in the maybe they don’t category). So the raging people invite allies to share (and justify) their intense emotions, and a flame war … Read More
Hello! I’ve found a very good book for helping children identify and understand their emotions! It’s called Understanding Myself: A Kid’s Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings by Dr. Mary Lamia. Dr. Lamia is a clinical psychologist who wrote this book for children 8 years and up (parents can read the book to younger children), and it includes descriptions of emotions, explanations for why you … Read More
Wow! Silver and Gold! In May, we found out that The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You (Sounds True, June 2010) won two national book awards: 2010 Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (in Self Help) The Independent Publisher Book Awards recognizes the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles produced each year, and rewards those who exhibit … Read More