Search Results for language of emotions

Emotional hygiene is an idea I developed about seven years ago (the phrase is not original to me, though) when I was dealing with depression and one of my best friends was dealing with anxiety. As it turns out, the two states aren’t very compatible! My friend and I had been very close and emotionally in sync for many years, and we were very used to … Read More

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, workplace consultant, and emotions and empathy expert. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages. Her lifelong work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy.  Karla also developed the groundbreaking six essential aspects of empathy model … Read More

An empathic approach to empathy! In my book and audio learning program, The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill, I focus on my Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model, starting with the first, which has a strange name: Emotion Contagion. Because empathy is first and foremost an emotional skill. Before empathy can take place, you need to sense that an emotion … Read More

Burning Contracts helps you let go of unworkable things Because emotions carry such vital messages, I created the Empathic Mindfulness practices to help you learn to work with them, These skills rely on your ability to work in the imaginal realm, which isn’t something you make up; rather, it’s the place where your creativity comes from. In the imaginal realm, you create music, art, dreams, ideas, … Read More

Your emotions aren’t the problem  As I was writing my 2020 book, Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of This Vital Emotion I thought a lot about two emotional mistakes that almost everyone makes: We blame emotions for causing problems, when in fact, emotions arise to help us deal with problems We blame emotions for people’s lack of emotional skills  I call these the emotional … Read More

Envy (and its partner jealousy) are treated badly in general, but envy is actually listed as one of the seven deadly sins in the Catholic tradition. We could say that the early Catholics meant to warn people against acting aggressively with their envy, but still, they called out a necessary human emotion as a sin. That’s not helpful. Your envy is a vital social emotion that … Read More

Shame is an essential social emotion that helps you set clear behavioral boundaries for yourself. Your shame keeps a constant watchful eye on you, and it (usually) arises when you’re about to do something you really shouldn’t do, or when you’ve broken one of the moral or ethical agreements you’ve made. If so, you can ask yourself the following questions for shame: Whose ethics and values … Read More

We’re all empaths In my earlier career, I identified as an empath, but I stopped doing so because the term got to be really troubling. An empath tends to be seen as some kind of magical psychic, and that’s nonsense. Empathy is a human trait and skill, but it’s also a trait in many animal species, so there’s nothing magical about it. We’re all empaths, because … 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

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