Search Results for language of emotions

Welcoming Joy! After learning about each of the emotions one by one (you can find the list of emotions on my Start Here page), we arrive today at the final emotion in the happiness family: joy! Joy is different from happiness in that it is deeper and larger somehow. It is closer in its essence to contentment, but instead of coming forth after an achievement (as … Read More

Welcoming contentment! (Excerpt from The Language of Emotions): Happiness tends to anticipate a bright future, while contentment tends to arise after an inner achievement. Contentment arises when you’re living up to your own expectations and your internal moral code, and when you’ve accomplished an important goal or done your work well and properly. When it’s working well, your contentment comes forward in response to tangible actions … Read More

Happiness helps you look outward (or forward to the future) with hope and delight! As I’ve been posting about the emotions one by one, you may have noticed that when I talk about emotions, I almost never start with the happiness-based emotions. It’s not that I don’t like happiness; I do! It’s that the three different types of happiness I identify in my work — happiness, … Read More

I’ve written a great deal about what it means to be an empath, and luckily for all of us, empathy is a big topic right now. I just discovered a study that seems to measure empathy. The study is in the news right now because the researchers have concluded that students today are 40% less empathetic than they were in the 1970s. Hmmmmmm. I’ve got a … Read More

There is no doubt that Karla McLaren’s passion to help her readers understand emotions, and provide them with useful tools to do so, makes this new edition of The Language of Emotions a gift for those who are suffering from or grappling with what they feel.

Situational depression arises when some aspect of your life is unworkable or dysfunctional; this emotion stops you for a vital reason, and there are many ways to support yourself when depression is present. Depression has a vital message for you When we looked at the gifts of sadness, I wrote about what I call the emotional attribution mistake that I see with many emotions — which is … Read More

Grieving and the importance of ritual Grief is a powerful emotion that can easily overwhelm people, which is why all cultures have sacred grief rituals. Healing rituals can help us process change, transitions, shock, and loss — yet in our modern world, many of us have lost our vital connections to the ritual traditions that help us create sacred space for the incredible shock of death … Read More

Grief is a beautiful, languid, and powerful emotion that is very different from sadness. Sadness arises when you’re holding on to something that isn’t working anyway; sadness arises to help you relax and let go. Grief is different: grief arises when something is lost irretrievably, or when a death occurs – be it actual death, or the death of important situations, ideas, or relationships. Grief does not simply … Read More

Your sadness can help you relieve tension Sadness is a healing emotion that helps you let go of things that aren’t working anyway. If you can learn to relax and let go, you can connect to the healing heart of sadness. Sadly, many of us don’t  to approach sadness in this way, and when it arises, we tend to lose our way. So let’s get comfortable … Read More

In the 2023 update of The Language of Emotions, I separated panic into two categories: immediate panic and frozen panic. It’s so important to understand the difference between them, because many people don’t know that frozen panic contains the energy we need to heal from past traumas. Frozen Panic: The Healing Witness  GIFTS: Healing from past traumas ~ Freedom from cycling patterns ~ Completion of unfinished … Read More