What’s new in the Happiness Family?

New questions for an entire family! In the newly revised and updated Language of Emotions, the Happiness Family has been upgraded: now, all of these emotions have questions instead of just statements! The emotions in this family are connected to your capacity for hope, amusement, confidence, and inspiration. They are: Happiness, Contentment, and Joy. In this video, I explore the changes I made to this important … Read More

A strange facet of contentment: Bullying

In my post on contentment, I wrote about how shame and contentment work together to help you uphold your ethics and values. Your sense of self and self-esteem come from the healthy interplay between contentment and shame, which are two vital social emotions. Interestingly, too much self-esteem and contentment can be a very bad thing, and can actually be a factor in bullying. When contentment goes … Read More

The gifts of contentment: Appreciation and recognition

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

Reclaiming Your Gold Star

External praise can trip you up, but it doesn’t have to! A mini-workshop to help you reclaim yourself Saturday, May 13 at Empathy Academy online   Did you know that grades, gold stars, external praise, and performance reviews interfere with your natural motivation?   They also interfere with your emotions, but luckily, there’s a way to retrieve your own internal sense of what’s right for you. … Read More