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Tag: anger

DURING THE TIME OF CORONA VIRUS

June 30, 2020
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| Categories: Depression, Life Stress, Trauma

People are scared, anxious, depressed, feel helpless, feel hopeless. It’s all true. Most of us have been on some type of quarantine for months. We’ve learned to wear masks and talk, to stay six feet away from everyone we’re not living with, and to use tubs of hand sanitizer along with washing our hands frequently. We scour stores looking for toilet paper and paper towels, a box of Kleenex is a real score. We didn’t sign up for this, nor did wet see this coming. We couldn’t have imagined the nightmare we’re living through, but like all nightmares, no matter how horrible they are, eventually they are over, we put them away and try not to look back. We go on, shaken up, having learned a new way to live, learning things about ourselves we didn’t know before we were called to courage, hope, faith, and a whole lot of grit to get from the first announcement of a world pandemic to where we are today. Instead of reading a Steven King novel that scares us witless, we feel like we’re inside of a Steven King novel, unable to find our way back out of those pages of life that...

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The Value of Sadness

June 22, 2016
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships, Transitions

This is a very interesting talk that resonates with my observations over more than than twenty-five years as a therapist, that humans don't seem to grow emotionally without some form of pain or anxiety. So, when you're struggling with something it's likely that you're also growing. The talk also discusses sadness as opposed to anger or violence bringing people closer to each other. In my office I educate people to say what they need to say coming from the place of sadness or pain and not from anger, which is adrenaline dumped into the body as a way to get out of pain. Sometimes that's important but when attempting to communicate strong emotions with another it's pretty useless. Follow this link for the entire talk by Courtney Stephens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8li-3pRrA5Y

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IS IT WORTH FIGHTING OVER?

June 24, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships

Nothing is worth fighting over. Fighting has zero sum positive attributes. If you feel angry that means you did or didn’t notice you were hurt or afraid or both before you got angry. Anger is a “masking” emotion and there’s always something behind it. Imagine primitive man parting the tall grass and coming face to face with a tiger. If he feels his fear he’s likely to become paralyzed by it just before he becomes a satisfying tiger lunch. If he moves  quickly past the fear so it doesn’t even register (until later) and finds a way to fight he has just gotten a nice rush of adrenaline that will allow him to survive (since he probably can’t run away fast enough). In today’s world anger is a pretty useless emotion although there are some times when anger helps; your boss has passed you over for a raise three times and you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job if you bring it up to her. Getting angry and then controlling the anger will likely allow you to be assertive and self-promoting in a one on one meeting with her where she feels your energy, which isn’t threatening since it’s...

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UNFORTUNATELY

March 31, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Life Stress, Personal Growth

Before we can react in a way that gives us the best chance of getting what we want from any interaction, we need to know what's really going on. For instance, you manage to make your way through a telephone tree that seems as if it was put together by a six year old. You only had ten minutes and now you have six or seven left. You finally get a live person and what you want to know is whether or not your insurance is due or your payment was received. The person asks you for your last name, date of birth, last four numbers of your social, zip code, city, dog's name, mother's name, brother's address, well maybe not all that but that's what it feels like and you say it all. They say you SHOULD have been sent that information and they can't give you that information anyway because you've called the wrong department. They sound angry, they are curt, they don't offer to transfer your call. They tell you in a very abrupt way that you have to call this other department, click. Then you are staring at a phone that doesn't have a person on...

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ARE YOU LISTENING?

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors

When in a brand new relationship, isn't it amazing how much you have to say to each other, how you listen carefully so you can hear what your new love has to say, how careful you are not to interrupt, giving thought and consideration to your responses? And don't you feel heard and validated? Doesn't your new love make you feel good because he/she is so "into you." If you accidentally interrupt you are quick to apologize and wait for them to finish what they were saying and sometimes he/she tells you to go on, that they were finished, because they want to show you how polite and respectful they are of your feelings, to show you that they care about you and don't consider you rude for breaking in because that, well, that's just what happens sometimes when enthusiasm abounds. Now, fast forward that very same relationship five, ten years and notice how you are preparing what you're going to say next or remembering what it was you wanted to say that might not have anything to do with what your partner is talking about while your partner is trying to communicate something to you. If the discussion is...

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