I saw this on Facebook today and it resonated with me, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. Have a great day!
Wednesday Wisdom
Tag: emotions
Staying in the Present Moment
Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a busy week of writing and working. I’m so excited because spring is finally here. I’ve been able to run outside a couple of times this week and it was wonderful. My tulips are starting to come up and I am so ready for summer it isn’t funny.
But enough about that. Today I’d like to talk about staying in the present moment and appreciating it. We’re so busy trying to achieve our goals that we keep our eyes on the prize and don’t always appreciate the moment we’re in.
I find that when I focus on the outcome I’m trying to achieve; I get frustrated when things don’t go quite as planned or I run into obstacles. I have to remind myself that I need to focus on my goals for the day only. I know what the big goal is, but I have to focus on the steps I need to take to get there. That way I won’t get frustrated because I haven’t gotten to the big goal yet.
By doing this, I’m going to be happier with my present moment and I’ll appreciate it more. That way I won’t be missing any moments with my family and friends.
It’s hard to change the habit of always striving and focusing on the outcome of my actions. So, when I catch myself growing frustrated because I haven’t reached my goal yet, I take a moment and slow myself down. It’s going to happen just not yet. Then if I can, I practice some self-care. I drink some water or take a few minutes and just breathe. This is the way I reset my thinking and change my emotions from being frustrated to peaceful.
How about you? What do you do to change your mindset? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.
Dealing with the Isolation
Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a very busy week at work and working on my writing. I’m making progress on my new story and I’m enjoying the new characters, but it is in the beginning stages, so I have far to go. But enough about that, today I’d like to talk about dealing with isolation while we’re all under quarantine.
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It’s hard. I haven’t seen my co-workers since January. I can skype with them, but it’s not the same as being able to read their emotions to see how they’re handling things. They’re the only ones who really understand about my job because they’re dealing with the same issues I am.
I also miss meeting my friends and my extended family for a quick bite or a movie. Last week was the first time I’ve seen one of my gal pals in forever. We finally got together for dinner and we talked the whole time. It was so good to see her. Even though we chat on social media, it’s not the same as getting together and being spontaneous. We shared all kinds of ideas and it was motivating. I wanted to follow through on some of those ideas as soon as I returned home.
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We were good. We both wore our masks until we sat down and the restaurant had us sit a couple of tables away from other guests, so it was safe. I wonder how long we’re going to have to keep this up.
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I’m still worried about school. My oldest wants to go, and who can blame him? He misses his friends. I’m still leaning toward online schooling. I just don’t want to take the chance with their health, but I can see the isolation is taking a toll on them as well.
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I am grateful that my family is healthy. From what I hear this virus goes dormant for a while and can come back with a vengeance. I know a few people who’ve caught the virus and they’ve been sick for months. I know the isolation is necessary, but I hope it ends soon.
On the plus side, I have been getting a lot of writing done, and that’s a good thing. It has also brought our family closer. We’ve had quite a few family nights and I feel fortunate that I have had this time with my kids, so it isn’t all bad.
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How about you? How are you dealing with the isolation? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!
Are you Dealing with a Non-Apologist?
Hello everyone. I hope all is well with you. I’ve been busy with work and writing, and it has been a productive week. I’m almost finished with a scene that has been hanging over my head, and it has finally stopped RAINING. Knock on wood.
Photo on Visualhunt
I was able to go for a run the other night, and it was amazing. I love that feeling the next day of sore muscles and tight joints. It’s a good feeling. But enough about that, today I’d like talk about people who can’t seem to apologiz.
The reason I want to talk about this is because I’ve noticed there are people who would rather die than admit any wrongdoing. It amazes me that people would rather let a relationship disintegrate than apologize. Most of the people who fall into this category are ego driven and have poor relationships all the way around.
Why don’t people apologize, especially when they know they are wrong? According to this article, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201305/5-reasons-why-some-people-will-never-say-sorry.
Photo on Visualhunt
it’s a way for a person (who we’ll call a Non-apologist) to manage their emotions. Being vulnerable and open with people is extremely threatening. Emotional closeness isn’t something they’re comfortable with, so whenever they feel someone getting too close, they’ll put distance between them. One way is by behaving poorly and this behavior pushes the other person away, creating emotional distance.
Some people are only comfortable with anger, irritability, and emotional distance, and experiencing emotional closeness and the positive feelings of love are unbearable. Many of these people have been hurt in the past maybe by an abusive parent or other authority figure, and this is how they’ve managed to survive.
One last thing to think about when you’re dealing with this type of person is that they’re also avoiding the pain of emotional closeness, too. If they apologize, it could open the floodgates to all the pent-up emotion they’ve been trying to avoid. They just don’t want to feel that kind of pain.
Photo credit: Elsie esq. on Visualhunt.com / CC BY
So, the next time, you’re dealing with someone who won’t apologize or avoids you because they’ve treated you badly, remember they may be walking a tight-rope and trying to keep it together. Whenever, I run into someone like this, I try not to take their behavior too personally and give them space because that may be all they can handle at that time.
Photo credit: Steve @ the alligator farmon VisualHunt / CC BY-SA
Thanks for stopping by and reading my post today! Have you ever dealt with someone who wouldn’t apologize? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!
Dealing with Negative Emotions
Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today talking about negative emotions. These feelings are tough to deal with even as adults, so I thought it’d be a good topic for today, especially with the holidays coming up. It seems like gathering with families can bring these emotions to the surface rather quickly.
Part of the problem when dealing with these emotions is that they have a label of bad or negative, so not only are we dealing with the powerful negative emotion, we’re feeling bad because we have it.
In reality, these emotions aren’t negative, they’re telling us something. They’re a signal designed to alert us. Maybe a situation isn’t a good one and our fear is igniting our fight or flight response.
I did a little research on how to control our negative emotions. It just seems like those negative ones are so strong and they can take us right over, wouldn’t you agree? Well, this is what I found at http://www.self-improvement-mentor.com/controlling-emotions.html
First of all, let us identify some of those negative emotions.
Fear- That feeling that something bad is going to happen.
Hurt– That feeling you get when you suffer a loss. A loss is any unmet expectation.
Frustration– When you’re not getting the returns for your efforts that you want.
Disappointment– When you feel you’ve lost out on something forever.
Anger and Guilt- These emotions are the result of the violation of your own internal standards or guidelines.
First, let’s re-label these emotions from “bad” or “negative” to signals. That’s right; they’re signals that alert us to something. For example, when we’re feeling frustrated we need to look at our efforts and see if they need to be tweaked. Maybe talking to a mentor about our results will help us tweak our strategy so we can improve our results.
Our frustration is a signal that we needed. It told us that we needed to take action. In my opinion, that’s what these emotions do for us, they tell us to take action, to make a change. The only problem is that when we feel these emotions we don’t always know what action we need to take.
The first thing we need to do is take control of our emotion. So how do we do that?
I found these steps at http://www.self-improvement-mentor.com/controlling-emotions.html
The first step is:
1) Break your pattern immediately and disassociate. Do something crazy to break out of the emotion.
2) Now get curious. Become a third party observer and ask questions. What’s going on here? Where did this emotion come from? Remember to do this as a third party. Don’t make it personal.
3) Then identify the real issue of what you want.
4) Then come up with an action that will get you what you want.
The key to this process is the disassociation. We need to become an observer so that we can identify what we want without being blinded by raw emotion.
These steps are clear and practical, but like everything else in life, it’ll take practice to master them. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t master them right away.
In my opinion, these steps would be great to teach teens that are experiencing some of these emotions. They can be incredibly intense and many teens don’t have the tools they need to deal with them. By using the following steps above, they can start practicing now and master their emotions at a younger age. Just think how the quality of their lives will improve. 🙂
Thanks for reading my post today. I hope you found it helpful. If you have any tools that work for you on dealing with negative emotions please leave a comment, I’d love to read it!
****For more information on dealing with negative emotions go to:
http://www.self-improvement-mentor.com/controlling-emotions.html
