The concept of self love is very interesting. How often I have heard people say, ‘to love oneself is selfish‘, ‘it means caring about another less‘. I understand these musings and positions, but I ask a question…if we do not or cannot love ourselves, how can we know to love another? Our lives are borne […]
Over the summer I contemplated how there is such a range and depth to emotions that language cannot reach. I also began to understand how important it was that we try to capture that which we can, as it allows us to reach each other as fellow human beings. It is through words we understand […]
Shame is an insidious feeling that can be all consuming and very damaging. It is very much a social feeling, whereby we comprehend ourselves through the eyes of others. Shame’s origins lie in the same place. Like all emotions there is a scale upon which the experience of shame may be measured. It is very […]
Often as psychotherapists we look to the emotions that distress us, the ones that we wish were not present. We explore the impact that these emotions have on us and how we can manage them better in our lives. Balance is the goal for any of us regarding emotion and how we can move between […]
I am continuing my exploration of the different emotions we experience and how we can allow ourselves to experience them without being overwhelmed by them or destructive, as in the case of this post’s focus-anger. Anger is a very physical emotion. It is felt in the body and experienced when we feel something or someone […]
Fear is a very strong emotion which is linked to anxiety. It, like all other emotions, can be very debilitating if we are not able to engage with it, address it’s need and soothe it. Where does fear emerge from? It is a feeling that alerts us to danger and that there is an immediate […]
I thought from my last blog piece I would spend some time considering the different emotions that we experience in life and how we integrate them into the fabric of who we are. Sadness is one of the most powerful, often denied and universally experienced emotions. Many an artist has poured their sadness onto the […]
Today’s piece addresses the task of feeling emotions and making them as fulfilling and nurturing as possible. Is that a task? It can certainly seem so, through my own experience and also in my practice. There is a reason for this and it is contingent on our initial primary attachment experience. Our primary attachment experience […]
I’ve written before about emotions and the role they play in our lives. For many the prospect of meeting our emotions as they are can be a real challenge. Emotions are not linear or clear cut. They can appear seemingly without warning and can also hearken back to other periods in our lives. Their form […]
