Phobia and Emotion

Emotions are funny things. Are you listening to yours? Some people seem to swim in an emotional world. They make their choices based on their gut feelings and they can tell you three or four emotions they're having at any given moment. This level of emotional awareness, however, can seem negative and overwhelming to some. They see others who are bogged down by feelings. Emotions are given full rein by some and this can seem like a very scary, unstable way to live.

For more cognitively-oriented individuals, emotions are better tucked away to be pulled out for special occasions or when they've had a few drinks. There are, however, some drawbacks to shoving feelings so far out of your consciousness.

We humans are by nature a mix of emotion and cognition. We need both functions to live safe, healthy, fulfilling lives. While a thoughtful decision is frequently very valuable, disconnecting from your feelings isn't a good idea. Certain kinds of information that are delivered in the "package" of emotion. Feelings can let you know important responses you're having in situations. If you're having anxiety attacks before making a commitment to a big venture with another individual, you need to take a look at your feelings. Sometimes you have to trust an emotional impression and you definitely need to be aware of what you feel.

Feelings are not concrete reality. They do not even always accurately reflect reality, but they're still very important and you need to be aware them.

Studies are finding that victims of violent crime frequently report having a sense of danger at a fairly early point in the danger situation and that they tended to override this. We need to listen to what we feel and, sometimes, to really attend to our gut instincts. You don't have to let yourself be sucked into an place of total emotion, you just need to be aware of what you feel. Know what you feel so you have access to this part of yourself. It's all about balance.

Sudden, overwhelming emotion is frequently your mind's way to get your attention and help you look more closely at how you're living your life. Anxiety or panic attacks can be a sign of feelings that deserve your attention. Many individuals are so gripped by these episodes that they have difficulty living their day-to-day lives. The physical symptoms can be overwhelming. Shortness of breath and cardiac arrhythmias always need a medical evaluation. They can also be a sign of emotional situations that need attention.

If you're having some of these difficulties and you've been cleared of physical problems by a physician, you need to look at the purpose of the attacks. Maybe you need to listen more to yourself. Panic attacks can be a sign of lack of faith in your own capabilities to handle life. They can also be a signal that you're not paying enough attention to your emotional experience. Which ever of these is triggering the intense physical and emotional sensations being experienced, you need to find some understanding.

Panic attacks are scary, debilitating episodes…and they can be a message.

Scared of Your Anger?

Why of all human emotions do we feel the need to "manage" anger? There are no classes to help you avoid the mistakes you make under the influence of joy or confusion, and let's be real, sometimes they're bad choices. The emotion of anger, however, is associated with bad behavior, like beating the crap out of your romantic rival…and sometimes even the one you love. For many, anger equates to acting out destructively. Sadness, fear, inadequacy, depression--these are feelings you don't always enjoy, but they aren't nearly as upsetting to most people as anger.

The problem isn't the anger. Anger is not a bad emotion. Sometimes it's very appropriate.

Feel the feeling. It's okay. You don't automatically act nuts just because you're upset. Life normally brings a range of feelings to everyone. It's natural to get irritated, annoyed or frustrated, just as you get dismayed, bewildered and giddy. The problem isn't the emotion; the problem is how you respond to feeling. Destructive behaviors are unacceptable, not feelings. Yes, you want to put your fist through the wall when you find your girlfriend cheated on you. You may even have the urge to scream at her until she's deaf.

There are much better alternatives.

You don't like feeling angry--or sad or confused, for that matter--but emotions can be very helpful. They bring information, they help us see changes we need to make. Feelings can shove you into recognizing what's going on with you.

If you have a highly stressful job that doesn't add to your general sense of well-being, you need to take action, not kick the boss' rear end. Feeling angry a lot should tell you to attend to this. Make a change! You probably have a lot of reasons why you have to stay in this job. In fact, you'd probably argue that you have no choice.

Feeling like you have no choice is one of the biggest fuels for over-the-top anger. No one likes to be trapped. Whether in a job or in a relationship, you need to see a way to make your life better. You need to feel some control over your own experience. Make sure you are looking at all your options. Scaling back your financial commitments to enable you to find more agreeable work is an option you've probably dismissed. Look at it again. In fact, look at all your options again, even the ones that seem unacceptable at first.

Take your feelings into account.

Life decisions--jobs, relationships, family issues--are best made out of logic as well as emotion, but you need to feel your feelings in order to see the whole picture.

Studies show, again and again, that your physical well-being is greatly impacted by how you live your emotional life. You don't have to be overwhelmed or driven by your feelings, but you need to feel them.

Divorce Realities

"I care about him," she said, "but I'm just not in love with him anymore. We fight a lot of the time and the feeling between isn't there anymore."

Should you divorce?

Shauna and Parker(not their real names) married right out of college and started careers. After several years, they bought a house in a "good" neighborhood and started a family…six years later, they got tired of the same arguments that flared up, circling around without resolution, and the love between them slowly died. They both loved their kids and neither wanted a broken family, but sometimes it happens. Getting divorced was a way to end the constant fighting. Divorce meant a change in their lifestyles--no more hanging out with other couples on the block--and then there's the reality of single parenthood.

If you're considering a divorce, make sure you're clear on what it means.

Marriage is tremendously complicated. Living with another human being is one of the two most challenging things we humans attempt. The other is raising kids. Both involve the desire to mesh multiple perspectives into a harmonious life. You just want to get along and enjoy one another, but too frequently this isn't the case

If you're considering leaving your marriage, you need to be very clear on the realities of divorce. Your spouse may leave the dishes in the sink for days at a time and he may not want sex as often as you do, but are you prepared to end all contact with him? In today's world, divorce can mean hanging on to a friendship with your former mate. This usually happens when both of you have moved on to new relationships--that diminishes the "hoping to get back together" factor.

More frequently, divorce brings anger and resentment.

You need to ask yourself if you dislike your partner enough to totally disconnect from him and have him out of your life. Or, if you have children together, just do the co-parenting divorce thing together. Are you also ready for the challenges of parenthood on your own if you have kids? Even if you and your ex manage to stop hating each other, those kids are going home with just you. Twenty-four hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, they'll be yours. Of course, Christmas and Thanksgiving will sometimes be child-less days. Divorced couples who share kids can sometimes quiet the anger in the best interests of the children. Sometimes not. Arguments over money and parenting frequently continue after the marriage is severed.

So, are you ready for this union to end? Divorce sucks.

No, these aren't good reasons to stay in an unhappy marriage. They are, however, reasons to ask yourself if your marriage -- and the affection which was initially there -- is worth another shot. Try counseling with a skilled therapist before you've worn each other down to the point that you don't care anymore.

Divorced spouses don't usually hang out together, so there are good things about your mate that you won't have access to anymore. Parenting after a divorce can also be a shock. The truth is that once you're not in your ex-mate's life, you don't have much say-so with her anymore. You may point out that you are still the child's parent, too. Most parents feel they should be able to have some input into how their ex- behaves with their child. You don't. You don't have any say in whether or not your mate dates a lot and introduces your child to every passing fancy. You, also, don't have any power to insist on a specific parenting style or even who keeps your child when it's your ex's weekend.

Bad marriages suck, too. No one should stay in one…unless the marriage can be improved significantly. Learning to work out the issues is ideal. It is a fact that both partners have to want to make a relationship work to pull a failing relationship on to healthy ground, but giving up on it too quickly is sad.

Getting What You Want

"Whenever he slips in his own crap," Neal said of his younger brother, "he always seems to fall in clover."

Ever wonder why others seem to get promotions even when their work is no better than yours? They get raises and dates with really hot women, while your life is unexciting and half the time you can't get lucky to save your soul? Maybe you're okay in the date department and your job is going pretty well, but you feel you can't manage to get the respect or recognition you deserve.

Neal's brother, whom he loves, had just gotten fired from a good job. His brother didn't particularly deserve the axe, but even when circumstances led to him having to leave his chosen field and seek another job, Neal's brother ended up making twice the money.

Some people call it luck, but you don't know how to get some of your own. It may seem like you just can't catch a break. There are others who screw-up and still seem to do really well.

Maybe you need to learn how to get what you want. You need empowerment! While life involves disappointment and frustration at moments for us all, you need to find the mindset that will enable you to work toward and achieve your goals. First off, you need to ponder the reality that you can make some things different in your world. Really different. It may not seem like it, but you have power over most aspects of your life. You make choices that bring certain results. While it can feel like crap when these results aren't what you want, the upside of taking responsibility for the stuff you don't like is that you can change it! The word "responsibility" sometimes has a negative quality to it. Your father held your report card in his hand while demanding when you were going to take some responsibility for your life? And you don't usually want to raise your hand when your boss demands, "Who's responsible for this fiasco?" I mean, who would?

There's a secret most don't know, however, responsibility may suck, but it goes hand-in-hand with power. We love power! Sometimes the "P" word has a bad connotation, but aren't we fascinated with the thought of having real power? One of our big lottery dreams involves telling the boss to "take this job and shove it!"

Personal power is unavoidably linked to responsibility. You can make a difference--not get exactly what you want in every situation, but get more of what you want in most situations. If you want advancement in your career, go back to school. Yes, school can suck and you have to make sure the degree you're getting actually earns you more, but you know that degrees, rightly or wrongly, get more play in the job market. If your relationship is struggling--or just isn't going where you want--embrace the notion of change. You can change you and that changes the relationship. It may not be exactly the way you'd most prefer, but it could the better in the long run.

Taking the power in a situation involves looking at your actions, choosing the behavior that gives you the options you want. If you work hard to get good grades in class, you'll generally endear yourself to your teachers. Teachers love students who care about their school work. Really.

Know your own power. When you pass the buck, you're passing more than the blame. You're passing up the chance to make things the way you want them to be.

Getting Over It

So you had a thing and now she won't talk to you and you don't really give a flip 'cause talking won't make a damn bit of difference anyway. It never does. She says the same things and you end up saying the same things because she apparently didn't hear you when you said them before.

It's just better to go your separate ways for a while and just forget about it, right? What's the point of talking anyway? You just end up fighting.

Wrong. Getting over it without some real understanding and resolution of the problem between the two of you is fantasy. When you fight and give each other the silent treatment until someone gets tired of being mad and starts acting like it never happened, bad stuff is actually happening to the relationship. I know this sounds crazy, but when you start acting like you never had an argument, you're actually giving up on the resolution process.

The question you really need to ask is, Am I really resolved with this? And, Is my mate really resolved?

Do the same arguments keep popping up? Are you yelling the same things at one another? And most importantly, do you feel heard? Repetitive arguments are a sign that the last one didn't take. And this is a bad thing. Every time you circle around a conflict without sticking through the disagreement until you both find some resolution, a piece of your love dies.

You may get tired of arguing. You probably feel like fighting doesn't get you anywhere, but blowing it off is the worst thing you can do. Eventually, one or both of you is going to get really tired of not feeling important or listened to. This dysfunctional communication style can be found when dealing with various issues in a relationship. It almost always signals the eventual end of a relationship. Its not the arguing that leads to the end, but the walking away from an issue that never gets really settled.

"We just agreed to disagree," couples will say and this is okay if we're talking favorite bands or foods. It doesn't work well, however, if the fight is over money--our money--kids or housework. You have to find some way to hear the other person and you sure as heck need to feel like he or she is hearing you. Otherwise, you won't experience being important or loved. After all, when someone loves you, they care what you think. They care about the things that are important to you.

So, learn to fight. Communicate! Listen to your partner and insist on him or her listening to you.

Insomnia and Extraversion

Do you lie awake at night, wondering why you can't fall asleep? Can't stop thinking about your day or a television show you watched? Sleep challenges might have more to do with your personality than your brain.

A good thing about being extraverted is that you generally find new situations to be interesting and easy and you aren't particularly uncomfortable meeting new people. You also like being in groups and usually feel energized by social interactions. The drawback to being out-going, however, is that it can be difficult to turn off your brain off at night.

Sleep difficulties are becoming a national problem with more individuals taking sleep aid drugs and more functioning at a chronic sleep deficit. Studies show an increasing number of traffic accidents are caused by people who go to sleep at the wheel. Sometimes these problems with sleepiness--caused by sleeplessness--are caused by over-full days and too much to get done. Americans' average amount of sleep per night is falling from the eight to nine hours we used to get several decades ago to current six hours a night.

Sometimes, however, in addition to crammed schedules, some people just can't turn their brains off when they do lie down to sleep. If you rule out physical problems, sleep difficulties are frequently be caused by emotional stresses. Your job's a hassle or your marriage is on the rocks. But when all these externals are okay and you still can't sleep, the problem may be that you don't know how to shift to an internal experience of relaxation.

Many people have poor sleep routines. They always go to bed with the television on or they eat heavy meals late in the day. But even if you don't stimulate yourself by exercising late at night and you know to keep your bedroom at a comfortable temperature, you still might not be able to sleep. If so, you might want to ask yourself if the problem is related to your habit of always seeking external stimuli. People who are significantly extroverted can be afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone and afraid of dying. All moments when the external world is shut off and you're alone with yourself. Now, the dying thing is understandable. Lots of people are afraid of that, but put these anxieties all together and you might have an under-developed inner self.

If you've always got the television on, always play the radio in the car and have your ipod or your cell phone glued to your ear throughout the day, you may need to learn something about silence. Extraverted folks don't usually see the point of silence. It isn't so much that you have to learn yoga or become a Zen Buddhist, but silence is pretty much a necessity if you're going to learn to hear your own thoughts.

Sleep is an internal experience. You can't take anyone with you. In order to sleep, you must be alone in your own head. This doesn't have to be a scary thing. Self-awareness can be liberating and can offer you a source of personal information that human beings need. Situation after situation requires us to hear our own gut reactions. There is evidence that if we listen to our own thoughts, feelings, and reactions, we can make better decisions.

So get used to your own personal silence. Its only scary at first. Many people actually crave being alone and there's a reason for this. If you can shift into yourself to be aware of your internal, you'll more easily be able to disconnect from external stressors…and will more easily fall asleep. Better than drugs…learn to listen to yourself.

Cement Your Relationship

Want to lessen the possibility of a break-up? Does the thought of getting a divorce make you queasy? With correct care and feeding, your relationship can prosper and flourish indefinitely. You need to pay attention not only to the one you love, but to yourself, as well.

We live in a time of rapid relationship turn-over. Despite the climbing divorce rate(and that doesn't include the broken relationships that weren't ever legalized), people are still getting married. They are marrying younger and, over a lifetime, racking up more broken marriages. Some sources claim the wedding industry is a $70 billion dollar business. More and more of these are remarriages.

Still, we crave permanence in relationships. You want to keep loving the one you love. And you want him to keep loving you. Ironically, the very thing you try to avoid in your relationship can actually help to bond your relationship together. If you want preventive maintenance in your marriage, fight.

Argue, but do it well.

The primary way to avoid a break-up is to deal with disagreements as they come up. Don't let these fester! This means more than making kissy face and offering the automatic apology. Don't apologize if you don't think you screwed up. Instead, you need to talk about it. If you understand that even people who're really in love sometimes disagree, you can work towards seeing her side of things and getting her to understand how you see things. Really seeing the other guy's point of view is crucial.

One of the big barriers here is that you both think your view of whatever conflict situation is completely accurate. Even if you "agree to disagree"-- which is a total side-stepping of the issue--you still haven't reached understanding. Ask yourself why your mate believes or feels strongly about the issue. More importantly, ask your mate this! Then listen. Listen really hard. Her perspective has validity. She's got some valid points and you acknowledging this doesn't mean you're wrong. You most likely both have good points.

A crucial part of resolving conflict in a relationship is knowing why you're upset. Really work on knowing yourself. If you don't understand why you're miffed, how can you expect her to?

Even if one of you did mess up, you had a reason for what you did and that reason needs to be explored. Even if the action or statement was screwed up, you had a reason for doing what you did. Understanding why you feel the way you do and act the way you do can loosen the deadlock. Suddenly, you're not cemented in your opposition. If you're working to understand each other, you're both actually on the same side. Everything is flip-flopped and you're not battling anymore.

This doesn't mean you agree with everything your partner is saying. Some of it will be crap, just basically not true stuff. He may believe things about you--why you said what you said, how you felt about something--that's flat out wrong. Not because he hates you and thinks you’re the devil, but because he's not remembering how much you want him to be okay. You want the best for her, right? Sometimes, this can be hard to remember.

So, get into the battle. Talk about it. Listen to what she's saying. Try very hard to see the other guy's point of view. Don't make the mistake of thinking that conflict just goes away. It doesn't. It goes underground and festers, which is a really bad thing if you want the relationship to continue.

Talk about your disagreements. It's that or eventually call a lawyer and no one really wants to go there.