With all Change comes Loss!

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Loss is a part of Change

Something that has been very prominent for me in my own healing journey has been the amount of loss I have experienced whilst making the necessary changes I have been making in my life. I have been reflecting on how change occurs in our lives and how painful this part of life can be. Most people know all about change and how it can turn your life upside down and make you feel unsure of yourself. What most people don’t bank on, however, is the grief that accompanies even the smallest change.

Grief and Change:

In order for new experiences to enter into your life, you need to make some space for them. The very nature of change means that the old ways you have grown accustomed to, are found to be no longer applicable to you anymore. Unfortunately, this can happen with people too. Similarly with decision making, in order to invite in something new or make a decision to change, you have to sever, let go or abandon something old. A quick example would be that you may decide to change your breakfast cereal to toast. In order to have toast in the morning instead, you must STOP having cereal.

This ‘letting go’ can bring about feelings of loss and grief, especially if the changes you have made have included people or places that have significant meaning in your life. You will need to go through a process, a grieving process, in order to accept these changes and make them a part of your current life. For some people, this can take time. The changes do not always have to be difficult changes, in fact they can be very exciting and joyful. So many people get caught in this trap, the ‘I should be feeling happy…’ trap. What isn’t taken into account, however, is how difficult the process of change is, regardless of how good or exciting the change is by nature.

With every new beginning comes an ending:

We are built to mourn the endings we face in order for us to process the changes in our lives, in how we see ourselves, our environment and the world in general. We feel loss at all the feelings of what could have been and the regrets we may hold. We feel loss at the ending of any future plans we may have held. We feel loss at the changes within us and how we used to think, used to feel or even how we used to react. We may not have liked the way we reacted or behaved but it was familiar. It was a part of us and for us to move forward, we need to create closures and endings and find a way to let certain things go.

Sadness and Loss:

The core emotion of loss is sadness. Sadness is a heavy emotion and can often make us feel as if we want to withdraw and wallow. It is a very low energy emotion and I look at it as if it deliberately slows you down in order to allow you to take time away from your everyday life and process what has happened. We may feel longing and sorrow, which can lead to feelings of remorse and regret. We may feel untrusting of ourselves and the decisions we have made. We may feel alone and unsure of ourselves. We may feel angry and frustrated. We may even feel anxious and panicked. Mostly we feel as if we are all over the place when we are going through change. It can all feel a bit ‘unknown’ and that can be very frightening for many people.

Sadness requires gentle self-soothing:

When working with sadness as an emotion you are experiencing (or your child may be experiencing), you want to aim for soothing and comforting forms of attending to yourself or loved one. Think of a child who is crying and sad, what would you want to do for that child? If you were emotionally regulating a child with their sadness, you would want to start by helping the child to understand what they are going through. You would want to help them feel ok with their feelings of sadness (validation) and help them to understand that everyone feels sad sometimes (normalising). You would do this by acknowledging how much they have gone through and how normal it is to feel sad when people go through something like this. You would use your voice to show the child you are there for them and a calm and comforting presence for them. You would use physical affection such as hugging or holding them, holding their hand, stroking hair, rubbing shoulders, sitting next to them etc. You would also allow them to cry and support them while they do. You would NOT call them names like ‘you are being an idiot’ or ‘what the hell is wrong with you!’ You would also try to resist cheering the child up and would allow your child to feel sadness and work through it with your help.

This is what your own inner child needs too. When you are going through a big change and find yourself struggling and feeling a bit down or overwhelmed with it all, think about the loss and grief that accompanies change. Think about how loss has a core emotion of sadness and attend to your inner child who may need some help with these feelings of sadness. Nurture yourself and question your feelings in a non-judgemental way. Comfort yourself, be gentle with yourself and stop placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. Change is tough!

The light at the end of the tunnel:

The dust will settle! Often we rebuild ourselves in bigger and better ways when we take the leap of faith and make changes in our lives. Sometimes the changes are imposed on us and we feel we have no choice. That does not mean we will not rebuild in better ways, it just means that we will likely experience more loss and difficulty as we may not have felt ready for the change.

Either way, loss is a part of change and change is a part of life. We are designed to cope with loss and grief for this very reason. What makes both change and loss hard and tricky is our aversion to painful experiences and emotions. We have it in our head that anything difficult is NOT meant to be happening to us. This is a false perception as there is not one person in this world who has an ‘easy’ life. We are aiming for the impossible if we are aiming for easy.

The freedom comes when we find acceptance. When we accept that we have everything we need inside us to get through anything that gets thrown our way. We may lose people along the way and people may decide that your changes are not suited to them and their lives. It can be tempting to live your life the way other people expect you too in order to avoid losing the people you love (I get that). The truth is though, you are the most important person in your life. You have to be. This is how you will find happiness and this is how you will find out who you really are. People may just surprise you or you may find that the people you lose have made way for people who will love you through your changes to enter your life. As long as you are following your heart and doing what is best for you, it will all start to fall into place!

All the best with those new beginnings

XX Paula

My Evolving Relationship with 'Fear'

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I have felt a need to share some of my own experiences with the emotion 'Fear' today. It has been something that I have been actively processing, working on and making sense of for a number of months now. There are many experiences and variations of this emotion in my own life and in the lives of those closest to me and it is certainly not an easy emotion to get my head around. That said, which ones are!

We struggle to admit to our deep set fears:

One common theme I am starting to see more of is a fear of fear itself. Anyone who has read some of my earlier writing will know that I have lived with Anxiety for most of my life. I am pleased to say that I have healed from this in so many ways and I am at a point in my life where I am able to use my own experiences to conceptualise how I would like to work as a psychotherapist and practitioner but also in my personal life. 

Anxiety is a fear based disorder. I have unpacked so many of my deep set fears and this has been a gradual and difficult process. Fear comes out in the form of instability, insecurity and worry amongst other things. We do not live in a world that accepts these traits, let alone help you with them. Many of you, like me, will have shame attached to your fear. This is because we were shamed for feeling fear as children. We were either dismissed, ignored, left to soothe ourselves or our emotions were unintentionally unattended to.

We may have had parents that tried to change how we were feeling and would say things like 'you have nothing to be afraid of' or would distract us from our emotional experience. The very act of our fear being stomped out and not processed often creates shame. The way the world seems to repress emotions shows me that unless something changes, we will continue down this path without realising it. This is shown to me time and time again. Unfortunately we seldom get our needs met by other people when we are feeling scared, insecure or unstable. We often don't meet other people's needs when they feel that way too. The shame associated with our fear means that we often feel like fear is a weakness or embarrassing. We feel that we are going to be seen in a negative light for admitting to our vulnerability and insecurity. The truth is though, this often is the case! So many of us have an unhealthy and avoidant relationship with fear. This stems from childhood.

My personal discovery:

Throughout my healing journey I have been piecing things together. I have been trying to make sense of my patterns, behaviours, feelings, reactions, memories and triggers. I have been exploring and re-experiencing my emotions predominantly through inner child work processes. I have had to admit that I, like most people, have fallen prey to childhood emotional neglect. This is something that has run through many generations in my family. Emotional regulation continues to be a rather foreign concept and was certainly not known in my childhood growing up in South Africa. My mother had much of her own emotional trauma, so did my grandparents. No one taught any of us how to cope with difficult emotions such as fear. Strength and courage were applauded traits in my family, which is not a bad thing in the slightest. The problem comes in when the interpretation of strength comes to mean an 'absence' of fear. This is a false belief and one many people hold. This belief, in my opinion, is one of the most destructive forms of thinking we have. It creates an unhealthy relationship with this emotion and people develop a deep set shame because fear is unavoidable. It is one of our core emotions, we all experience it!

Fear builds up and is experienced in many different ways!

Well intentioned deception: 

I personally had a mother who liked to tell me that everything was OK and I had nothing to worry about. Looking back, I knew full well that this was not the case. I have been remembering many occasions where I have picked up on the stress and hardship in the home. I knew we had financial struggles. I knew my mother found it difficult to cope. I knew that my mother felt bad about herself. I knew that my uncle had gone missing on a sailing trip to Portugal and that my mother was staying up all hours of the night calling the Red Cross in various parts of the world. I could hear my mother and grandmother cry. I knew something was horribly wrong. I knew so much more then my mother could possibly have imagined. If I tried to express my worry, I was 'reassured' that everything was OK and there was nothing to worry about. This seemed to be a trend.

This continued throughout my childhood and into my teenage years. My mother continued to deteriorate under a pressure she refused to acknowledge to me. Our financial situation was dire and it was extremely obvious. There is nothing like no petrol in the car to drive this point home (excuse the pun). My mother was unemployed and shutting herself off from the world. Instead of attending to my fears and providing reassurance, validation and inclusion, she hid from the world. She taught me how to do the same in so many ways. This was her shame. She was frightened and was too embarrassed to ask for help, especially from my grandparents.  My grandmother refused acknowledge how bad things were for us and tried to motivate my mother by being critical. Thus my mothers' fears were punished due to my grandmothers fears. No one had any control, least of all me. It was no wonder I developed an Anxiety disorder that manifested in the form of needing to control my environment and struggling to trust other people. My environment was riddled in a survival based fear from the get go. I was never taught how to process my fear, I carried it inside me and it started to grow and permeate all aspects of my being as the years went on.

I learnt that the only person I could rely on was myself:

I developed a severe and unconscious problem with trust. I over compensated for this in ways that made me out to be overly trusting. This was such a good deception I even had myself fooled. It was a coping mechanism for my shame as we seem to do everything in our power to hide the truth when coming from a place of not feeling worthy or as if we are different from everyone else. The truth was though, I was let down again and again, particularly in my personal relationships. The love I experienced always felt extremely conditional. In many ways it was but this was partly due to the fact that I was not being true to myself. The self love I had was almost non existent. What love I did feel towards myself was the most conditional of all.

I let people down too. I valued honesty on the surface but deep down my inner child laughed at this concept. The world is unsafe she said to me. People will abandon you, they will dismiss you, you need to act a certain way in order to keep people in your life and on your side. Due to this childhood trauma around my fear, I developed the belief that people only liked me for what I could do for them in their lives. I had no money or nice things. I did, however, have a real knack for helping people with their personal problems. I was an excellent shoulder to cry on and ear to listen. I became the resident Agony Aunt. Good thing I love this role, in fact I chose to make this my profession. The problem was though, I never felt as if people liked me for me. In certain friendships and many romantic relationships, this was certainly the case. This was one of the hardest realisations I have had to face up to. The more I learn about myself,the more I realise that people couldn't have liked me for me because the real me was very lost. I didn't even know who I was outside of my practical identity (student, daughter, female, loves cats, has a sense of humour etc). The fear was so ingrained and I was so conditioned to act a certain way or I feared I would be ostracised or lose my sense of belonging in the world. It felt like the only person I could truly rely on in the world was myself. I struggled to trust anyone and still do if I am to be honest. I find it very hard to let people truly help me, especially emotionally. 

Fear is not and has never been the enemy:

I have called this blog 'My Evolving Relationship with Fear' because my understanding of my fear is continuously evolving and transforming. If I had to go into all my childhood issues we would be here for a year. From fear of the dark to fear of snakes to fear of being alone...I had many. We all do. Children are experiencing the world for the first time and fear is a natural part of this. Fear is not a bad emotion at all. Our reactions and resistances to fear are what cause us hardship and struggle. It is our experience in the world that determines what we find threatening and frightening. The less we are attended to emotionally, the more we will struggle to feel safe in the world. The more our emotional needs are not met, the less skills we will have to cope with life's challenges and the less self esteem and self trust we will have.

One thing I have recently thought about is my fear around very real danger. Living in South Africa with an extremely high crime rate means that safety is a very physical reality to this day. My house was not very safe and we didn't have much security in place. My mother had a responsibility to keep me physically safe and in this area she was unable to, predominantly for financial reasons. I lived with a high level of genuine and relevant Anxiety on a daily basis and in the end, my worst fear came true and my mother was murdered in our home. One could argue that the fact that my mother dismissed my fears and ignored her own had tragic consequences. Fear is often there to alert us to harm and danger. That is how it has been designed. As a child we are powerless to gain control in terms of our living environment. This feeling of powerlessness is where the link to shame comes in.

Emotions are here to benefit us, not make us suffer!

We become so cut off from our difficult emotions that we lose touch with the benefits of them. We turn off our internal guidance system that is really the basis of our authenticity. We cannot be our true selves without having a relationship with our emotions. We can't pick and choose what emotions we feel, this creates a mask that will end up making us sick and impacting our relationships. Most importantly though, we cannot have a positive relationship with ourselves and who we genuinely are without having a relationship with our emotions.

Most of the time we are really fearing the shadows from our past!

Lots of love

XX Paula

What is your 'Inner Child'?

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Understanding why we all have an Inner Child:

What is an Inner Child?

We are very complex creatures us humans. Many theorists will talk about the concept of 'plural selves' or multiple aspects to us that make up our whole being. Gestalt therapy will teach you that we are the sum of all our parts - Gestalt means 'whole'. The term 'inner child' is a psychological way of labelling that 'part' of you that is your younger self. This part of you is the part that carries all your unprocessed childhood experiences, particularly the difficult ones. This is also the part of you that holds your imagination, playfulness, innocence and some would argue, your true identity before you were socialised (your authenticity).

Your inner child is often a very neglected part of you and is usually the part of you that you repress and is thus situated largely in your unconscious. That is because many of the memories you have as a child are still in a feeling state rather than an intellectual or cognitive (thinking) state. As actual children, our cognitions or thoughts are one of the last areas of our brains to develop. We are guided by our emotions and felt sense of the world. When experiences happen that we fail to understand and make sense of, we have no place to put them. We need someone to teach us about our emotions and what they mean in order for us to process what has happened to us. We know this now to be called 'emotional regulation'. 

Each time we experience something difficult and have no understanding of it or how to integrate it into our reality, we develop an emotional trauma. We then have a part of our childhood self that gets 'locked' or stuck in this point and time, unable to move forward from this. As we grow older, we develop many of these trauma's and as they are unconscious to us on a cognitive level, particularly the very early trauma's, they make up a part of us we have come to label 'The Inner Child'.

How does our Inner Child affect us?

Most of us have a basic knowledge of the unconscious. Freud coined this term and identified that we have drives, wishes, reactions and motivations that come from a place outside of our awareness. Our dreams are a good example of how our unconscious works. It is not something we understand. The minute we do, it has become conscious and within our control. Our unconscious may feel like that part of you that you feel 'at the mercy of'. Those feelings and reactions that appear to come out of nowhere. We call those 'triggers' (please read my blog on 'Emotional Triggers' to learn more). Triggers are like overreactions to put it simply. Everyone has triggers because everyone has unprocessed emotional baggage. Unprocessed emotional baggage is another way of looking at our Inner Child. Dreams and triggers, therefore, are an attempt to bring our unconscious into our awareness, particularly if this is something that has been at the foreground of our reactions. Our bodies are actually designed to heal not suffer. Most things we have termed suffering is actually our trauma re-emerging in order to alert us to areas that need healing. Unfortunately we often have to re-experience those difficult emotions such as shame, fear, anger, disgust and sadness in order for us to release them and heal these wounds. This is not easy and many of us develop many defence and coping mechanisms to resist this process. Most of the time we do this unconsciously.

These emotions come back up when we have been triggered by something in our present lives and therefore, as the trigger is often unconscious, we assume the experience has made us feel this way. We react to the experience in the present and repress what is really going on (without even knowing it most of the time). We then add the new experience to the trauma which reaffirms our false belief about ourselves and carry on until the next trigger emerges. There is no escape. Our triggers will continue to emerge and occur until we address the core experience and heal the wounds of the inner child. Most people are forced into finding help as life becomes more and more difficult. This is where you see mental illness developing, escapism such as substance abuse and addictions, broken relationships, inability to feel happiness and patterns that seem to repeat in cycles.

We are all unique

Everyone is unique and will be affected in different ways. This is due to a number of factors such as your level of emotional regulation and how you were attended to as a child on an emotional level. The level of 'attachment' you had with your parents or parent (the person looking after you) is also very important. This is the bond between you and your parent and the level of emotional safety and unconditional love and nurturing within this relationship you received. Your environment and stability in the home comes into play. Other traumatic experiences outside of your family may impact you as a child. Your personality and gender, your extended support and interactions, exposure to certain stimuli (TV, games, cultural practices, pets, activities etc) may also effect you. We are all made up of many layers, experiences and social influences/conditioning. Thus the more difficult your upbringing and personal experiences of situations, the more emotional trauma you will develop. The more experiences that have been left unprocessed, the more triggers you will have and the more wounded your inner child will be. That is why child abuse and neglect have such long term, harmful affects.

Childhood Emotional Neglect

Certain theorists and practitioners such as Dr Jonice Webb (author of 'Running on Empty: Overcome your childhood emotional neglect') will tell you that you can have childhood emotional neglect without child abuse but you cannot have child abuse without childhood emotional neglect. Basically it is possible to have childhood trauma without coming from what most people would term an 'abusive' family life. The reason for this comes from a 'lack' of emotional regulation where emotional needs have not been met to some degree. For most parents, this is not deliberate and it appears to be a cyclic process where parenting is generational and influenced by how people were parented. The emotional neglect transfers from generation to generation and people are largely unaware of this even occurring. Think about it, you can't know what you need if you have never experienced it and have no conscious awareness of how it 'should' be. With other forms of abuse, even emotional abuse, something is 'done' to you. You have something tangible to identify, to explore, to question. If you are unaware of emotional needs, you are unaware of the areas of struggle you may be faced with. Your coping mechanisms ensure that you are in resistance to your difficult and traumatic emotions and your emotional needs start to play out in present day experiences. You start to believe it is the present day experiences and your current relationships that are the problem and don't identify the root causes. Thus your triggers persist and patterns are formed and repeated.

Understanding your Inner Child is key for deeper healing and positive change

To end off I will leave you with these thoughts. Your inner child is not only made up of emotional trauma from childhood. This is also the part of you that is able to feel joy, happiness and freedom. This is the centre of your creativity and authenticity. To shut out and repress your pain is to shut out and repress these other parts of yourself too. The more cut off from yourself you are emotionally, the more unhappy and uninspired you will thus become. Some, like myself, believe that there are links between physical illness and unprocessed emotional trauma. There is growing research on the links between the mind, body and spirit (emotions); these parts of us are all connected.

Think of your inner child like an actual child. Children are free from social stress and pressure. They want to play and have fun. Children tell it like it is and react to their needs without talking themselves out of them. They honour their true feelings and do not see all the systems and categories we have constructed in our societies such as race, class, gender etc. They are pure of heart and innocent with a fundamental drive to trust and love. This is something inherent in each and every one of us. Many of us suppress this part of ourselves because of the trauma we have endured and the pain we experience when allowing this trauma to surface for healing. We are built to heal and in order to heal we need to work with our wounds. The more we run from ourselves, the more suffering we will endure. Often we become our greatest abusers and would never treat a child in the same way that we treat our inner child. The judgement, dismissal, ridicule, punishment and avoidance that we put our inner child through is often larger than we even realise. 

Always treat yourself with kindness, there are very relevant reasons why you behave and think in the way that you do. Give your Inner Child a voice and start getting to know this part of yourself. You may be surprised at just how beautiful and special you are inside! 

Much Love
XX Paula

Depression! The core emotion 'Sadness' sits at the heart of it.

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

The Experience of Depression:

Depression is one of the most known about mental health issues yet one of the least understood in my opinion. We have certainly grown in understanding in the Western world and have moved into acknowledging this as an illness that has serious consequences for people and their ability to function. The problem, however, is the ability for people to recognize it in both themselves and in other people. People suffering from Depression (whether it be a depressive disorder, situational Depression or a depressed mood or state) are often met with a lack of support and a pressure to 'cheer up' or rejoin society.

Every person is unique and will have a unique experience of Depression or any mental illness. The reason a blanket label such as 'Depression' is helpful is to enable people to separate the illness and it's symptoms from who they are as people. Depression, like many mental illnesses, is all consuming and seeps into the core of a person's being.
There are many websites and resources as well as research which outline common symptoms of Depression. Depression is assessed according to the duration of these symptoms and how frequently they occur. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has been revised a number of times due to the growing research and knowledge that we continue to gain in the mental health industry. As it stands, Depression is characterized by symptoms such as:

• Feelings of Guilt and Shame
• Loss of motivation and energy 
• Helplessness
• Hopelessness
• Loss of enjoyment in the things that were previously felt as enjoyable
• Loss of self-worth and increased self-loathing
• Suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide)
• Sleeping disturbances (either too much or too little)
• Appetite changes (over or under eating)
• Anger or irritability
• Tasks become more difficult when once experienced as manageable
• Inability to control negative thinking

It hits you physically in the form of lethargy, chronic fatigue, heaviness, headaches chronic pain, stomach issues...the list goes on and will vary from person to person. Depression often goes hand in hand with other disorders, both mental and physical. There are many different forms of Depression and they can all range from mild, moderate to severe. These symptoms are a guideline and the way I see it, they are only helpful if they are used as a tool to shed light on a very real and all consuming experience someone is facing.

What is really going on for a person?

Depression is an incredibly difficult condition to be faced with and unlike a physical illness, it all goes on within a person on a very personal and isolated level. Many people put on a big mask and battle their way through daily life, existing rather than living. As Depression saps energy and motivation, it makes tasks other people find easy seem like Mount Everest and very little energy is left for things that are not a priority for our survival in this world. The days may be experienced as dragging on, each one the same, each one exhausting and as uninspiring as the next. Watching other people enjoy themselves can heighten the feelings of hopelessness and shame as the contrast between how the person with Depression is living seems so out of touch with the rest of the world. This fuels self-loathing and low self worth. It creates a pressure that further exacerbates the lethargy and depleted energy. People suffering from Depression are often incredibly hard on themselves and seem to get caught in a negative spiral which can feel very difficult to pull themselves out of. Those with Chronic Depression often lean towards the idea of suicide as it is seen as a release from the pain and turmoil that they are living with every day. As there is no motivation to make changes, however badly they may want to,coupled with a severe lack of hope, suicide provides a way out, a ray of hope for many people living with this condition. There are many variations to this, as I said, each person is unique. It may also come in waves and in this case people often fear the next round of Depression creating Anxiety in the process. I believe it is very difficult for people to separate the illness of Depression from who they are outside of this condition. Depression becomes 'who you are' rather than something you can heal from. Depression seems to steal people's sense of self along with their hopes, dreams and joy.

What is the core emotion behind Depression?

This is not as easy to identify as something like Anxiety which has a core emotion of Fear. Anxiety is experienced as excessive worry and this makes Fear a more obvious core emotion to identify. Depression is not as straight forward, even for the person experiencing it. Even mental health professionals may struggle to identify it at times. A practitioner may be able to identify a 'flat affect' which is basically the absence of emotional expression and a very low and flat way of coming across. The eyes don't seem to connect to the words if that makes sense. Many people who are in a relationship with someone who suffers from Depression will often complain of an emotional disconnect or distancing (It's like they don't care about me or what I have to say). A flat affect will often help to highlight a lack of energy or motivation to a practitioner. The rest of the assessment will be determined in how much or little the person is willing to share with you. 

People can come across as angry and aggressive or just plain irritable and sceptical or cynical. They can come across as apathetic and unfeeling or even lacking empathy. Some people may be emotional and tearful. This all depends on the person, their experiences and their personality. The reason for these different expressions of Depression is due to layers of emotions we develop around the core emotion as a way to cope with this unprocessed core emotion. Think of it like an onion, with it's layers around a core. When looking at the core emotion you need to strip away the different expressions and behaviours shown outwardly and look at the fundamental symptoms and associated emotions as well as the physical experiences of Depression that are common in people. You also look at some of the causes and dual diagnoses that have been identified with Depression such as unprocessed Grief, Eating Disorders, Chronic pain and physical illness, life changes, genetics etc. They all have something in common...Loss. One could even argue that the genetic component may in fact be caused by the environment, where the child is affected by the lack of presence and emotional disconnection from their parent and thus go on to have increased risk of this themselves. Whatever the cause, I believe the core emotion most associated with Depression is 'sadness'.

A deeper look at Sadness and how it fits into the illness of Depression:

Sadness is a valuable emotion that helps us integrate loss and emotional pain from this loss. Grief is not limited to losing a person or pet or even item that you hold dear. We experience many internal losses throughout our lives. Sadness as a core emotion, or original emotion, will slow us down and force us to withdraw in some way in order for our whole beings to process this change and make sense of our lives without the thing we have lost. If this is not done and we repress our loss and the feelings of sadness, they don't go anywhere, we internalise them and they sit outside our awareness and way of viewing the world. We have not allowed ourselves to mourn our loss and the feelings and impact of this will not be released. Thus begins the internal struggle that we are not likely to be consciously aware of. It starts coming out in other ways. We develop other emotions around this core emotion of sadness in order to cope with the discomfort we are experiencing. Think of the onion again.

We may live in a society that does not embrace sadness for more than a short period of time (Most people in the Western cultures will be in this predicament, myself included). I don't know many people who are able to be around someone who is crying let alone sobbing from a painful loss. Most of us have been under regulated as children with this emotion and would have had well-meaning parents who attempted to cheer us up, dismiss our feelings or even reprimand us when we became sad and upset. Many parents will tell their children that they have nothing to cry about or attempt to cheer them up by distracting them. Very seldom do parents react by saying 'It's alright sweetheart, you cry for as long as you need to, let it all out' and then proceed to stay by their child's side, holding them and comforting them while they do indeed work through this sadness and 'let it all out'. Without meaning to, parents often shame their children for expressing sadness. Many families hold 'strength' and 'being tough' in high regard. I remember when Princess Diana died and watching her funeral on TV. All the news presenters and papers spoke about how brave Prince William and Harry were for NOT crying at their own mother's funeral! 

When we have no where to place our sadness and feel shame for feeling sadness, this creates a great deal of suffering and internal pain. This loss becomes separate to our sense of self and continues to grow. Life continues to go on and we collect loss after loss. The more trauma we experience in our lives and the less we form a relationship with sadness and other emotions, the more we split off from our emotional selves, our very spirit. I believe Depression is what occurs when this unprocessed loss and sadness becomes too much of a burden to bare. It takes over. You start to experience loss in many inner areas such as self-esteem, motivation, energy, enjoyment, appetite,sleep, relationships etc. You also feel a deep sense of shame and guilt around not being 'tough', not being able to separate from these inner feelings. You lose your connection to life in a way as you lose your connection to your emotions. This is when things become 'hopeless' and you feel 'helpless' and at the mercy of this darkness (unprocessed loss).

Where to from here?

This is a lot of information and could leave you with more questions than you have answers. That is a good thing! Depression is treatable and I would go on to say curable! There are many evidence based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which help you retrain your brain via your negative thinking and beliefs and these approaches can be extremely successful. I am always a believer in giving you the power and choice to find something that works for you. That is the key ingredient.

I want to add my own suggestion to those who are still at a loss as to where to go from here. This is true for all depressed states and not just disorders and chronic Depression. You need to go back to basics. Your emotions. When you carry something as heavy and as painful as sadness and loss, you will often shut yourself off from other emotions too. Emotions become something to be feared. You may feel a sense of shame at your lack of control when you tap into these emotions such as sadness or fear and this gives you a sense of powerlessness. This state of being may feel incredibly overwhelming and you go back into your default coping mechanisms that you were likely taught in childhood. You may have even adopted some of your own such as anger (which gives people a sense of power, the opposite to the feeling of powerlessness). You may retreat into your own world and isolate yourself to avoid being triggered by things or people in the outside world. Your shame may make you feel embarrassed or 'lacking' around other people. Your negative thinking may make you believe your ARE worthless and unworthy of the same things other people have such as joy and security.

The good news (or difficult to hear news), these are perceptions. Your fear is a part of your outdated coping mechanism and is not serving you any more. Emotions are not the things to fear, they will not cause you harm. It is quite the opposite. It is the very act of repressing your emotions,especially your sadness, that is causing you harm. Your negative thinking around how you are coping in the world because of your Depression, not who you are, is what is doing you harm. We end up shaming ourselves, placing pressure and expectations on ourselves and beating ourselves up for something  that is actually a very normal reaction to unprocessed emotions such as sadness. The place to start is to learn about this and re-parent yourself around emotions and how to manage them. Seek support in this if you are able to and in a way that feels right to you. Often we become unaware of 'how' we experience our emotions, let alone why. Don't question the 'why' of your feelings until you are able to do this without judgement. Focus on the 'how'. Where do you feel this in your body? Look at the circumstances around your feelings. Learn as much as you can about each of the emotions and why they benefit us. Seek to identify what is Depression in your life and what isn't. Be kind to yourself, you are coming from a place of sadness, not deficiency. I love inner child work. I also love exploring memories and adapting them into my adult brain. It is painful but it brings about such awareness and relief once I have experienced the feelings and released them. Work at your own pace and seek to understand.

The decision for change is yours for the taking!

When starting out on a healing journey, especially within therapy, it often feels worse before it feels better. Go into your healing being aware of this. Your emotions are finally being given the green light to surface and they need to surface in order to be released. Make the decision to change. Not for anyone else, but for you. Take back the control and arm yourself with knowledge and resources that fit for you. You are the best expert in your life and you have everything you need inside you to turn this around. Every day is a struggle, change the struggle and do something different. You are 100% worth it!

Much Love and Healing
XX Paula

  

What is going on in South Africa...Emotionally?

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX

In Brief, the situation is escalating:

I certainly don't claim to be a political expert here and I am far from all-knowing when it comes to the current economic, political and social climate that faces the country I have lived in for most of my life. We read all sorts of chilling reports of farmers being tortured and killed, xenophobic attacks, extreme poverty, family violence, homelessness, high crime rates, violence, HIV/AIDS, lack of services, an electricity crisis, a corrupt government, a corrupt justice system and the list sadly goes on and on. 

We start to blame. We want accountability. We need somewhere to place our growing fear, anger, powerlessness, disgust, sadness and pain. Many of us are in grief. Many of us carry layers of trauma. Many of us are suffering an unimaginable sense of loss. We cry for our beloved country and long for peace and stability. Some of us watch from afar, like myself, having fled from the trauma or threat of potential trauma in search of safety and a second chance. Others watch the chaos around them, finding the South African sense of humour to be wearing very thin. We all fight. We fight openly or on the inside, these battles that are full of frustration, angst and bitterness. We watch as our people suffer or create suffering. We start to turn on each other. The only question on my mind here is:

What is going on in SA...Emotionally?

We will all turn blue in the face trying to point fingers and fight for our own beliefs about change and what should be happening. This is not to say 'stop fighting for change'. I want to talk about change when it comes to people. I want to share my observations, experiences and knowledge with you all in a way that has no separateness. When it comes to emotions there is no room for race, class, gender or age. We ALL have them.Our reactions to emotions and the triggers for emotions may vary, but we ALL feel. No one is worse or better off when it comes to our feeling bodies. I feel this is the ONLY place to start. I am going to break down 5 of the 6 core emotions for you and give you my take on each of these in regards to the beautiful people of South Africa, past and present. This situation did not emerge from race, it is exacerbated by it. To heal one must look at the root cause and I believe this lies in the realm of emotions. Childhood trauma is fundamental in this...hear me out:

Fear:

I thought I would start with fear as this emotion is very prevalent currently and has been for as long as I can remember. Fear is an emotion that alerts us to perceived danger or harm. It's benefit is to warn us and keep us safe. Fear is very much associated with our sense of safety and stability in the world. This is not just our physical safety, which is an area most people will think about initially. I want to talk about emotional safety. In my work I talk a lot about emotional regulation which involves teaching children how to recognise and manage their emotions. If fear is not regulated and validated as a child or these emotional needs regarding fear are not met, this creates an internal instability and anxiety. This can occur when there is no physical trauma and parents indirectly teach their children to suppress their emotions and don't comfort and soothe children when they are scared and anxious. Think about this now in terms of trauma. How many children have been abused and neglected. How many children have fled their homes due to violence and are now living on the street. How many children live in extreme poverty where they have no warmth, food, medicine and basic hygiene. Most children are unable to attend school and are immersed in problems that are way beyond appropriate for their age groups and comprehension. Children in South Africa witness violence on a regular basis. They live within a culture rife with anxiety and fear. They model behaviours of caution and learn from the beginning that the world is dangerous and people cannot be trusted. No matter who you are, if you live in South Africa you have childhood emotional trauma regarding fear and stability. Your sense of safety in the world is often in question. Those children living in poverty or on the streets have a level of trauma that is unimaginable to most people. Most people live in a state of survival which is contradictory to inner peace and freedom.

Disgust:

There are 2 forms of disgust. One is innate and all people are born with this emotion. This form of disgust helps us to recognize and become repelled away from something that may potentially make us sick or cause us harm. Think of bodily excretions, illnesses, rotting food or flesh, bad smells etc. Disgust in this pure form gives us an in-built protection and is extremely important.

The second form of disgust is learnt through our upbringing, cultures and experiences. This form of disgust is very relevant to South Africa as it is linked to our sense of morality. This sense of morality is based on our perceptions of social justice and our own personal beliefs. This is where racism comes into play. Similarly to fear, disgust is linked to our perceptions of threats and potential harm. When we are taught that difference is something to fear or is harmful in some way, we often feel a sense of disgust (sick to the stomach) when coming into contact with a representation of that thing. If a certain race group is seen as dangerous, immoral or wrong we will begin to create a divide between ourselves and this race group. This is caused by a fear of difference and the perceived harm these differences may hold. Our reaction to this race group will then become one of disgust as we have trained our brains to see this group as something harmful and dangerous.

The details of why these race groups may be harmful are irrelevant. The fact is that we have created this divide and categorized ourselves racially for a number of reasons. No two people are the same, regardless of their commonalities and identification to a race group or way of life. Creating separateness is done to appease our own emotional needs of belonging, stability and safety.

Shame:

Shame is different to guilt. Guilt is an associated emotion of shame and involves the feeling of having done something wrong. Shame on the other hand occurs when we mistake having done something wrong for believing there is something fundamentally wrong with us. This happens in childhood when the emotion of guilt has not been regulated. A common occurrence is when parents do not make the distinction of a behaviour being naughty and call their children naughty without fully explaining the difference. Children do not have the brain development to make this distinction for themselves.They will blame themselves for things that go wrong, for their parent's unhappiness, for problems that occur and so forth. If children are not taught otherwise they will develop a belief that they are not good enough or they are unworthy or fundamentally flawed. This creates low-self esteem and the more shame they experience, the greater the problems they will experience later on. Shame is at the route of mental illness. Shame gets in the way of our ability to be in healthy relationships. Shame causes us to feel triggered and threatened in so many ways. We develop a world of coping mechanisms to attempt to hide ourselves from others but most importantly ourselves. 

This is where blame and judgement comes in. In order to make ourselves feel better we compare ourselves to others. The more we feel superior, the more a false sense of comfort, belonging and safety comes over us. This doesn't last, however, because these needs cannot be met externally. This is why serial killers continue to kill again and again. They are seeking the relief they are anticipating getting when feeling powerful. Shame is strongly associated with powerlessness. The more powerless people feel, the more desperate they become to gain power. Our morals and values determine our limitations to how far we will go to achieve this. If someone has not been taught the value of human life, have not been taught compassion, empathy, love and respect...these limitations may become fragile. I believe the power struggles in South Africa stem from a deep sense of powerlessness in our nation as a whole.

Anger:

Anger is a powerful emotion and is linked to our sense of fairness, justice and personal boundaries. Anger helps to keep us safe by allowing us to create these boundaries around what we want and don't want in our lives. Most of the population live with a sense of injustice due to lack of services, financial stress, rampant crime, violations etc. This emotion also ties into our own self respect and how much we value ourselves. People who have a great deal of shame often struggle with setting boundaries and with feeling anger appropriately in relation to injustice or lack of fairness and respect. Victims of childhood sexual abuse are often a good example of this and will often find themselves in abusive situations again and again. As anger doesn't evaporate if not expressed, we internalise it. Many people struggle to regulate their children's anger and punish children for expressing anger. Anger is very closely linked to fear and often behaviours that reflect anger stem from the emotion fear, especially in children. 

South Africa has a strong and deep set culture of punishment, especially when it comes to parenting and childcare. There are no laws that protect children from this and therefore very little movement in regards to questioning this form of discipline. Children are emotional beings as their brain development for thinking and cognition does not start to develop properly until after the first 6 years. This means that although they are able to start having thoughts, their thinking is very basic and they are unable to conceptualise and rationalise in the same ways as adults. They interpret the world through feelings and they need someone to help them identify what they are feeling and what that means. Children react to their feelings through their behaviour which is often seen as being bad or acting out. Punishment in the form of physical aggression and violence (hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, forcing children to eat something like soap or hot sauce etc) creates a sense of anger in children. It becomes a vicious cycle. Many children in South Africa are taught to deal with their fear and anger (and shame as punishment in this form creates shame/powerlessness) through violence and lashing out aggressively. When you add trauma and fear this emotion becomes heightened and the aggression will increase.  

Sadness:

Sadness stems from a sense of loss. Loss comes in many forms and is not specific to people and pets. We feel loss when we have had to part with or lose something or someone of value to us. This can even be a part of ourselves, for example we may yearn for our younger years or a time when we looked or felt a different way. Sadness is at the route of depression and is experienced as a withdrawal, lack of energy, heaviness and grief. Pain and sorrow are closely associated emotions with sadness

In terms of South Africa there is an enormous amount of loss. Many people are experiencing loss in the form of finances, property, employment, theft etc. The biggest one is that of grief and bereavement for loved ones. Violent crime, illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and TB, starvation, driving under the influence and many other national crises mean that there are many of us who have lost one or more loved ones too soon. Grief is in itself a trauma and the large amount of grief and lack of services to support grief mean that people will again be prone to heightened states of fear, anger, disgust, anguish, blame and many more emotions that come from unprocessed grief. There are so many pressures on the South African population and so much exposure to pain and heartache, we become almost de-sensitised. I say almost purposefully. It is not actually de-sensitisation in my belief, it is again a survival mechanism of creating separation. This creates further divide. If we were to embrace the countries pain and sorrow fully we would literally implode emotionally. We would all be breaking down due to the inundation of the trauma and instability.

So where does that leave us?

This is not something that can be changed over night and in terms of the solution...that is largely unknown. What I do know is that we all need a new way of looking at things where we can bridge this separation and the racial and economic divides. As with anything, the only thing you can control is yourself. If everyone spent some time on their own trauma and supported those people around them I believe we could start to chip away at this emotional warfare. Be mindful of what you say and how you portray that to your children. Look at others with compassion and concentrate on your own boundaries. Be kind to yourself when acknowledging that you may be in survival and are living with emotional stress and strain. Make decisions based on your own needs and support other people for doing the same. If you are fighting and advocating for this country, do not do this at the expense of your own health and well-being. When you look at things from an emotional perspective you are not looking at the behaviours or the differences between people. We are all connected and we all feel. Causing pain always comes from a place of being caused pain. No person is born evil. Are some people dangerous, absolutely. Compassion does not mean welcoming these people into your life. Compassion means empathy and allowing yourself to see people as humans, see the damage for what it is and release yourself from feelings of hate and anger. Allow yourself to feel, it's ok to be afraid, to feel loss and pain, to feel whatever it is you need to feel. Start within and start meeting your own needs!

Take care
XX
Paula

The different faces of 'Disgust' and how to regulate this emotion

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

There is more to Disgust than meets the eye!

I have recently explored the emotion 'disgust' in a much deeper way as I have realised this was an under regulated emotion for me in my childhood. We all have a pretty good idea of the general understanding of this emotion and will often use the phrase 'I feel disgusted' in many different contexts.

How many of us actually spare a thought for this emotion and what it means to us though? I know I have seldom spent much time reflecting on my own experiences of disgust. I spend a lot more time working on my fear and shame and even anger and pain. Disgust seems like a natural reaction to sickening things. Most people are aware of the feeling of disgust when coming into things like vomit, faeces, rotting food or flesh, symptoms of illnesses (boils, rashes, mucous etc.), pungent smells, weird textures and so forth. The benefit of disgust is actually to alert us to what may make us ill or harm us should we come into contact with it and is therefore a very valuable emotion we have for our inbuilt protection. It informs us very clearly what we should stay away from and all humans are equipped with this emotion (it is one of our core emotions). In fact I have read an interesting tit bit that has identified the 'scrunched up' face commonly associated with disgust is an innate reaction and not learned. It was previously believed babies learn this face from people who pull it when changing their smelly nappies. They have since found that people who have been blind since birth and who have never 'seen' this face will still pull it instinctively when smelling or feeling something 'disgusting'.

An example of a'scrunched up' face of disgust

I am, however, learning how much more complex this emotion is and wanted to share some thoughts around this with you all, particularly if you are parenting young children and teaching them about emotions.

Disgust is linked to our morality.

This is something you'll often read if you do a Google search on this emotion. What does it mean exactly, and more importantly, how do we regulate this emotion? Think about it, we often feel disgusted when hearing about certain social injustices such as rape, murder, torture, animal abuse, child abuse etc. It can make us feel sick to our stomachs. That is the physical reaction the emotion disgust often gives us. These social injustices feel pretty common and disgust seems to be a 'natural' reaction right? What about cultural 'injustices' or practices? I put 'injustices' in inverted comma's because these will be determined by our own individual beliefs. For some people the idea of homosexuality is considered 'disgusting'. Perhaps certain races provoke a feeling of disgust. We can feel disgust with certain diets and foods people choose to eat. We can find certain body shapes disgusting. You get the idea. Perhaps you feel disgusted when people hold the beliefs I have described above. 

The truth is that these forms of disgust are very much a product of learning, beliefs, culture and experiences. This is not an innate sense of disgust that you are born with like the reaction you would have to smelling faeces. When disgust is linked to our morality and sense of being 'sickened' at the thought of something, it can associate with other powerful emotions such as anger and fear. There is research showing links to the emotion disgust and Anxiety due to this association with fear.

What is the impact of disgust if not regulated?

The bottom line is that we will all have levels of disgust that influence our tolerance levels and behaviour. This is pretty much unavoidable because we are social beings and we are always learning from our environments and the people around us. We all come from many cultures. We come from a family culture, a social culture, an age group culture and many other cultures that we choose to associate with depending on our interests. We have many roles, we have one or more ethnicities, we have a sex and choose our gender, we join teams, choose professions and jobs and we make friends and identify with different groups.

When we choose something we are saying no to something else. This is life and life is full to the brim of decisions. So where does disgust fit in? What makes us feel such a powerful reaction to something where other people may not have the same reaction? We need to question this because at the end of the day the very things we feel are right or wrong are perceptions based on our beliefs and experiences. These all stem from our cultural upbringing. If we are taught that difference is something to be feared (many of us are taught this indirectly) then we perceive that difference to be harmful. If disgust is an inbuilt protection against something that could harm us if we come into contact with it...it makes sense that these acts of immorality will cause us a reaction of disgust. If this is a bit confusing I apologise. To sum it up, in order to regulate or manage the feeling of disgust, we need to remove the fear of difference. We don't, however, want to remove our empathy. There is nothing wrong with feeling disgust when learning of someone being harmed. In fact that is appropriate for the most part. We need to ask ourselves the question honestly 'Is this situation harmful to me or other people'? If we are living with disgust at the thought of people of the same sex finding love, we need to ask ourselves 'Why do I perceive this as harmful'? This will begin the process of unravelling our own beliefs and limitations.

              *Disgust and Fear both protect us from potential harm.

 * If we are taught that something is harmful based on a ‘fear’ we can feel ‘disgusted when we  come into contact with it.

 * If we are taught to fear differences instead of accepting them, they 'become' potentially harmful  to us and we react to this.

How do we teach our children about disgust?

When we hold a belief tightly out of fear to the point where an alternate belief causes us to feel disgust, we set ourselves up for a shame bomb (as I call them). What happens if you try something that you previously found disgusting and realise you like it? When this emotion is not regulated it can set you up to feel shame for liking that previously disgusting thing. Take the example of 'French kissing'. As a young child you may have found the idea of sticking your tongue in someone's mouth disgusting. Lo and Behold, try it and you realise it's pretty nice. If you are not used to this emotion and don't understand difference, changing opinions and trying out new things with an open mind you may think 'If I like this disgusting thing, I must be disgusting' (shame makes people feel as if there is something fundamentally wrong with them). This is how shame works and children are very prone to this way of thinking.

To regulate or manage the emotion disgust the lessons to be taught involve 2 areas. The first area is around the innate disgust where you will attend to this emotion, name the emotion and validate your child when they correctly identify a substance, sight, texture or smell that is something to be avoided. Praise them for this and encourage them to trust their gut. This will keep them safe. It is important to remember that this emotion only starts to really form after about 2 years old so you will need to monitor them and stop them putting things in their mouths (many kids like to eat pooh etc,).

In regards to moral disgust which is centred around social justice and the sense of right and wrong, the lesson is around empathy and being able to see things from other people's perspectives. As I've said, we all come from a number of cultures and share different beliefs. It is impossible to avoid socialising your child into certain cultures or influencing their beliefs. You will also need to teach them about safety and what is lawful and what behaviours are harmful. It is very tricky to navigate. The best way is to work on teaching children about compassion for other people, teaching children about tolerance and helping children to understand that 'people are all different and just because they are different does not mean they are wrong'.

Children learn from you, watch what you are saying:

To end off I wanted to highlight that children model their beliefs on yours for the most part. You have the most influence over how your child views the world. This is why it is so important to keep conversations with children at an age appropriate level. If you talk about things that are beyond their comprehension, they will have limited understanding and make assumptions. You may make a small comment about someone's race and the child may form a prejudice against the entire race group as they trust you and your view points. You may rant about 'women drivers' and will be directly passing that same belief onto your child. Children are like sponges, be mindful of what you say around them. Teach children how to care about others and nurture their openness to question and learn. Teach them about difference so that they do not fear it. This is how you regulate this form of disgust.

I hope that's been helpful
Take care
XX Paula

Teach your kids to tolerate and accept differences :)

 

What are the 6 Core Emotions and why are they important?

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

What do CORE emotions mean?

Many of us have a bad relationship with certain emotions and will often experience them as negative or difficult. The truth is though, we all have them and each one of them is beneficial to us. Different theorists may argue on the exact labels and number of core emotions we humans have. What is seldom contested however, is the fact that there are certain emotions that ALL humans experience and have been experiencing throughout the ages and within all social, cultural and ethnic groups. I agree with the identification of there being 6 core emotions: Sadness, Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Shame. Each of these emotions branch out into other associated emotions or feelings. We have many different ways of identifying with each emotion and the causes for each emotional reaction will differ between individuals and societies depending on beliefs and varying cultures. I know this all sounds a bit confusing. The bottom line is really quite straightforward, we are not so different underneath it all. We all FEEL. Our reactions are based on our emotions. Our thoughts and behaviours are very linked to our emotions. Behaviour is always a product of our thoughts and emotions.

As we grow up, our thoughts influence our emotions. We don't start out that way though. Our thinking or cognitions only start to develop after the first couple of years in childhood. Before we are able to think, we are driven by our emotions and sensory experiences of the world. This is why children are so genuine, innocent and straightforward. They are completely in touch with how they feel and react accordingly. Babies and toddlers all need similar things, regardless of their race, gender or environment. In fact, underneath it all, when it comes to emotions, adults also have similar needs. The problems lie within what experiences people have had in their childhood when attempting to get their emotional needs met.

Emotional Regulation:

This can be viewed as managing emotions. This is an extremely important part of parenting as it involves teaching children to identify and understand their own emotions. As mentioned above, children do not have the brain development to think about what they are feeling. They are unable to give it a name such as 'afraid' or 'angry'. They feel it in their body and react to these feelings instinctively. The role of the parent or primary caregiver is to help them understand what they are feeling and show them how to manage or cope with whatever they are experiencing. This is the same for all of the emotions, you are never expected to change how someone feels, especially not children.

It can be very difficult to accept that your child feels angry or sad or afraid. It can also be tempting to correct the child when YOU feel there are no justified reasons for the emotion. Emotional regulation is about validation. Teaching the child that it is ok to feel the way they feel and you will accept and love them through it. This displays unconditional love and teaches the child that they can trust themselves and how they feel. This will build up their self-esteem and confidence in the world. It will also enable them to value and love themselves. Having a healthy relationship with emotions will be the best gift you can give your children.

Every emotion is important and should be regulated and appreciated!

Anger:

Anger is a powerful emotion and is often felt when there is a sense of injustice towards yourself or someone else. Anger allows us to learn what our boundaries are and helps to keep us in check with how we expect to be treated. Anger helps us to defend ourselves and will alert us to our needs regarding fairness and respect. We often feel anger in our bodies in the form of tension and increased heart-rate. It is always good to pay attention to how you experience anger so that you may identify it early on, before it becomes overwhelming or harmful.

Some associated emotions and feelings for anger include:

Irritability

Frustration

Rage

Hatred

Tension 

Upset

Exasperated

Annoyed

Fear:

Fear is an incredibly important emotion as this alerts us to danger or threats to our safety. Safety does not always have to be physical, it can be emotional/mental too. We feel fear when we perceive something that has the potential to cause us harm. We feel fear in many different physical ways such as increased heart-rate, sweating, shaking, temperature fluctuations, tension, feeling sick or fluttery in our stomachs, tight chest or throat etc. People react to fear in many different ways.

Some associated emotions and feelings for fear include:

Worry

Stress

Insecurity

Instability

Nervousness

Jealousy

Cautious

Tentative

Anxious

Sadness:

Sadness is often a way of coping with loss of some kind. Loss can come in many forms and does not only involve a person or pet. When you lose something of value to you, this can bring about sadness. Sadness helps us to process this loss and grieve the change and pain this has caused so that it may be integrated into our world view or sense of selves. Sadness often involves withdrawal and internalising when experienced. Sadness can be felt in the body in many different ways such as a sense of feeling heavy, fatigued, tearful and emotional. 

Some associated emotions and feelings for sadness include:

Pain

Grief

Fragility

Upset

Lonely

Longing

Depressed

Anguish

Sorrow  

Disgust:

Disgust is an interesting emotion and lets us know what we don't like or can't bare to be around. Disgust can also occur when there is a sense of violation.  This emotion develops after the first 2 years. We often experience it in the forms of smells, certain tastes, textures and sights. Disgust repels us away from things that will often make us sick. We feel disgust predominantly in our gut in the form of sickness. People also pull a 'scrunched up' face that is very distinguishable for this emotion. Interestingly people who are blind also pull the same face despite never having seen it being pulled before (a natural reaction...). Some people literally are sick and may vomit if the disgust is intense. 

Some associated emotions and feelings for disgust include:

Repelled

Revolted

Violated

Repulsed

Nauseated

Horrified

'Grossed out'

Shame:

Shame is often confused with guilt. Shame occurs when a person feels there is something fundamentally wrong with them and who they are. Unlike the other emotions, shame does not have a positive purpose and itis important to teach your children the difference between 'doing' something wrong (guilt) and 'being' wrong (shame). Guilt can be beneficial as it alerts you to an action or reaction that has harmed or damaged someone or something. To feel shame is the opposite of self love and is the route of low self-esteem. Shame is created in childhood and is of caused by a lack of emotional regulation. Shame is often at the heart of mental illnesses. People often create many defences against this emotion on an unconscious level. The number one way it is experienced is when people hide who they really are for fear of 'exposure'. This can take many forms. Some people withdraw and hide, others lash out and become seemingly egocentric or angry. All people experience a great deal of internal strife with this emotion but it is not easy to recognise physically. 

Some associated emotions and feelings for shame include:

Humiliation

Embarrassment

Shyness

Guilt

Self-hatred

Loneliness

Emptiness

Powerlessness

Lacking

Joy:

Most people will understand this emotion to be 'happiness'. This is considered the most positive emotion and this is because it feels good. Happiness can come in many forms but it is identified by it's lack of internal strife and misery. This emotion denotes a sense of peace and calm, even if there is energy and excitement. The peace described is internal. Happiness is felt in the body in the form of energy, smiles, head held high, glowing/sparkling eyes, bouncing or having relaxed muscles. We feel the happiest when we are being our true selves and doing what we feel is right for us fundamentally. We can also find joy and happiness in relation to other people's joy. The catch: to feel happy is to have a healthy relationship with all the emotions so that you are not in resistance to them. Resistance to emotions prevents inner peace.

Some associated emotions and feelings for joy include:

Happiness

Excitement

Glee

Calmness

Peaceful

Tranquil

Euphoric

Blissful

Content

Uplifted

In a nutshell:

Many of us will have been under regulated in certain areas in terms of getting our own emotional needs met in childhood. This is not intended to create blame. This was not known in our parent's day and it is not common knowledge now. I am hoping to be a part of the solution to that and to inform you all about how important our emotions are and how vital it is to teach children how to manage them. Resistance to emotions is what causes the most suffering, not the emotions themselves. Somewhere along the way we have been taught that certain emotions are negative and that feeling pain or fear is wrong. So many motivational quotes will tell you not to feel your fear or anger. They will tell you to focus on the positive and ignore the past. The truth is, the past doesn't go anywhere and neither do these needs. We just develop ways of coping which often cause us more harm in the long run.

I will attach a video from my Youtube channel which gives you a great activity to teach emotions to your kids. Please feel free to ask questions or comment below. You can also email me personally at tacklethefeelings@gmail.com.

I hope this has been helpful!
XX
Paula