Karyn Hall's Blog, page 15
January 13, 2014
Emotional Sensitivity Survey Results, Part II
Thank you to the 1,439 people who responded to our second survey. Your answers show the many similarities and differences among emotionally sensitive people and help increase our understanding.
Sometimes just knowing that others have the same experiences as you can be helpful, and I appreciate your time and thoughtful responses.
Coping Skills and Strategies
How do the emotionally sensitive cope with their intense feelings? What a variety of answers you gave!
Accepting the emotions, going to therapy, becoming a Buddhist, mindfulness, learning that others are emotionally sensitive, understanding that being emotionally sensitive can be a strength, dancing, exercise, faith in God, learning that thoughts are not facts, dialectical behavior therapy, the support of compassionate loved ones, Yoga, medication, setting boundaries, joining a loving church, and understanding that emotions pass were all ways you cope.
Relationship Issues
Do emotionally sensitive people tend to hold back in relationships? Most of you believe that is true. Only 19.7 percent said they didn’t, with some stating they gave too much or did not establish healthy boundaries. Fear of being abandoned (46.6 percent), shame (35.7 percent) and fear of being taken advantage of (43.2 percent) were some of the reasons others protect themselves by not getting too close.
Your explanations included a lack of confidence, feeling that you aren’t important to others, fear of not being liked, fear of losing yourself, past hurts, dislike of commitment and fear of being too needy. Some expressed that people don’t accept others who have physical differences.
Problem Solving
The people who responded to the survey considered themselves good problem solvers (80.3 percent). Your comments indicated that many of you are good at solving others’ problems rather than your own and that people often come to you for advice.
Some of you are able to see many solutions at once and many of you noted that you are best at problems you can view intellectually rather than emotionally. Some said they were good in crisis situations but had difficulty after the crisis had passed.
Identity
About half of you are very clear about your identity and half are not. One person stated: “I’m not sure who I am, sometimes I’m who I need to be for that situation.” Other comments included: “Still trying to discover me,” and “I feel I tend to flip flop. Try to be what others want until the real me becomes invisible.”
Many said they wear masks to please others and some are clear but hide their true self from others. A number of you said that on some days you were clear about your identity and then confused on other days. Based on your answers, knowing who you are seems to be easier when you are by yourself than when you are with others and many are working on finding their identity.
Family Education
Many of you have families who understand emotional sensitivity. Others do not think their families know and fear it would not be positive if they found out. Still others have family members who are emotionally sensitive. For some that has helped and for others made it more difficult. Some did not think it matters if their families understand and others thought it could make a big difference. A number of you are estranged from your families and others have no family.
One respondent even noted that understanding is not enough, and structure and solutions are also needed.
Fear of Emotions
Some of you described feeling overtaken by your emotions; you couldn’t trust your own behavior and decisions when emotionally overwhelmed. This situation seems unpredictable, so that adds to your fear. You don’t know when you may be emotionally flooded. Being out of control is a strong fear. Having your judgment clouded is another fear. Hurting others, hurting yourselves, feeling strong anxiety and falling into depression were other fears.
At the same time, some of you see emotions as making life more colorful. Some have worked to accept emotions as information. And 60.8 percent feel joy just as intensely as anger and sadness, and many noted that though it is as intense, it doesn’t happen as frequently. Some of you feel it rarely and some of you fear joy, expecting that something will happen to take it away.
Children’s Program
We have a new children’s group starting February 11, 2014 for children who have difficulty regulating their emotions. We also have a week long DBT camp for children 8 to 13 June 9 through 13. The activities are fun as well as teaching coping skills. Groups will meet from 9 to 12 each morning. Please call for additional information.
November 8, 2013
The Pursuit of Happiness
Most of us love books, television shows and movies with happy endings; the characters get what they wanted and worked for it and all the conflicts are resolved. Those endings seem to imply that life will be essentially smooth after you overcome problems.
Sometimes that may be the way we view our own lives.
If Only…Then I Would Be Happy
If we can just get through high school, then we’ll be happy. If we could just find someone to love, then we’ll know joy. If we could find a job in our field, we’ll be content. Though you know life isn’t really like that, it’s hard to resist those thoughts.
Many people have the idea that happiness is the goal of life. Though they may not voice it that way, they believe that finding happiness is what the work is all about. So they search for it. They search for in the latest iPhone, the perfect partner or work. They get the latest phone and then decide a cutting-edge tablet would be so fabulous. They find the almost perfect partner and work to control them into being absolutely perfect.
When those efforts aren’t successful they may turn to finding temporary happiness in warm chocolate chip cookies or glasses of wine.
They may get lost in “either / or” thinking. They believe that they are happy or they are not. They want certainty. If there is any part of their life that is difficult, then they may not see themselves as happy or content. It’s like having a perfectionist view of life; it must be perfect and then they’ll be content.
Change is Constant
In truth, that time when everything of importance in your life is going the way you want it to may not come. Or if it does, it may not stay that way. Life is constantly changing and what gives you contentment may change as well. In addition, life holds many problems and situations that create sadness and misery. It’s not possible to solve them and be done with it. Losing someone you love, illness, loneliness, conflict and disappointments are ongoing.
Comparisons
Our culture values the image of being happy and successful with no weaknesses. So it may appear that others are happy and have solved all their problems because that’s the image that is encouraged. When others around you have that image of perfect happiness, that can bring about negative judgements about your own life. More misery follows the judgements.
Often people judge themselves as flawed or not doing something right when they view others as happier than they are. People may believe they need to get rid of their less desirable feelings in order to have a life worth living. However, the more they try to eliminate difficult emotions, the more they are likely engage in behaviors that increase their discontent in the long run.
The truth is that most experiences hold both emotions that we want to experience and difficult emotions as well. This is particularly true for people who are emotionally sensitive. For example, graduation from high school is bittersweet. You are happy to achieve a goal and you are sad about the loss of friends, and perhaps scared of the next step. A new job brings excitement and fear and perhaps sadness about leaving people you cared about in the old work environment.
Sometimes getting what you want involves losses that are painful. For the emotionally sensitive, the sadness and loss may be so intense that it’s difficult for them to be aware of the joy that also exists.
Self-Blame
Comparing yourself to others adds to the despair. Most people choose to compare themselves to those who seem to have it more together than they do. They compare their financial situation to those who are richer and their fitness to someone who does triathlons. Rarely do they compare themselves with those who are not as financially solid or who are less fit.
If you view the goal of life as consistent, pure happiness, you will likely be disappointed when that doesn’t exist. You are likely to blame yourself. Why can’t you be happy? What’s wrong with you? Why does happiness come and go? Why can’t you control your emotions?
Blaming yourself for being inadequate and flawed will bring about more misery.
The truth is no one can control their emotions. You can learn to control how you act upon those emotions, but experiencing emotions is not a choice. That’s the way the world is. And it’s not your fault.
Acceptance
Giving up judging and comparing is not easily done. Accepting that life is rich with a whole range of emotions, including sadness, hurt, shame, guilt and anger is a challenge. Yet the acceptance often lowers the intensity of those feelings and can show a path to contentment.
Finding contentment may also mean giving up the striving for happiness, though you will feel happiness at times. It may be about accepting life on life’s terms. In other words, being mindful of life moment by moment, without judging or attempting to avoid. Contentment cannot exist when judging and avoiding are present.
July 17, 2013
Emotionally Sensitive People: Survey Results, Part 1
BY KARYN HALL, PHD
Many thanks to every one of the two hundred and sixty two people who answered the questions on the survey about emotionally sensitive people (ESP). The answers were enlightening, heartfelt and touching.
Let’s take a look at what you said about being an emotionally sensitive person.
Most had at least one other person in their family who was also emotionally sensitive and many had more than one. Most of you (68.3%) were told as a child that you were too sensitive. The teen years seem to be time that you were the most emotionally sensitive (60%).
Relationships were a primary concern. The emotionally sensitive like being aware of others’ needs and being in touch with their feelings. They like connecting deeply with friends and the beauty in the world and many believe they are more accepting of others.
They enjoy caring for and empathizing with others and they cherish being passionate about what is important to them. Helping others feel at ease and being able to” read” people is positive for them. They have an understanding of others’ emotions that can be helpful.
At the same time, intense emotions get in the way of relationships. Many (51%) have stopped being friends with more than five people because they hurt you. Many of you (52.6%) also hide your feelings from others most of the time. You find the emotions of others burdensome at times, perhaps because so many of you ( 78.8%) have been complimented on your compassion for others and see yourselves as being loyal to the point it is not in your best interests.
Most of you (79.3%) can sense others feelings even when they don’t say or show how they are feeling. Several of you mentioned how difficult it was to not experience the emotions of others and 57% of you cannot watch the news without getting upset. Most of you are introverts or someone who reenergizes by being alone (72%).
Emotionally sensitive people don’t like feeling like their mood is at the mercy of people around them. Other people have far too much influence on their mood , so ESPs hold back on what they say. They also tend to overanalyze people’s words and behaviors out of fear of being hurt. At times they feel paranoid, focused on what they believe others think of them. Many are afraid of their emotions (53.7%). Anger is the most difficult emotion for the emotionally sensitive to manage.
Many of you have found therapy helpful (88%) and the most common issue was depression (71.2%). Exercise helps calm emotions for a large percentage (71.4%).
Many coping skills were suggested including sleeping, meditative prayer, music, positive self-talk, reading, quite and solitude, talking with a trusted confidant, feeling heard, playing video games, writing, distractions like television and computers, art, checking out the truth of the situation, petting animals, thinking about someone they love, listing gratitudes, yoga, breathing exercises, watching positive movies, self-help books, being in nature, baths, mindfulness, self-compassion, crying, rocking, organizing and cleaning, identifying the cause of the reaction, medication, imagining something funny,reminding themselves they are human, thinking happy thoughts, putting the hurt in perspective, cocooning, empathizing with the other person, thinking of alternative views of the situation, validation, mental exercises, and reading encouraging quotes.
Learn more about the survey results in the next post, including what emotionally sensitive people wish others understood about them. Also, watch for my next survey.
photo credit: Steven Vance
May 29, 2013
Holding Hope: Validating By Cheerleading
One of the most important levels of validation in Dialectical Behavior Therapy is cheerleading. Cheerleading involves holding and encouraging hope.
Hope is what keeps people going forward when difficult emotions and harsh experiences slam them against the ground–hope for a better life, for a life with less suffering, for the skills to manage challenging emotions in healthy ways.
For the emotionally sensitive, less desired emotions like irritation, hurt, sadness and shame can take over their thinking and behavior and become their whole world. When others might be angry or frustrated, the emotionally sensitive may feel rage or fury.
What might feel hurtful to others may be crushing and what would be sad to others may be depressing. It’s difficult to go to work, clean house, keep appointments, talk with friends, or otherwise function when experiencing such intense feelings.
Experiences such as losing an important relationship, being fired from a job, or even not doing well on a job interview are often interpreted as evidence of how flawed the person is and how she can never be worthy, adequate, good enough or lovable. The experiences are generalized; it’s not that that she missed a question on an exam, it’s that she never thinks or always fails at what she does. It’s not that she had an argument with her best friend, it’s that she can never fit in or be accepted by others.
Instead of viewing the experiences and emotions as part of being human, she sees them as proof of her inadequacies, as public evidence of her not being good enough. Being vulnerable enough to feel disappointment, hurt, embarrassment and loss tends to bring shame.
Some emotionally sensitive people attempt to defend themselves by blaming others. That leads to more suffering, just as blaming themselves does.
These emotions seem permanent each time they occur. Logic says they have come and gone in the past, but each time it is difficult for the emotionally sensitive to believe that the emotions will fade. People believe this time is different, this time the situation/emotions won’t change. Or perhaps that the situations will just keep recurring. This leads to loss of hope.
Painful situations will keep recurring, because it is part of being human. Sometimes they may recur because of the person’s intense emotions, but skills can be learned to manage those emotions. For the emotionally sensitive, it’s difficult to believe it is not about a flaw in themselves. It’s sometimes hard for them to to imagine that they could learn skills to manage the pain they feel.
Emotionally sensitive people are often more creative than those who aren’t emotionally sensitive. You might imagine that they would be excellent problem-solvers, people who could find solutions outside the box. Often they are.
Several issues often get in the way of the emotionally sensitive using their creativity to solve problems. One of these is that no one can think well when emotionally overwhelmed or upset. When you are angry or hurt, your logical thinking is not at its best. No one is a good problem solver when flooded with emotion.
People who aren’t emotionally sensitive have usually learned it is best to wait until the emotion passes and then consider the problem. They can manage their emotions so they don’t act on them. Emotionally sensitive people are frequently flooded with emotion and have difficulty not acting impulsively, so when the emotion passes, they don’t want to consider solutions to the problem. They often don’t want to think about the problem. Understandably so, they want to get past it and not remind themselves of the pain they experienced. Thus problem solving doesn’t happen and many don’t have the opportunity to realize the skills they have in finding solutions.
Many emotionally sensitive people often underestimate the difficulty that others experience in problem solving. They tend to see their friends, family, and colleagues as solving problems easily. They are discouraged when faced with roadblocks and aren’t able to find a quick solution to these issues.
In Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jonah Lehrer says, “Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer. We have worked hard, but we’ve hit the wall. We have no idea what to do next.”
When people talk about problem solving, they don’t usually discuss the discouragement they felt before they found a solution. They don’t emphasize the number of failed attempts or the hours spent trying alternatives. For the emotionally sensitive, the discouragement that is a natural part of creative problem solving is likely to seem an insurmountable barrier, a signal that they can’t do it. Tolerating that disappointment is too difficult, so the emotionally sensitive may back away, give up. Even the idea of problem solving may bring up feelings of discouragement and hopelessness that the person wants to avoid.
How to Cheerlead
To overcome this block, remember that discouragement and disappointment are normal parts of problem solving. Awareness that these are normal experiences will help you not mislabel them as inadequacies on your part and help you choose to not escape or avoid the process because it feels uncomfortable. Knowing that feeling discouraged or disappointed is part of the process of coming up with a solution can keep you going.
Holding hope is a key to overcoming this barrier. Believing in your ability to cope with issues, believing in your ability to find ways to get through difficult situations will help you overcome the wish to avoid problem solving and the discouragement and disappointment that is part of that process. Look at all that you handle every day. Become aware of and remember your strengths in coping with problems, not just your weaknesses.
Consider the creative suggestions that you offer to others. Recognize the wisdom you have when helping others. Validate yourself for that skill. You can use that to help yourself as well. Ask yourself what you would advise someone else to do.
Cheerlead yourself along the way to keep the hope alive. Have people in your life who cheer you on as well. Recognize each effective step that you take. Notice when you don’t give in or act impulsively. Be mindful of the positive. Remembering that you can solve problems and you can accept what you cannot solve, even though you may not wish to do that, can keep you going. If you keep going, you are likely to find resolution.
Drop perfectionism. Solutions are often not perfect. Accepting what can be done versus what you wish could happen or what you think should happen will allow you to be realistic and effective. At the same time, solutions need to fit you, not what someone else thinks is a good choice.
Remember that effective problem solving improves with practice. The world is likely to give you many opportunities to develop your skills. Acceptance and practicing self-validation of your ability to get through tough situations and to problem-solve can help.
Holding Hope: Validating By Cheerleading By KARYN HALL, PHD
One of the most important levels of validation in Dialectical Behavior Therapy is cheerleading. Cheerleading involves holding and encouraging hope.
Hope is what keeps people going forward when difficult emotions and harsh experiences slam them against the ground–hope for a better life, for a life with less suffering, for the skills to manage challenging emotions in healthy ways.
For the emotionally sensitive, less desired emotions like irritation, hurt, sadness and shame can take over their thinking and behavior and become their whole world. When others might be angry or frustrated, the emotionally sensitive may feel rage or fury.
What might feel hurtful to others may be crushing and what would be sad to others may be depressing. It’s difficult to go to work, clean house, keep appointments, talk with friends, or otherwise function when experiencing such intense feelings.
Experiences such as losing an important relationship, being fired from a job, or even not doing well on a job interview are often interpreted as evidence of how flawed the person is and how she can never be worthy, adequate, good enough or lovable. The experiences are generalized; it’s not that that she missed a question on an exam, it’s that she never thinks or always fails at what she does. It’s not that she had an argument with her best friend, it’s that she can never fit in or be accepted by others.
Instead of viewing the experiences and emotions as part of being human, she sees them as proof of her inadequacies, as public evidence of her not being good enough. Being vulnerable enough to feel disappointment, hurt, embarrassment and loss tends to bring shame.
Some emotionally sensitive people attempt to defend themselves by blaming others. That leads to more suffering, just as blaming themselves does.
These emotions seem permanent each time they occur. Logic says they have come and gone in the past, but each time it is difficult for the emotionally sensitive to believe that the emotions will fade. People believe this time is different, this time the situation/emotions won’t change. Or perhaps that the situations will just keep recurring. This leads to loss of hope.
Painful situations will keep recurring, because it is part of being human. Sometimes they may recur because of the person’s intense emotions, but skills can be learned to manage those emotions. For the emotionally sensitive, it’s difficult to believe it is not about a flaw in themselves. It’s sometimes hard for them to to imagine that they could learn skills to manage the pain they feel.
Emotionally sensitive people are often more creative than those who aren’t emotionally sensitive. You might imagine that they would be excellent problem-solvers, people who could find solutions outside the box. Often they are.
Several issues often get in the way of the emotionally sensitive using their creativity to solve problems. One of these is that no one can think well when emotionally overwhelmed or upset. When you are angry or hurt, your logical thinking is not at its best. No one is a good problem solver when flooded with emotion.
People who aren’t emotionally sensitive have usually learned it is best to wait until the emotion passes and then consider the problem. They can manage their emotions so they don’t act on them. Emotionally sensitive people are frequently flooded with emotion and have difficulty not acting impulsively, so when the emotion passes, they don’t want to consider solutions to the problem. They often don’t want to think about the problem. Understandably so, they want to get past it and not remind themselves of the pain they experienced. Thus problem solving doesn’t happen and many don’t have the opportunity to realize the skills they have in finding solutions.
Many emotionally sensitive people often underestimate the difficulty that others experience in problem solving. They tend to see their friends, family, and colleagues as solving problems easily. They are discouraged when faced with roadblocks and aren’t able to find a quick solution to these issues.
In Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jonah Lehrer says, “Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer. We have worked hard, but we’ve hit the wall. We have no idea what to do next.”
When people talk about problem solving, they don’t usually discuss the discouragement they felt before they found a solution. They don’t emphasize the number of failed attempts or the hours spent trying alternatives. For the emotionally sensitive, the discouragement that is a natural part of creative problem solving is likely to seem an insurmountable barrier, a signal that they can’t do it. Tolerating that disappointment is too difficult, so the emotionally sensitive may back away, give up. Even the idea of problem solving may bring up feelings of discouragement and hopelessness that the person wants to avoid.
How to Cheerlead
To overcome this block, remember that discouragement and disappointment are normal parts of problem solving. Awareness that these are normal experiences will help you not mislabel them as inadequacies on your part and help you choose to not escape or avoid the process because it feels uncomfortable. Knowing that feeling discouraged or disappointed is part of the process of coming up with a solution can keep you going.
Holding hope is a key to overcoming this barrier. Believing in your ability to cope with issues, believing in your ability to find ways to get through difficult situations will help you overcome the wish to avoid problem solving and the discouragement and disappointment that is part of that process. Look at all that you handle every day. Become aware of and remember your strengths in coping with problems, not just your weaknesses.
Consider the creative suggestions that you offer to others. Recognize the wisdom you have when helping others. Validate yourself for that skill. You can use that to help yourself as well. Ask yourself what you would advise someone else to do.
Cheerlead yourself along the way to keep the hope alive. Have people in your life who cheer you on as well. Recognize each effective step that you take. Notice when you don’t give in or act impulsively. Be mindful of the positive. Remembering that you can solve problems and you can accept what you cannot solve, even though you may not wish to do that, can keep you going. If you keep going, you are likely to find resolution.
Drop perfectionism. Solutions are often not perfect. Accepting what can be done versus what you wish could happen or what you think should happen will allow you to be realistic and effective. At the same time, solutions need to fit you, not what someone else thinks is a good choice.
Remember that effective problem solving improves with practice. The world is likely to give you many opportunities to develop your skills. Acceptance and practicing self-validation of your ability to get through tough situations and to problem-solve can help.
May 7, 2013
Self-Soothing: Calming the Amygdala and Reducing the Effects of Trauma
One of the skills a young child must learn is to comfort himself when he is upset. One way he learns to do this is by being soothed by his parents or caregivers. Touch and holding are two ways caregivers comfort children. Gradually the child learns ways to calm himself. These activities are critical for the healthy development of the young child.
Adults may have others to comfort them as well, such as good friends who offer companionship or spouses who give hugs. But self-soothing is a basic skill important for emotional and physical well-being.
Self-soothing is particularly important for the emotionally sensitive, yet many don’t think about, forget, or discount the need for and effectiveness of self-soothing activities. In upset moments, it’s hard to think about calming yourself. Plus, self-soothing does not come naturally to everyone and requires thought and action.
A stress response is a natural part of our survival pattern. The amygdala is believed to be the part of your brain that processes basic feelings. The amygdala plays a big role in sounding an alert for threatening situations and triggers fight or flight behaviors. This works well as long as there truly is a threat that you need to run away from or defend yourself against. Otherwise your body suffers from being on high alert when it doesn’t need that reaction.
Feeling like you are being threatened when you aren’t is unpleasant and exhausting. Those who have suffered traumatic experiences may find they are easily stressed and often are in the flight or fight state when there is no current danger. This may be because in addition to being part of the threat alert system, the amygdala also seems to be involved in emotional memories. The more intense the situation, the stronger the memory, according to Michael Jawer in his book, The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion.
Early trauma, in infancy, childhood, or even before birth, is believed to influence the programming of the body’s stress activation system (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal or HPA system), making the set point lower than it is for those who do not experience such trauma. The result is that people who have experienced early trauma are more hyper-vigilant and more likely to experience stressful reactions. They are prone to debilitating conditions such as migraines, allergies and chronic pain. Being more reactive to the world in general seems to result from early trauma. Active, purposeful self-soothing would tend to be more difficult for these individuals and also more necessary.
Creating sensations that say there is no emergency helps calm the body’s alert system so the brain (prefrontal cortex) can regain its ability to think and plan. If you are sipping hot tea under a soft blanket or lazing in a bubble bath, then there must be no reason to run at full speed to the nearest cave!
Whatever the reason or origin of emotional sensitivity, self-soothing can help. Marsha Linehan recognized the importance of self-soothing and included these skills when she developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Self-soothing is part of finding a middle ground, a gray area, between being detached or numb and experiencing an emotional crisis or upheaval. Allowing yourself to experience the uncomfortable emotions (without feeding them and making them more intense) enables the emotions to pass. Soothing yourself helps you tolerate the experience without acting in ways that are not helpful in the long run, or blocking the emotions, which makes the emotions grow larger or come out in ways you didn’t intend.
Know Your Self-Soothing Activities: Usually soothing activities are related to the senses. Different people are comforted in different ways and may prefer one sense over another. Sometimes what is soothing for one situation is not the same as what is soothing in a different situation.
When your alert system is firing danger, then physical activity may help, like playing a fast-moving game of racquetball or going for a walk.
When the upset is more about feeling hurt or sad, activities such as sipping hot tea or petting a dog may be more effective. The smell of apple pie baking, a beautiful sunset, the softness of a dog’s fur, the song of birds singing, the taste of chocolate or the sensation of rocking. Reading a good book can be soothing for some. Being with a good friend, someone you feel safe with and loved by, can be soothing.
Some may be best soothed by focusing on a specific sense. Some people are more visual than others and some are more auditory. Experiment with the different senses to see what works best for you. You may want to create a self-soothing box full of options that you know are effective for you. When you are upset hunting for a special song or even remembering what is soothing is difficult. Put a list of your self-soothing activities in the box along with some of the objects you might need.
Create Self-Soothing Experiences: A self-soothing experience involves more than one sense and have a overall feel of valuing the self. Having your favorite meal at a table set with cloth napkins and pretty dishes while listening to music you love would be a self-soothing experience for some. A bubble bath with your favorite scent, a favorite drink, and listening to a book on tape could also be a self-soothing experience.
Other Self-soothing Activities: Performing an act of kindness for others can be soothing, particularly if you are feeling disappointed in yourself. Often helping those who are less fortunate is effective in that situation too. Accomplishing tasks such as cleaning your house or organizing your closet can help with uncomfortable feelings. Writing, playing, and laughing can all be soothing by helping you detach and feel more in control of your emotional experience.
Focusing on your sense of meaning may be soothing. This meaning might be about knowing your purpose in life or it might be about a spiritual connection. Focusing on what is truly important to you can help you let the less important go. Consider prayer or meditation.
Finding out what works best for you through practicing self-soothing in different situations will help you manage your emotions more effectively. You may want a way of reminding yourself to self-soothe and what to do as people do not think clearly when upset. Motivation to self-calm in tense moments can be low.
photo credit: dcosand
April 8, 2013
Changing Habits: The Power of Believing
Habits are a big part of the way we live our lives and make decisions. More than forty percent of the actions people perform each day are habits rather than decisions. That’s almost half.
Good habits help you save your brain power. You don’t have to decide or think about brushing your teeth, you just do it. When people who have been depressed or living chaotically work on self-care and hygiene, they don’t have these good habits and must use a lot of energy to establish them. That’s difficult.
But what seems even more difficult is changing habits that are harmful to us or don’t serve us well. Sometimes habits aren’t helpful to us and we need to change them.
Habits apparently cannot be wiped out – they must be replaced. You can stop biting your nails, smoking, eating junk food, or yelling at people who challenge you. You can learn to put your clothes away and keep a clean home. You do it by substituting one behavior for another.
One way to change a habit is to keep the same cue and the same reward, but insert a new routine. Duhigg calls this the habit loop. An example of a habit loop is watching television and eating chips. The cue is coming home from work or another activity. The behavior, of course is eating chips and watching television.
The reward is the feeling of calm you get from the combination of the distraction of the television and the comfort from the food. During a work day you may even imagine yourself being home on the couch watching your favorite show. You may consider what dip you want to buy to go with your chips. You may use these daydreams to help comfort yourself during the day.
But sometimes the way you comfort yourself is harmful. Too many chips or too much chocolate has negative effects, even though consuming them may be calming. Even watching too much television, especially when you have other tasks you need to complete, can be negative.
Changing Habits is Difficult But Possible
To change such habits, you would have to develop a different way to feel calm or a different way to distract yourself. You need a new way to get the reward that you enjoy.
What you do depends on your goal. If you want to watch less television, then you might not sit on the living room couch when you arrive at home. You could sit in a comfortable chair in a room without a television. Or you may want to give yourself something different to do while sitting on the couch. If the primary reward of watching television is the distraction from your day, then finding a different way to distract yourself, like playing games with friends or family, would be likely to work.
One of the payoffs is that if you change one pattern, something called a keystone habit, then you are likely to make other shifts as well. People who change their diet often get take better care of themselves in other ways. They may stop smoking, exercise, dress more carefully, and become financially more responsible.
Making your bed every morning is correlated with a greater sense of well-being, stronger skills at sticking to a budget and better productivity. Somehow initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold. Keystone habits offer what is known as small wins. Having a small win leads to greater changes.
Even though the brain changes, developing new activities in the area of self-discipline, when you exchange a negative habit for a positive one, the areas associated with the old pattern are still active. When you are very stressed, you are likely to go back to your old habit, the one that has been ingrained for many years. But some people do not go back to their negative habits, even when under great stress.
What can make the difference? Duhigg says it’s about belief. When a person completely believes in their change, believes in the value of the new behavior, they won’t go back to the old pattern. One part of that belief is having a support group, people who help you keep the faith in the importance of making changes and doing what is best for you.
Making a small change successfully can give belief and hope in yourself. That hope and belief can energize you and show you that change is possible. So if you are struggling with depression or another overwhelming emotion, go for the small win. Use the principles of habit change. Take a small step, a small a change, and recognize the importance of that step – then take another.
Reference
Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2012.
February 24, 2013
Revenge: Do You Feel Better When You Act on Those Urges?
Understanding how emotions and thoughts influence behavior is important for people who have intense emotions and are often ruled by them. Knowledge about emotions and the thoughts that strengthen or soften those emotions can help people develop ways to better manage their actions.
One urge that people experience but rarely discuss is revenge. Webster’s online dictionary defines revenge as to avenge (as oneself) usually by retaliating in kind or degree or to inflict injury in return for something, such as to revenge an insult.
The struggle with revenge is centuries old. Shakespeare said, “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?” Shakespeare clearly thought revenge was as normal and predictable as the sun rising.
Maybe, but what about the idea that revenge is self-destructive? Confucius said , “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Gandhi seemed to agree with him when he said, “An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Revenge seems to be one of the deepest instincts we have. Who hasn’t said, “I hope he gets his,” or wished that Karma would strike sooner rather than later? Dirty Harry’s “Go ahead, make my day” resonates across generations. Out of control revenge, attack and counterattack, can be blinding and destroy the lives of all involved. But our instincts and emotions usually serve a purpose.
Researchers and theorists believe that revenge is a form of establishing justice and that the threat of revenge may serve as a form of protection, a kind of enforcement of social cooperation. Imagine that your neighbor hosts large, overnight parties and his guests continually park so that you can’t get out of your driveway. If you believe that your neighbor is a rational person who won’t retaliate, you may be tempted to key the guests’ cars or smear them with eggs. If you think your neighbor would “come after you,” then you are less likely to act on your anger.
Maybe the purpose of revenge is in preventing certain hostile actions or the threat of revenge insures people do not hurt you in the future. But sometimes people act revengeful when no good can come of their actions, other than to inflict suffering on others. Those actions can go to unfathomable extremes. From lovers running over a beloved iPhone or destroying what their ex most values, to businessmen damaging the careers of those who have rejected them, to students opening fire in school hallways, revenge can be an act of anger, hurt and power.
People who have been hurt or betrayed seem to believe without any doubt that if the other party suffers, then they will feel better–their emotional pain will lessen. Is this true?
Revenge Makes You Feel Worse
To test whether revenge makes people feel better, Kevin Carlsmith and his colleagues set up a group investment game with college students where if everyone cooperated, everyone would benefit equally. However, if someone refused to invest his or her money, that person would benefit at the group’s expense.
A secret experimenter (called a free rider) in each group convinced the the group members to invest equally. But when it came time to put up the money, the free riders didn’t go along with the agreed-upon plan. As a result, the free riders earned an average of $5.59, while the other players earned around $2.51.
Here’s the revenge part. Carlsmith offered some groups a way to get back at the free rider: They could spend some of their own earnings to financially punish the group’s defector. Everyone who was given the chance for revenge took it. And they predicted that they would feel much better after they got their revenge.
The results showed that the students who got revenge reported feeling worse than those who didn’t, but believed they would have felt even worse if they hadn’t gotten back at the free riders. The students who didn’t get the opportunity for revenge said they thought they would feel better if they’d had that opportunity, even though the survey results identified them as the happier group. Both groups thought revenge would be sweet, but their own reported feelings showed that revenge made them less happy.
How to explain this? Carlsmith suggests that the reason revenge increases anger rather than decreasing it is because of ruminations. When people don’t get revenge, they tend to trivialize the event by telling themselves that because they didn’t act on their vengeful feelings, it wasn’t a big deal. Then it’s easier to forget it and move on. But when people do get revenge, they can no longer trivialize the situation. Instead, they go over and over it and feel worse.
Or Maybe It Makes You Feel Better
After considering the studies that found revenge wasn’t so sweet for the avenger, Mario Gollwitzer still thought there were some situations in which revenge could be satisfying. He considered two possibilities. One was that revenge alone wasn’t enough for the avenger to have satisfaction. The offender must know the connection between the original insult and the retaliation. He called that the “understanding hypothesis.”
The second possibility was that of “comparative suffering.” This meant that seeing an offender suffer was important. His research results showed that the only situation when acting on revenge was more satisfying than not acting on revenge was when the offender understood and acknowledged why the act of revenge had occurred. He described this “understanding hypothesis” as reestablishing justice.
The problem, according to Eric Jaffe, is that while the avenger often believes the offender received “just desserts,” the offender usually perceives the retaliation as too harsh. Thus an endless cycle could follow. Most people understand this concept. So why do people continue to believe in and have such strong urges for revenge?
Is Revenge Hardwired?
Dan Ariely discusses revenge experiments in which the participants’ brains were scanned by positron emission tomography (PET) while they were making decisions about revenge. The results showed increased activity in the reward center of the brain (striatum). The greater the activation, the more the participants punished the offenders. Ariely suggests that this punishing betrayal or perceived betrayal has a biological basis and feels pleasurable. At least the decision to get revenge does.
Reestablishing Trust
Ariely states that revenge and trust are opposite sides of the same coin. Perhaps the idea that people believe revenge restores justice is really about reestablishing trust.
Ariely’s experiments on revenge showed that the tendency to seek revenge did not depend on whether the actual person responsible for the offense suffered, but only that someone associated with the offense pay. Time passing helped lower the urge for revenge for small annoyances. In addition, apologies completely counteracted the effect of small annoyances. When an apology was given, the participants did not extract revenge. Please note this was a one time annoyance, not a series of repeated offenses.
What to Do When You Have Thoughts of Revenge
As with all internal experiences, being mindful of what you are experiencing is the first step. Thoughts of revenge apparently feel good and may be a basic human instinct, perhaps to help us survive. Accept your urges and thoughts of revenge as a basic human response related to trust.
Trust is important in any relationship and critical for cooperative societies. When you are thinking about revenge, it usually means you believe trust has been broken. Remember, while the anticipation of revenge may feel pleasurable, the actual carrying out of revenge brings little satisfaction and may create more problems and suffering. Acts of revenge do not repair trust or restablish a sense of justice for both parties.
Wait until you are calm emotionally and can think rationally before making any decisions. This is the cold part of “revenge is a dish best served cold.” If you act impulsively on such urges you are likely to create more suffering for yourself and others and regret your actions.
Consider whether the loss of trust is justified. Do you have all the facts? If not, get clarity about what truly happened before taking any action or making any decisions. If someone has acted in ways that truly are untrustworthy and hurtful, then task suggested by your thoughts and urges is to find ways to repair the trust or to move forward in a different direction. Maybe there has been a misunderstanding, a miscommunication, or maybe there is a problem that could be solved.
Would a dialogue with the offending person to explain your position be helpful for you, even if nothing changed? Would the offending person be willing to listen? Sometimes expressing your views and feelings is helpful. An apology could be quite healing and having a dialogue could give the offending person the opportunity to do that.
Learn from the experience. Were there signs of problems that you ignored? Were you careful about who you trusted? What positive changes can you make based on what you have learned? How do you see yourself as a result of this experience? Did you make decisions that show self-respect and reflect your values, regardless of how the other person behaved?
Focus on what is in your control and take the next right step.Sometimes it may be that standing up for yourself is the right step, but doing so in a positive way rather than for revenge.
Practice radical acceptance that some people will break your trust. That is a statement about them, not about you. Your response is about you. When you are emotionally sensitive, you may experience many situations in which you feel hurt by others and those urges for revenge can be managed.
References
Carlsmith, K. (May 2008) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (Vol. 95, No. 6).
Jaffe, E. (October 2011.) The Complicated Psychology of Revenge. Observer Vol.24, No.8
Price, M. (June, 2009) Revenge and the People Who Seek It. Monitor,(40) 6.
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
January 18, 2013
One Reason Why We Shop: It’s All About Anticipation
Dopamine is that wonderful chemical that helps us recognize an opportunity to feel good. Dopamine release is about craving, wanting and seeking. Those sensations are all very different from liking, loving or being happy.
When a rat’s dopamine system is wiped out, he’ll still love the taste of sugar if you give it to him, but he won’t work to get it. Dopamine is what spurs us to work to get what we think will make us feel good.
Dopamine is about anticipation of a reward, not the actual experiencing of a reward. Brian Knutson did brain scans on humans who knew that when a certain symbol appeared on a computer screen that they would be given money. The interesting result was that the dopamine releasing pleasure center of the brain lit up when they saw the symbol, but not when they got the actual reward.
Dopamine’s role was to for the person to act to get the reward, so they wouldn’t miss out. The reward system was reacting to anticipation.
Anticipation is a sensation that most people know well. We don’t really need researchers to point out that anything that we believe is going to make us feel good will trigger the reward system. Think about the smell of cinnamon buns in the mall or coffee in the morning. Think about the anticipation of a birthday present or a vacation that you believe will be fun. Think how you react when you see a beautiful outfit that you just know will look great on you or hear an advertisement for a great new tech toy.
One study, according to Kelly McGonigal, showed that playing a video game led to dopamine increases equal to amphetamine use. Perhaps the anticipation of winning or doing well is more rewarding than the actual experience. This probably explains the constant checking of email. We hear that sound that says we have mail and we anticipate a good feeling, but often it’s junk.
The dopamine system keeps us focused on what we believe will make us happy. So we may drink more and more coffee and buy more an more clothes and stand in line for a new phone even though we already have all those things. We don’t distinguish the good feeling of anticipation from the not -so-satisfying feeling of having. So we keep buying and checking email and eating more sweets.
Dopamine also triggers the release of stress hormones. This means that you’ll feel anxious as you anticipate the reward that you want. The need to get it takes on even greater importance when there’s the added fear of not getting the prize you crave.
Looking for a new pair of shoes may feel quite pleasant. You anticipate finding the perfect pair that you will love to wear. You drive to the store with pleasant feelings of expectation. There’s a sale on–40% off is even better.
But now you may find yourself stressed and not so happy. There are too many shoppers in the store, you aren’t sure of your choice, and what if someone else got the better deal? You feel grumpy standing in line. You drive home, put the shoes in the closet and you feel dissatisfied. Maybe you consider eating some cookies or chips. Maybe that would feel good. You eat them and then you either want more or you feel worse.
Everyone needs ways to comfort themselves when stressed. For people who are emotionally sensitive, finding ways to comfort themselves is especially important. When dopamine is released, that is a pleasant feeling, but the promise of reward is not happiness. Dopamine spurs you to go after something, but it’s really the anticipation that is making you feel good. Sometimes the result is pleasure, but sometimes it isn’t.
You can learn to control what you pursue and what you don’t. Sometimes you may want to engage in the anticipation without acquiring the object of that anticipation. Going to the mall to window shop or to smell coffee and sweet rolls may be the end result, not the buying or the consuming. Or with the awareness of what wanting is really about, you may want to choose a bubble bath or reading a magazine with a warm cup of tea.
Reference
McGonigal, K. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.
