Emotional freedom considers the exploration of our relationship to our feelings. Although some may not be aware of having feelings, the fact that we all have feelings is undeniable, whether we are aware of them or not. So, what’s so bad about being unaware of feelings? Many believe that if you aren’t aware of something it somehow ceases to exist. However, the contrary is true: Truth is true, whether we believe it (or are aware of it) or not. Emotional experiences affect our thoughts, perceptions, physical sensations, mood, attitudes, self-esteem, life outlook and so much more.

When we isolate from our emotional experiences, we fail to recognize these above influences and subsequently become victim to them. We feel sick and self-medicate. We fall victim to our mood swings. We become distrustful of ourselves when we notice how much our thoughts, attitudes and perceptions change seemingly out of the blue.

Gaining intuition into our feeling states allows us to have more intuition into our motives, needs, and premonitions. We can allow our feelings to help guide our decisions that result in well-being and fulfillment, rather than hinder our path with indecisiveness and self-doubt.

These soft skills are not just extraneous variables in our fulfillment quotient; they are hard-wired tools that we would all benefit to sharpen. Men are at more of a disadvantage here because, other than anger/aggression, there are not many socially supported outlets for men to explore and express feelings.

Psychotherapy and life coaching provide safe places where men are supported and encouraged to listen to themselves and discover the subconscious emotional experience that can inform and transform our lives.

As children, our identity and self-esteem are formed in response to our relationships with those we are close (or close by) to, our material resources (food and housing), and our environment.  As an adult, if we continue to rely only on those things, we find that our self-confidence and esteem seem transient.

If self-confidence is a variable instead of fixed, then we can experience diminishing self-worth after suffering events such as loss, life transitions, or significant disappointments.  Contrary to the de-valuation we feel, these experiences do not constitute who we actually are.  It constitutes our self-perceptions.  How we think and feel about who we really are.

This is one of the reasons I wanted to travel alone to a foreign country.  I wanted to see who I would be?  How would I define myself when no one knows who I am?  I have no career, reputation, or shared interests to stand upon when interacting with people.  Not even social graces, such as being a witty conversationalist could vouch for me being in a place where I am not fluent in the language.

In daily interactions, we are so set-back, disappointed, sometimes defeated when we make mistakes or our weakness are revealed.  Consistent with this experience, my first response to being exposed as a non-Spanish speaker was wishing to become invisible.  I felt ashamed.  Who would want to help me, take the time to try to understand me, never mind like me, if I couldn’t speak the language?  After a few hours of trying to avoid any interaction where I would be forced to speak Spanish by not: ordering food, getting lost, or making eye contact, I quickly realized the futility of the effort and took on the challenge of finding creative ways to express myself with what small bits of the language I did know.

I soon discovered that making a mistake or revealing that I didn’t understand what was being said (even though I was nodding my head and “si” -ing along at all the appropriate conjectures), didn’t make me inadequate or even ignorant.  Surprisingly, what I found in response to my Spanglish was a response of compassion.  People generally wanted to help create understanding.  Not just for me, but for them too.  It’s as if we were playing one of those games where you try to figure out what your partner is trying to convey without being able to actually just say it.

Now, when I meet seemingly fluent bi-lingual speakers (such as those working in the airport), would ask “Hablas Espanol?” ( do you speak Spanish?)  Rather than shuddering at the opportunity for a weakness to be revealed,  I would answer in the standard “un poquito”  ( a little) and then ask them in Spanish if they spoke English.  To my surprise, many answered “a little” or “I am learning”.  We then had a new place to connect a shared interest a common experience.

The lesson learned is that life is not about getting it right or showing how good we are at ____( fill in the blank).  It’s about connecting through relationships.  Second, we cannot connect or learn through relationships without making ourselves vulnerable.   Last, it’s important to recognize how we limit our experiences of vulnerability when we stay within the confines of our comfort zone.

This doesn’t mean you have to book your ticket to Malawi tomorrow.  You can travel outside of your comfort zone every day:

Strike up a conversation with a complete stranger

Go to a bar and DON’T have a drink

Eat at your favorite restaurant alone

Try something you’ve never done and try it in front of others

Eye gaze (check out my friend Jeffrey’s activities and blog: http://www.jeffreyplatts.com/other-things-i-do/eyegazingparties/)

Go somewhere where you will be a minority

Ask for help

Risk failure

Admit when you don’t know something

Approach” not-knowing”  as an exciting opportunity to learn something new

Take a full breath before responding to a question

Listen more and talk less

*Listen to Brene Brown talk about vulnerability:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a new obstacle in our path.  Often it’s a loss – a job, relationship or even an opportunity that falls through.  During these times, it can be difficult to maintain happiness and stay on path.

If you’re dealing with an unexpected change in your life, here are 5 strategies to consider:

1. Allow yourself to mourn the loss.  Change, especially when it was unexpected, can be difficult for anyone to manage.  It’s important to allow yourself time to grieve your loss.  Don’t let yourself be pressured into hiding or denying your feelings.  It’s important to process the loss in your own time so that you can heal and acknowledge any lessons you may have learned.
2. Look for meaning.  Reframe the recent change in a way that allows you to see the positive along with the negative.  Maybe losing your job will open you up to the possibility of following your dreams.  Maybe the loss of a friendship will allow you to be more available for healthier friendships down the road.
3. Do something fun.  It might be helpful to temporarily distract yourself with an enjoyable activity.  This is different for everyone – read a book, go for a jog, see a matinee, start a new hobby.  Just be careful to not to overindulge or fill your time with something that’s going to make you feel worse in the long run.
4. Connect with friends and family.  It’s important not to isolate during difficult times – especially times of change.  Strong relationships provide support and help ease the transition.  So make plans and stick to them.  Keep busy with friends and family.  Ask for help when you need it and offer your help to others.
5. Make a decision to face forward.  Now that you’ve mourned the loss and processed the change, make a conscious decision to stop lingering at the closed door waiting for it to reopen.  Instead, face forward with courage and be open to new opportunities.  New opportunities bring new joy – embrace the challenge before you.

If any of these are your experience you are not alone.  Here are some tips to help transform your holiday experience:

1. Recognize that you are not alone and stop comparing yourself to people you think have the perfect family or “love the holidays!”  Unless you are a child awaiting toys on Christmas this is often not the case.
2. Don’t let guilt about spending time with others lead you to over-commit.  Being thankful also means being present to enjoy your life.  So, in addition to doing things for others, make sure to continue to do things for yourself. Maybe you will treat yourself to something special. 
3. Connect with the people that you are close with instead of fantasizing about the relationships with people who you are separated from.
4. Do something active take a walk, exercise, go to a yoga class
5. Treat yourself well (and I don’t mean by allowing yourself to eat until you have to put elastic on your pants).   I mean pamper yourself, take a day off work, treat yourself to a movie for example
6. Open your mouth.  It never ceases to amaze me how helpful it is to simply share with people what’s going on with you.  More often than not, people appreciate opportunities to be there for others and it often creates a reciprocal benefit by opening the door for someone else to share what’s going on with them.
7. Get rest and adequate sleep.
8. Get into the light.  Pathologize it if you like, (seasonal affective disorder), but just getting some sunlight just does the body good!
9. Ask for help whether it be personal or professional
10. LAUGH whether it’s for a reason or for none at all.  Just do it.  Laughing is therapeutic.

Caffeine is a stimulant which means that it creates a physiological response in the body that includes increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, elevated mood, suppressed appetite, and increased body temperature. 

The positive effects of stimulants are also used in common weight-loss drugs and attention enhancing drugs like Ephedra and  Ritalin (or now more commonly used, Adderall).  That’s why those that use these drugs enjoy secondary benefits.  For example, those that take Ephedra for weight loss also notice that it helps them be more focused and feel improved mood.  It’s also why people who do not actually have ADD/ADHD receive a benefit from the stimulants like Adderall, which is why its use is so common as a recreational drug.

The downside is that often when we consume caffeine on a daily basis, the impact on our bodies is masked.  I’ve talked to people who have weaned themselves off or have stopped drinking caffeine, and notice an immediate impact on their sleep.  Even if you have built up a tolerance to caffeine, at some point in time, your sleep cycle was influenced.  Many times, this lends to having difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep.  After we’ve had a poor night of sleep, we need to have caffeine the next day in order to feel like we can function or compensate from the lack of sleep from the night before.  What we may not realize is that we are simultaneously disrupting our body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.   We are building up the amount of a stimulating substance in our bodies which can contribute to dependence and withdrawal.

Often these symptoms go unrecognized as results of caffeine dependence and we get concerned about our mental or physical health:  We feel irritable, anxious, can’t sleep, can’t concentrate and get frequent headaches. 

Maybe you don’t believe that it’s coffee alone that has an impact on your system.   Consider then the influence that sleep alone has on how you feel.   Sleep deprivation results in irritability, poor concentration, depressed mood, and of course being emotionally, physically and mentally tired.

So, don’t let me be the judge.  Try it for yourself by simply paying attention to what you notice in your mind and body when you drink caffeine, or if you drink regularly, how it feels when you don’t.   Let me know how it goes!

The WHO? of positive psychology is everyone. The WHAT? of positive psychology is human flourishing. WHEN? a.s.a.p.. WHY? Because we deserve to enjoy life – and because the world benefits when people feel better and achieve more.
But the most important question that positive psychology answers is HOW? HOW do we achieve flourishing? HOW do we get more of the good stuff? The most basic answer is: by improving in the five essential components of flourishing (as identified by Martin Seligman and colleagues): Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (PERMA).

So the short answer to HOW? is get more PERMA! More positive emotion, more engagement, better relationships, more meaning, and greater accomplishment.

But HOW do we do we get more of these things?

We can start by honing in on the most accessible component of flourishing: positive emotion. When we successfully incorporate more positive emotion into our lives we immediately experience growth. Positive emotion directly impacts every aspect of PERMA, plus the momentum generated by positive emotions can inspire us to address and improve the other four realms of flourishing. It is easy to imagine how the amount of positive emotion we experience on a daily basis can change our relationships, our level of engagement, how meaningful we feel, and how much we accomplish. So, HOW do we get more positive emotion?

Barb Fredrickson, the world’s leading researcher on positive emotion, suggests a variety of ways to sneak more positive emotion into our lives. One of the best ways is to savor goodness. We savor by giving ourselves permission to drink-in, enjoy, and reflect upon good things that happen in our day. This includes everything from getting a bonus at work, finding out that our friend has been cured of a rare disease, to savoring your ham and cheese sandwich. When something good happens – allow yourself to bask in its glow a little longer than seems acceptable. Another simple way to invite more positive emotion into our life is simply to go outside and connect with nature. Fredrickson’s research shows that going outside and enjoying fresh-air for just minutes each day leads to a slight boost in positive emotion. These positive emotions, in turn, lead to expansive thinking that enhances the rest of our day. (Fredrickson, 2009)
HOW MUCH positive emotion do we need? Fredrickson discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones is the tipping point beyond which people naturally become more resilient to adversity and more able to achieve. However, regardless of our current ratio, almost all of us could use more positive emotion. Positive emotions allow us to see new possibilities, bounce back from setbacks, connect with others, and become the best version of ourselves. (Fredrickson, 2009)

In other words: flourish. Positive psychology provides the formula for increasing positive emotion, decreasing negative emotion, and optimizing our ratio for a balance that leads to our best life.

by Sara Oliveri
http://saraoliveri.com/positivepsychologyi