Places we go when things are uncertain or too much—stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, vulnerability
Places we go when we compare—comparison, admiration, reverence, envy, jealousy, resentment, schadenfreude, freudenfreude
Places we go when things don’t go as planned—boredom, disappointment, expectations, regret, discouragement, resignation, frustration
Places we go when it’s beyond us—awe, wonder, confusion, curiosity, interest, surprise
Places we go when things aren’t what they seem—amusement, bittersweetness, nostalgia, cognitive dissonance, paradox, irony, sarcasm
Places we go when we’re hurting—anguish, hopelessness, despair is a state of repair, sadness, grief
Places we go with others—compassion, pity, empathy, sympathy, boundaries, comparative suffering
Places we go when we fall short—shame, self-compassion, perfectionism, guilt, humiliation, embarrassment
Places we go when we search for connection—belonging, fitting in, connection, disconnection, insecurity, invisibility, loneliness
Places we go when the heart is open—love, lovelessness, heartbreak, trust, self-trust, betrayal, defensiveness, flooding, hurt
Places we go when life is good—joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief, tranquility
Places we go when we feel wronged—anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate, self-righteousness
Places we go to self-assess—pride, hubris, humility
Places we go when things are uncertain or too much ⚭
Stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, vulnerability
Places we go when we compare ⚭
Comparison, admiration, reverence, envy, jealousy, resentment, schadenfreude, freudenfreude
Places we go when things don’t go as planned ⚭
Boredom, disappointment, expectations, regret, discouragement, resignation, frustration
Places we go when it’s beyond us ⚭
Awe, wonder, confusion, curiosity, interest, surprise
Places we go when things aren’t what they seem ⚭
Amusement, bittersweetness, nostalgia, cognitive dissonance, paradox, irony, sarcasm
Places we go when we’re hurting ⚭
Anguish, hopelessness, despair, sadness, grief
Places we go with others ⚭
Compassion, pity, empathy, sympathy, boundaries, comparative suffering
Places we go when we fall short ⚭
Shame, self-compassion, perfectionism, guilt, humiliation, embarrassment
Places we go when we search for connection ⚭
Belonging, fitting in, connection, disconnection, insecurity, invisibility, loneliness
Places we go when the heart is open ⚭
Love, lovelessness, heartbreak, trust, self-trust, betrayal, defensiveness, flooding, hurt
Places we go when life is good ⚭
Joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief, tranquility
Places we go when we feel wronged ⚭
Anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate, self-righteousness
Places we go to self-assess ⚭
Pride, hubris, humility
- Worrying and anxiety go together, but worry is not an emotion; it is the thinking part of anxiety.
- Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but will never make you less afraid.
- For anxiety and dread, the threat is in the future. For fear, the threat is now.
- Jealousy doesn’t seem to be a singular emotion but rather a cognitive evaluation in response to anger, sadness, and/or fear.
- When you start to feel resentful: what do I need but am afraid to ask for?
- Worst is focused on the future; rumination focuses on the past or on things things about ourselves we’re stuck on
- Compassion is a daily practice and empathy is a skill set that is one of the most powerful tools of compassion.
- Cognitive empathy (understanding what someone is feeling) vs. affective empathy (feeling it for them)
- Shame and humiliation will never be effective social justice tools.
- We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others.
- Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging.
- Hate is actually fueled for our need for belonging
- Flooding (and chronic flooding)—I’ve never experienced a little time and space being a bad thing
- “Foreboding joy,” afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy, waiting for the other shoe to drop… most people experience it
- Tranquility is the absence of demands and no pressure to do anything.
- Interestingly, dominance “does not require respect or social acceptance.”
- Narcissism is shame-based.
- “Intellectual humility” refers specifically to a willingness to consider information that doesn’t fit with our current thinking.
- The Buddhist concept of near enemies
- “Disembodiment often leads to an incongruence between the actions we take in the world and the beliefs that we hold.” (Prentis Hemphill)
- “Help is the sunny side of control.” (Anne Lamott)
- I no longer believe that we can recognize emotion in other people; too many emotions and experiences present the same way, and expressing what we’re feeling can be as unique as we are. So how do we know what people are feeling? We ask them.
- Our emotions and experiences are layers of biology, biography, behavior, and backstory.
- Our connection with others can only be as deep as our connection to ourselves.
Pull quotes: ⚭
Resentment is the feeling of frustration, judgment, anger, “better than,” and/or hidden envy related to perceived unfairness or injustice. It’s an emotion that we often experience when we fail to set boundaries or ask for what we need, or when expectations let us down because they were based on things we can’t control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they’re going to react.
I think it’s important to point out, especially in this political and social climate, that when we feel relieved, grateful, or even happy that someone who has done something hurtful, unethical, or unjust is held accountable, that’s not schadenfreude and normally doesn’t stem from counter-empathy. On the contrary, it can stem from empathy for the aggrieved. It’s similar to the distinction that when we hold someone accountable and they respond to that accountability by feeling shame, it does not mean we’ve shamed them.
SPOILER ALERT: I’m pretty sure this research explains why I do not like surprises. I’m not a fan of having to manage amplified emotion while in the spotlight. But it’s not just my introversion and the spotlight piece, I don’t like surprises in movies or TV series either. I know many of y’all will find this egregious, but I normally read the entire plot of any potentially stressful movie before I watch it. People assume that ruins it for me, but it doesn’t. I can actually enjoy it better without being thrown off the surprise bridge into amplified emotion. No, thank you.
“Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed.
That doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.” (David Kessler)
Re: compassion vs. empathy: It’s an important debate that is frustratingly hijacked on occasion by folks who come up with new, arbitrary definitions for emotions that are completely different from how we all use the terms. They change the meaning, then argue that the emotion is “bad” based on their new definitions. For example, someone might say that empathy is taking on all the feelings of another person, then argue that empathy is bad. Unfortunately, this approach is often misleading and self-serving and puts no value on how we use the word. I would argue that a lot of this linguistic shell-gaming is about wanting to be contrarian. There’s nothing more seductive and clickable than a discovery that something we believe to be good is bad: “Empathy is bad for you.” cf. Humankind: A Hopeful History
Researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson explains that people find experiences of joy difficult to articulate. He hypothesizes that the very nature of joy pushes the boundaries of our ability to communicate about lived experience via spoken language. He also suggests that because language can shape lived experience, cultures that have more words to describe the emotion of joy may also experience joy more richly.
“Tranquil environments” provide many restorative elements that are needed to counter mental fatigue and attention depletion. Researchers Rachel and Stephen Kaplan found that there are four essential elements of a restorative environment: a sense of getting away, a feeling of immersion, holding attention without effort, and compatibility with one’s preferences.
When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding. No emotion is more frightening than joy, because we believe if we allow ourselves to feel joy, we are inviting disaster. We start dress-rehearsing tragedy in the best moments of our lives in order to stop vulnerability from beating us to the punch. We are terrified of being blindsided by pain, so we practice tragedy and trauma. But there’s a huge cost.
Anger is a catalyst. Holding on to it will make us exhausted and sick. It’s an emotion that we need to transform into something life-giving: courage, love, change, compassion, justice.
Or sometimes anger can mask a far more difficult emotion like grief, regret, or shame, and we need to use it to dig into what we’re really feeling. Either way, anger is a powerful catalyst but a life-sucking companion.
Humility is openness to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our contributions, including our strengths, imperfections, and opportunities for growth.
What humility isn’t: downplaying yourself or your accomplishments, which according to researchers is modesty, not humility. It’s also not low self-esteem or meekness or letting people walk all over you.