emotional processing Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Navigating Regret

The AHA! Team — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 06:34:25 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #596) and blog, I talk about how uncontrolled regret can affect us mentally and physically and how to manage our regrets and make them work for us and not against us. This is a replay of a Neurolive webinar I did on my app. For the full webinar Ad-free, please see Neurocycle.app, or look for Neurocycle on the App Store or Google Play. Unmanaged regret can make us feel like we are truly wading through a swamp with no end in sight. Regret is one of those emotions that is so crippling that it can be hard to get through the day, let alone move forward or heal. It is so easy to feel like we are drowning in our “darkest moments”. This is also pretty insidious. It tends to haunt so many areas of our lives at once, sometimes without us even realizing until it is too late. Suddenly, we are caught in a thunderstorm of disappointment, guilt, remorse, sorrow or helplessness, and are left asking how, we got here and how we can leave. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Regret encompasses so many human emotions, especially sadness, disappointment, frustration, and can leave us incapacitated and unable to heal. This usually results from something that has happened, something that has been done to us, a lost opportunity, or lost time. We tend to take out our regrets most on ourselves, torturing our minds with various scenarios on what could have happened, which can have many negative mental and physical health repercussions. Regret feels awful because, by its nature, it makes us think that there was something we could have done or said differently, or some better choice we could have made. It compounds all these swirling emotions with feelings of guilt and shame, further incapacitating our ability to move on and heal. Over time, this can impact our overall wellbeing because the emotional distress that unmanaged regret triggers can dysregulate our hormones and immune system, making them vulnerable to ill-health. Imaging studies show increased activity in several areas of the brain, including the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus, when we experience regret. If we stay in the state of mind, this high activity can become unbalanced and contribute to all kinds of problems in the brain and body. We have to learn how to manage regrets because they are an inescapable part of life. Every day is packed with choices, many of which can go wrong. Even the most “well lived” life is not perfect! Some of the most common regrets we experience are ones relating to education, career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure, which, are all ongoing and organic experiences filled with choices and possible mistakes. These regrets, if managed, can help us learn from our mistakes because they allow us to see possibilities and potential outcomes, which gives us better data for more informed decisions. Dwelling on the past in a healthy way, to learn something about our current and future selves, can help us conceptualize and realize our “ideal self” in the future as well as help with regret in the present by emphasizing our ability to grow and heal. One of the best ways we can learn to manage our regrets and keep ourselves from spiraling is to develop what I call a “possibilities mindset”. Develop what I call a “possibilities mindset” This is a way of thinking that perceives all kinds of probabilities and potentialities in any given situation. It is intrinsically hopeful, and can help us reframe regret as a part of our journey towards a future, better destination. When we embrace a possibilities mindset, we see “could have and would have” scenarios as possibilities that may or may not have happened, which provide enriching information that may be useful for us in the present or future. These regrets become data to enrich our experience as opposed to a battering ram to beat us up. Practice this; don’t allow yourself to see your regrets as failures that define who you are as a person. See them as possibilities that didn’t materialize, which you can still learn from to open up future probabilities. Visualize these scenarios as opportunities where you gained knowledge that will help you in the future. Make this a habit; deliberately and intentionally practice seeing possibilities in every regret you have and writing them down, which will help organize your thinking. I love using tables to do this as I analyze each regret and look for the possibilities that it can lead to in my life. The more you do this, the more you will find yourself applying this mindset in your life. Start with more simple regrets first to build up your resilience to face major regrets you may be holding onto. For more on managing regret, listen to my podcast (episode #596). Podcast Highlights 2:00 Getting out of the regret trap 2:30 Unmanaged regret can be incredibly crippling 4:00 What regret is & how it impacts us 6:30 Regret can affect us mentally & physically 8:00, 17:52 Managing regret Switch On Your Brain LLC. is providing this podcast as a public service. Reference to any specific viewpoint or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by our organization. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact info@drleaf.com. This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

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Signs You Are Too Hard on Yourself

The AHA! Team — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 08:01:11 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #588) and blog, I talk about why being hard on yourself can cause unnecessary stress, and how to manage your self-expectations. This is a replay of a Neurolive webinar I did on my app. For the full webinar AD-free, please see Neurocycle.app look for Neurocycle on the App Store or Google Play. Being too hard on yourself can cause pressure and toxic stress. Of course, not all stress is bad. Stress can be good for you, but when you put pressure on yourself to live up to certain expectations and you don’t, this stress can become toxic, affecting your mental and physical wellbeing. It creates confusion and uses up your energy resources, throwing off your balance, much like putting too much pressure on an object can throw it off balance. Pressure is a force, and if you are going to apply force in any direction, why not apply it in a positive, uplifting direction? Why not turn this pressure into your biggest fan, encouraging your every step? To do this, it is important to recognize the main signs that you are putting too much pressure on yourself, and what to do about them: Sign 1: “I didn’t get x done.” Often, we tend to focus on what we haven’t done instead of what we have accomplished, then get stuck feeling guilty, frustrated, edgy, and like a failure. When you feel yourself falling into this way of thinking, stop and say or write down what you have done. Remind yourself of what you have achieved, and that there will be time to get the rest done tomorrow. Sign 2: “I have to have it all together.” So many of us feel like we must have it all together all the time, but this denies our humanity and the fact that we all make mistakes, mess up and get things wrong at times. When you feel like this, remind yourself that no one has it all together. And try not to compare your life to what others are doing, because the way you think and act, and your experiences, make you completely and utterly unique! You will never be able to be anyone else but you, and you are amazing, even if you are not perfect all the time. No one is! Sign 3: “I must succeed.” It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we must succeed at something or achieve something to be worthy. When you feel like this, remind yourself that you define your own success! There is something you can do that no one else can do. Sign 4: “I cannot make a mistake.” Even though we all make mistakes, it is easy to think that we shouldn’t mess up and that we need to get things right all the time. But it is important to recognize that our failures are often as important as our successes, and teach us important life lessons that help us grow as a person. So, next time you start beating yourself up over a mistake, ask yourself what this experience has taught you and focus on how you have grown. Sign 5: “I let everyone down.” Sometimes, it is easy to feel like we always let people down and like we are just failures. Here, it is important to remind yourself that we all fail at times, that your failures help you grow, and that, at the end of the day, life is unpredictable. We can’t always control everything to make sure things turn out well, because so much of life is out of our control. Also, remind yourself that trying your best is the only way forward, even when it doesn’t work out like planned, because you will learn and grow as a person. Sign 6: “I feel exhausted all the time.” We often take on so much and expect ourselves to do so much that we quickly find ourselves stressed out, overwhelmed and exhausted. If this sounds like you, do a lifestyle check, and ask yourself: Do I take enough breaks to recharge? Do I give my brain and body time to rest and reset? Am I having enough fun? Do I take time to take care of my mental and physical health? See what you can change in your life to give yourself the time you need to rest! This is so important for your mind, brain and body health. Sign 7: “I hardly smile anymore.” It is easy to get into a pattern of living where we are so focused on what needs to get done that we forget how to enjoy life, which can have an impact on our wellbeing. If you find yourself smiling less and forgetting why you are working yourself so hard, take a step back and think of ways to enjoy life again. Watch something funny, spend time with a loved one, or do something that makes you smile again! You can even schedule this into your day so you don’t forget to take the time to enjoy life. Sign 8: “I need to do everything perfect all the time.” If you find yourself emotionally “holding onto” the mistakes you’ve made, noticing more of what you’ve done wrong than what you’ve gotten right, and getting anxious when you do a good-but-not-perfect job, you may have fallen into the perfectionism trap, where you can’t accept your weakeness or anyone else’s. If this sounds like you, take the time to notice when you do this, and remind yourself that there is a difference between wanting to achieve certain things and thinking you need to do everything perfect all the time. Remind yourself that mistakes and learning are part of life, and that you can work hard even if you take breaks and set up self-boundaries. And, when you find yourself thinking about what you got wrong, remind yourself of what you have gotten right too! Sign 9: “I am not good enough.” Take the time to observe and analyze your internal dialogue. How do you speak to yourself? How do you think of yourself? If you are using a lot of negative, pessimistic language to describe yourself, take the time to work on the way you think about yourself. Consciously observe and write down your critical self-talk and how often it’s happening. Then, work on creating reconceptualized statements to counter this way of thinking and change the way you speak to yourself. For example, change “I wish I could be as good as…” to “I will never be able to live up to someone else’s example of success because I am unique and define my own success.” This will take time to become a habit, so make sure to practice it every day! For more on learning how to not be so hard on yourself, listen to my podcast (episode #588). Podcast Highlights 1:48 What happens when we put too much pressure on ourselves 4:35 Signs that you are too hard on yourself & how to change this 7:03 You don’t have to have it all together all the time! 12:00 Mistakes are an important part of learning & growing 17:02 The importance of resting & taking time to recharge 19:11 Why you should take a “lifestyle check” when you feel overwhelmed & exhausted 21:46 Why we should all take the time to smile more! 23:04 How to tell the difference between perfectionism & high achievement This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

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How to Train Your Child to Understand, Process & Verbalize Intense Emotions

AHA Publisher — Wed, 12 May 2021 07:00:13 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #275) and blog, I speak with clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy about rethinking the way we raise our children, the importance of saying sorry to our kids, why it is never too late to fix the mistakes we make as parents, how to explain our own emotions to our children, and so much more! As Dr. Becky wrote in a recent Instagram post, we need to learn how to explain our emotions to our children. On their own,our emotional displays as parents or guardians, do not overwhelm our children. It is okay to have emotions as parents! Every parent has feelings, and our kids see these feelings. This is a good thing, because our children learn from us that emotions are part of being human. Children often feel overwhelmed, anxious and unsafe when our big emotional displays are partnered with the “aloneness” that comes with not having an adult explain or connect with them and let them know how they are feeling. As parents and guardians, we need to own our feelings and assert our permanence. We should do this by saying something like, “Just like we talk about your big feelings, adults have big feelings too. Sometimes I need a bit of time to myself to care for these feelings in my body. In these moments, I’m not leaving you, I’m not mad, and you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m still your strong papa/mama who loves you.” When it comes to our emotions, the most important thing is not what we do in the moment when we break down in front of our kids, but the before and after. We need to prep our children and let them know what we are going through and what we are feeling. As Dr. Becky points out, it is not information that scares children, it is the absence of information that scares them. If we don’t say anything to our children when we are struggling, they assume the world is crumbling around them and often blame themselves to regain a sense of control. The goal as parents is not to not have emotions. Rather, it is about teaching our children about emotions in a healthy and constructive way. When we do this, then the feeling gets stored next to the story in the child’s mind and body, and they start to understand that they are not a bad kid, and it is not their fault that dad is angry or mom is shouting or crying. We turn an unformulated experience into a coherent narrative (which is actually the process underlying therapy!). This helps the child better understand themselves and their environment. We need to remember that our children do what we do, not what we say. We treat others the way we treat ourselves. The more we practice facing and dealing with our own feelings, the more we can model this for our children and help them process their own experiences. This also includes apologizing, no matter how old we are or how grown up our children are. When it comes to apologizing, the “sorry” means less in the moment than your tone and intention. When we pair a sorry with a reflection, then we show our children we have a plan to be better—we repair, not just react. Repair is in fact a marker of secure attachment; as parents you will mess up, and if you can work from this, then that is a healthy sign that your relationship with your children is in a good place. Being a parent doesn’t mean that you can never mess up! Now, you may be feeling like, as a parent, you did everything wrong, especially after listening to this podcast or reading this blog. Remember, these two things are BOTH true: the early years of childhood matter, but it is never too late to help your child heal or change the way you relate to your children. It is never too late to say sorry to yourself and to your children. The inner child is always waiting for repair! We all do the best we can with the resources we have in that moment, but this doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes. We can learn, shift, repair, change and grow—no matter how old we are or how old our children are. We should try do the best we can in the moment AND we should always try to be better. It is also incredibly important that we teach our children from young about consent. As Dr. Becky noted in a recent Instagram post, if we want our kids to be capable of saying NO, STOP IT, I DON’T WANT TO & I DON’T LIKE THAT, we have to build early circuitry that supports self-trust, body sovereignty, and consent. For example, if your child wants to stay by your side at a party, tell them: “I’m here. You can stay by me for as long as you want. You’ll know when you feel ready to join.” When you say something like this, your child learns that they can trust their own pace and sense of readiness—they don’t have to be pressured into doing what they don’t want to do. Or, say your child is playing with a toy and her younger sister starts crying and demands the toy. Tell your older child that “You are allowed to have that toy. Those are your sister’s sad feelings, and I can help her with them. It’s not your job to make her feel happy.” Your older child will learn that they don’t have to suppress their wants to satisfy others. They will learn how to recognize someone else’s disappointment without feeling responsible for causing it or making it go away. When we doubt our kids’ feelings, they learn to doubt their own feelings. Essentially, they learn how to gaslight themselves, which makes it harder for them to validate to their own thoughts, feelings and experiences and say NO when someone pressures them to do or say something that makes them uncomfortable. Indeed, Dr. Becky notes how the attachment patterns we develop when we are kids affect us when we grow up. We SEEK OUT people who allow our most-practiced circuits to kick into gear. For example, if a child grows up in a home with constant emotional invalidation, with words like “dramatic” and “too sensitive” and “disproportionate reactions”, years later, they will be naturally attracted to adults who confirm the same stories. The body seeks what it is accustomed to. These are like parts of us that get frozen in time. Teaching our kids to look in and trust what is happening to them is critical to their confidence and ability to take care of their own needs. Children should be taught about self-care from youth, not just when they are entering into adulthood. We should tell our children that they are the only one in their body— they are the only one who knows how they feel and what is right for them. We need to validate their unique experiences and feelings and let them know that they can express these feelings and trust themselves. We need to let them know that they have sovereignty over their own body. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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