Turning Obstacles into Opportunity as Pennebaker Did

Dealing with grief, anger, or sadness does not come easy to anyone. James Pennebaker, an accomplished professor at the University of Texas came up with a way to deal with anger by writing it down.  His research inspired me when  found that people who wrote out their worries tended to cope better. There are so many ways to handle anger that I have tried lately.  Anger is the fire that burns us to make us shine through adversity.  It is like the fire in a kiln.  We can put the glaze of experience on our pot of life, but until we are put through the fire of life we do not shine.  It is that going forth and coming back again that makes us look all shiny and new again just like my daughter when she comes out of her fever. Her fever always makes her looks all toasty shiny and new again. 

If everyone could cope with anger naturally as we rid germs with fevers, the world would be better. I believe our anger is part of life, just as germs are.  There are people, things, and experiences that draw forth anger.  They are inevitable.  It is how we deal with this anger that matters.  Having the space between the feeling we feel, and the action we do, to cope with  feelings allow us to pick the best strategy to move forward in our lives and come out the other end of the adversity tunnel shiny and new again.

Often when life is in disarray we may feel confused and angry.  In cases like these we need clarity.  Pour a glass of water and sit and meditate for three to five days next to the water giving it our intention for clarity.  After we sit for a time of 10 minutes or more pour the water out into the ground.

When we are clear we may still be angry at the situation.  Then it is time to fight fire with fire.  Wake before all others in your household.  Get a sheet of paper.  Write all the things you are angry about on that paper.  Then, crumple up the paper and light it on fire outside.  Make sure it is in a metal or ceramic bowl that is not important to you.  After writing for a week you will feel less angry.  The ashes will still be there.  Bury them in a place that brings you peace.

After this is done go on a walk and breathe deeply for seven days.  Breathe in for ten counts and then exhale for ten counts.  Then stop for a second and think to yourself “I accept my life as it is and wish to live my life to its fullest.”  Allow positive new thoughts in and allow the painful sad thoughts to be.  The object of this exercise is not to get rid of unhappiness.  The idea is to allow the reality of the issue to set into your life.  

Acknowledging Feelings and Emotional Agility

Children experience grief but lack the coping skills to guide them through these difficult moments. Susan David Ph.D. the visionary behind Emotional Agility. says "When we show up fully, with awareness and acceptance, even the worst demons back down. Simply by facing up to the scary things and giving them a name, we oftewn strip them of their power." This is the core of what my Emotatude series is about.  My Emotatude series strives to give our feelings names and even paint pictures of what they look like.  I have done this to help my family and ultimately myself cope.  We really can't control how many emotional experiences we will have.  We can control how we will deal with them.  Do we hold things in?  Do we go over them in our mind over and over again? Or, do we accept situations and embrace them with all our being.  That is what Susan David calls "showing up." This is what I am working on personally, and what my books are trying to work on too. Right now I am working on my sixth book Gregory Deals with Grief. I hope that it will be as enlightening as Crandle's Conniptions, The Secret of Warm Fuzzies, How to be Heebie Jeebie Free, and What to do When you Get the Bejeebers Scared Out of You. I revere Susan for her deep research in these matters that I am savoring chapter by chapter.  They feed my spirit and give me new direction in my writing.

Motivation and Values Can Match Your Way Forward Through Emotional Agility

The book Emotional Agility by Susan David is an awesome read for parents. She cuts through our frenetic world and really gets into the inborn jungle inside of us where it is really easy to get lost in our powerful emotions.  She takes the whole idea of 'getting out of your own way' to a new level of understanding. 

Her ideas hit home as she points out that a person with emotional agility can be in the moment and behave in ways that match what they want and what they believe in.  When I think about the countless times in my life I have reacted to events in my life because of my emotions, I settle to think how things might have gone differently if I had acted out of a sense of my core values and desires.

Her work motivates me to continue to make new discoveries about my series of 'Emotatude' books where the main character Dr. Kich a famous ‘Emotatude’ doctor helps children understand their emotions. This character explores feelings as concrete beings that lie deep inside all of us. He has provided an invaluable service to children and adults everywhere who struggle with ways to explain just how they feel and what they are feeling.

When I think about Crandle the latest character in book 5 who experienced conniption fits, I hope that the window into his fictional world will help real children act out of a sense of their core values and desires as Crandle has.  I invite any readers with ideas for new Emotatudes to contact me at Karenwporter.com to let me know how we can explore new worlds where emotions are there for us in their native raw state, not needing to be conquered, but understood.

Emotional Agility

Just when I thought I was really "in touch" emotionally,  I have been awakened to the idea that there is more for me to discover about emotion.  I took the free quiz Susan David has provided to promote her new book, Emotional Agility.   I now realize I want to train myself to come to my inner world -  thoughts, emotions, experiences and self-stories - with courage, compassion and curiosity. So often I let my emotions get in my way.  This book looks like it will give us insight into how to learn from our emotions.  This is my mantra in writing my Emotatude series.  I want to be so skilled at feeling that I will be able to spring back from any emotional devastation I feel and evaluate the situations I face with a clear mind.  I want to always be able to move forward with values and purpose. This book " a critical skillset that helps you make real changes in your life, both
at work and at home." It has a four-part process to help you make these changes that are
"organized into those four parts: Showing Up, Stepping Out, Walking Your Why, and Moving On."
 I am going to give it a try and let you know how it goes.  Perhaps I will have tips for coping with our Bejeebers, Heebiejeebies, Conniptions, Cases of Grief and more.

Emotional Agility

Just when I thought I was really "in touch" emotionally,  I have been awakened to the idea that there is more for me to discover about emotion.  I took the free quiz Susan David has provided to promote her new book, Emotional Agility.   I now realize I want to train myself to come to my inner world -  thoughts, emotions, experiences and self-stories - with courage, compassion and curiosity. So often I let my emotions get in my way.  This book looks like it will give us insight into how to learn from our emotions.  This is my mantra in writing my Emotatude series.  I want to be so skilled at feeling that I will be able to spring back from any emotional devastation I feel and evaluate the situations I face with a clear mind.  I want to always be able to move forward with values and purpose. This book " a critical skillset that helps you make real changes in your life, both
at work and at home." It has a four-part process to help you make these changes that are
"organized into those four parts: Showing Up, Stepping Out, Walking Your Why, and Moving On."
 I am going to give it a try and let you know how it goes.  Perhaps I will have tips for coping with our Bejeebers, Heebiejeebies, Conniptions, Cases of Grief and more.

Crazy Cranky Crandle Could Quit His Conniptions!

Poor Crandle got himself expelled from school because he was not capable of self regulation.  He was incapable of managing his impulse control as well as his distressing feelings.  It is hard to work on our emotional centers at the same time as our brain is telling us to fight or flee.  We need to practice how to have:

1. Self- Control: so we can manage emotions that disrupt normal behavior.

2. Trustworthiness: so we can be honest

3, Conscientiousness : So others can depend on us

4. Adaptability: So we can function in many different types of situations

5. Innovation: So we can be open to new situations


Read my book about Crandle's Conniptions and you will begin to think about what he could have done to prevent himself from acting out the way he did.  Cranky Crandle's Crazy Conniptions: How to Deal with Conniption Fits  shows us what can happen if you are not in control of your feelings.  Daniel Goleman's book Working with Emotional Intelligence gives parents some insight and strategies for controlling your emotions.

Please visit
https://www.amazon.com/Cranky-Crandles-Crazy-Conniptions-Conniption/dp/1532871341/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474038599&sr=1-1&keywords=Crandle

If you would like to buy my latest Emotatude Book.

Why We Feel the Science of Human Emotions

    There are six or seven main theraputic approaches to dealing with feelings that I have found in the literature so far. Why We Feel the Science of Human Emotions written byVictor S. Johnston clearly explains the theory that there is an evolutionary function of feeling and emotion in everything we do. His scientific approach gives us much food for thought.  Johnston postulates that feelings are key in the neuroscience of the brain.  He shows the biological link with a darwinian approach.  This provides important insights into the feelings that make us human.

     If we velieve that emotions are part of our biology, this book's premise works well for his idea that our predesigned dna make up creates a grand illusion for us to operate in the world.  He goes so far as to define attractive facial characteristics that encourage us to mate.  I find it cold and calculating, and I think there is more to the furtherance of the human race than the biology we inherit to create the way we experience the world. Perhaps our consciousness and emotions might even exist independent from our human body. I believe there is a spiritual aspect of feeling that is connected to our being on a solular level.  Designing a paradigm where we emote as a stimulus/response mechanism is very simplistic as complicated as he has made it seem.

  "So the questions remain: how does lifeless matter organize itself into a feeling? How do thoughts trigger emotions? How does external stimulation and its influence on our internal brain produce sensations like color, hearing taste, etc.? Can one eventually design a computer to simulate feelings to the point of actually feeling them? Other than imitation of our own feelings, how can we scientifically tell whether another human (or a computer) actually feels a sensation?

Although I hoped this book would answer these questions, Professor Johnston admits that we do not yet understand the mechanism of feelings (drat!). However, he does illuminate many of the reasons of why we feel based on an evolutionary approach (after all the title of the book addresses "why," not "how"). Johnston utilizes the results of brain research and describes the physiology of the limbic system (the feeling part of the brain), which appears consistent with a precursor to consciousness before higher thinking systems evolved in humans." (Jim Walker, Amazon Reviewer)