Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

You know how, once you’ve noticed something, like a new book, a car you want to buy, or have just purchased, a song you like that you’ve never heard before…that you start seeing that particular thing all over the place? It’s because you’ve put your attention there. I attended a fun class with one of my martial arts teachers, Koré Grate, this past week, at the fabulous Hand To Hand Self Defense Center, and she spoke of intention and perception. “Perception changes everything:the ‘Qi’ follows the mind.” This is often an enormously difficult lesson to learn, even though it really very simple. I practice learning this everyday. Below is another great posting from Care2. ~ JB

And what would you say if I told you that all of these skills and abilities come directly from your emotions?

The Genius Inside Your Emotions
All of the skills and abilities you need to create a wonderful life and functioning relationships are waiting inside you. They’re your emotions, and if you learn their language, you’ll have all the energy, intelligence, intuition, empathy, integrity, and strength of character you need to create a healthy life for yourself, your loved ones, your colleagues, and the world.

Of course, this goes against much of the training we’ve had about emotions! For instance, many of us have heard that emotions are negative and irrational. We’ve heard that we need to distance ourselves from emotions and observe them impassively. We’ve heard people say “Stop being emotional!” And we’ve all heard that emotions such as anger, depression, and fear can only hurt us.

And I’m telling you, we’ve heard wrong. Which is sad, because this misinformation is stopping us from living our lives well and fully. Here’s why: Great poets and artists have always drawn inspiration from the emotions, but now, neuroscience is showing us that our emotions are a vital part of our intelligence and our capacity to make good decisions and relate to each other skillfully. In this blog, we’ll explore the science and the poetry of emotions.

Welcoming Empathy: Your Natural Emotional Genius
I’m an empath, which means that I’m aware that I read emotions. Luckily, you’re an empath, too. Empathy is a natural human behavior, and it’s present in primates and other animals. Empathy gives us the ability to understand ourselves and the social world; it’s a vital form of intelligence. Empathy helps us read body language, gestures, undercurrents, and nuance, and it helps us hear the words that aren’t spoken. Empathy helps us understand the subtle art of relationships, such as when to confront people and when to leave them be. It also helps us know who our friends are, and who can be trusted.

In my work, I focus my empathy not just on people and animals, but on the emotions themselves. By listening to and studying the emotions empathically, I’ve been able to understand what emotions do, what messages they bring, and what they have to teach us. In my new book The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You, I share these empathic skills to help you access the gifts your emotions bring you.

For instance, we’ve all learned that anger is a “negative” emotion that creates trouble the world over. Sadly, that’s only true when you work with your anger inappropriately, because anger is the emotion that helps you set boundaries, create a strong self-image, and take your rightful place in your relationships and the world. When you can work with your anger empathically, you can use its gifts and skills to create a healthy and stable persona.

If you ignore or repress your anger, you’ll have a heck of a time setting boundaries, standing your ground, speaking up for yourself, and understanding your needs. However, if you go the other way and express your anger all over the place, your boundaries will be harsh and intimidating. Instead of taking your rightful place in the world, you’ll stomp on the rights of everyone around you (we’ve all known people who were so pushy that we gave up our position or our point of view just to avoid their tiresome bullying).

So the empathic approach to anger is not to transcend it, nor suppress it, nor express it all over people. Instead, the empathic approach helps you turn toward anger (and all of your emotions) and discover the gifts and the skills it brings you. That’s genius!

I look forward to sharing the genius of emotions with you in this excellent Care2 community. See you next Saturday!

By Veronica Peterson, Editor, Healthy & Green Living

What would Valentine’s Day be without an opportunity to mention the three-letter word that gets everyone so riled up? Yes, you guessed it–I’m talking about at a little S-E-X. So, let’s chat, shall we? Beyond being just one-heck-of-good-time, medical studies report that an active sex life contributes to a longer and more fulfilling life. So come on, everybody’s doing it (or at least the lucky ones), and here are five reasons for you to join in:

1. Sex boosts your immune system. “Honey, I have a headache,” may now be the best reason to have sex! A startling number of physicians are now recognizing how sexual and emotional health affect our entire well being. In other words, how our brain directly impacts our immune system. “We know that people who enjoy a regular, satisfying sex life (i.e. regular orgasms) are less stressed, less depressed and generally more well physically, mentally and emotionally,” says Wendy Strgar, loveologist and CEO of Good Clean Love. In a recent article, Dr. Paul Pearsall, director of Behavioral Medicine at Detroit’s Beaumont Hospital, concludes that many of his patients had experienced sexual dissatisfaction prior to a heart attack. He also claims that sexual contentment leads to less severe headaches and reduced discomfort from arthritis in both genders.

2. Sex burns calories. Oh yeah, forget those fad diets and get busy gettin’ busy. A mere 30-minutes of sex burns 90 calories and while that may not sound impressive, at an average of three times a week, you’re burning 5 pounds in a year! Or, according to Forbes magazine, having sex just twice a week for a year will burn off the equivalent of seven huge spaghetti dinners. Seconds, anyone?

3. Sex relieves pain. Orgasm is one serious narcotic! Oxytocin, a naturally occurring chemical in the body surges during and after climax while working in conjunction with a few other endorphins to make sure you feel no pain. In his book, How to Treat Arthritis, rheumatologist Carter V. Multz asserts that sex can reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation associated with arthritis, headaches and menstrual cramps.

4. Sex decreases aging. “Use it or lose it” has never been more applicable. Regular sex releases a plethora of “happy” chemicals into your bloodstream, including testosterone. As we age, our testosterone levels decrease. Sex is a wonderful way to build your reserves back up, helping build new bones and muscles while putting a youthful glow on your face. According to a study by Dr. David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland and co-author of Superyoung, men and women who reported having sex an average of four times per week looked approximately 10 years younger than they really were.

5. Sex is great for depression. “The release from orgasm does much to calm people. It helps with sleep, and that is whether we talk about solo sex or sex with a partner,” says Jennifer Bass, the head of information services at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Ind., in a recent MSNBC article. Researchers believe that sex helps the brain produce serotonin which, in turn, prompts new neurons to grow. Most chemical, antidepressant medications, like Zoloft, work to increase serotonin levels. These drugs take three to four weeks to begin working–about the same amount of time required for new neurons to form. One reason these drugs could be an effective treatment is because they increase cell growth–just as sex does.