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Helpful Tips for Effective Journaling
Tips!
There is a saying in the personal growth movement, "to name is to tame." When you can name the feeling and correctly identify it, you will be able to better work through it. When it comes to human emotions this is critical because many times, your emotions are repressed and buried deep below the surface of conscious awareness.. Painful memories from trauma are often encoded in the brain via the sensory-affective pathways of the brain, which travel through the amygdala - center of emotions. Many people ask, "are emotions stored in memory?" The answer is an unequivocal yes. The trick is to identify the different types of memory that we are capable of. For simplification purposes, I have defined the following types:
Most of us are unaware of repressing emotions. As such, many painful memories, especially from early childhood are stored in unconscious memory and body memory. What does this mean? It means that unresolved or painful emotions can affect us on a physical level, without our ever being aware of it. These emotions, when they cannot be expressed through conscious awareness, stay buried in the very cellular structure of our body and cause significant strain on the proper functioning of mind and body. How do we resolve such painful emotions? One critical way is to bring our unconscious and painful memories into conscious awareness. But how can we do that if we are unaware that they exist? The answer lies in body memory. When you can start to see the symptoms and signs of physical illness as a barometer for stress in the system, then you can begin to work on finding these unresolved and unconscious memories. Repressed memories leave clues in our body, our psyche and our physical and emotional responses to events. For example, patients with recurrent headache, fatigue, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and other functional disorders, must learn to use their physical symptoms or exacerbations of their illness as a barometer for stress. How do you do this? When you are suffering from symptoms, take time to do an "inventory" of stress in your physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual life. Run through each system and ask yourself if you are feeling any difficulties in such an area. For example in the physical realm: have you been getting enough sleep, taking time to eat nourishing foods, exercising? In the mental realm: have you been having disturbing or irrational thoughts about things? Have you been feeling mentally stressed from too much work, too little relaxation, trying to achieve too much, trying to fix too much? In the emotional realm, are you feeling anxious, under appreciated, nervous or depressed? Are you getting your needs met? Do you feel loved and cared for? Are you emotionally overextended trying to take care of everyone else but yourself? In the social realm: have you been experiencing loneliness or isolating yourself? Do you feel connected with others or do you feel abandoned and invisible? Do you have nurturing relationships with others where your needs are listened to and understood? In the spiritual realm: do you feel connected to a higher power and a higher purpose in life? Do you feel you belong? Do you sense something greater than yourself in all that you do? Do you feel loved and capable of loving others? Do you feel a sense of meaning in your life? A sense of accomplishment and contribution? By answering these questions, you will be able to uncover any repressed emotions that may be leading you to feel stressed. A List of Basic Human EmotionsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.The basic eight emotions are:
According to Book Two of Aristotle's RhetoricThe emotions are:
The artificial language LojbanIt has interjections expressing degrees of these emotions:
Complete list of emotions
Intensity of emotionsEmotions could be arranged according to intensity. In each pair below, for example, the former emotion is less intense than the latter.
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To get the most benefit possible from journaling,
it is useful to have a list of basic human emotions nearby. May times,
the very ability to accurately label what you are feeling, will help you to heal
that emotion or better understand it.