Mainstream thought has traditionally believed that happiness is hardwired. Consequently, throughout one’s life whether gaining a job or losing one, getting married or divorced, there are those who will view these circumstances more optimistically while others will take a more glass half empty view. This is known as your happiness set point. This perspective may appear to work well for those who land in the glass half full category but what about the glass half empties? Can they change their happiness set point? Are they destined to always see the less than optimal side of things?

Neural Plasticity Leads to Happiness

Recent breakthroughs in neural plasticity reverse the long standing certainty in a happiness set point. Consequently, your levels of happiness and optimism are not based solely on your genes. Happiness is a muscle you can develop with practice and conditioning in fundamental areas of life. Comparing happiness levels to muscle development is a paradigm shift for many people. If you want to learn a new language, improve your tennis serve or build bigger biceps it is universally accepted that you have to practice these new skills. Emotional well-being training however is one area that seems to have been left out of this universal understanding. The primary factor in raising your happiness level is taking action through daily training and conditioning of specific characteristics.

Happiness is More Than an Emotion

What are the specific areas of training that have been shown to increase happiness levels? Something important to consider is that happiness is not just an emotion. People who are happy have identifiable life characteristics that lead to seeing the glass half full. On this level, happiness is more of an effect or a result of identifiable elements. These characteristics are aspects of life and personal development that anyone can develop with focus, practice and conditioning. Here are the top four life characteristics that lead to happiness.

1. Purpose in life

2. Self acceptance

3. Strong social relationships

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

In a previous post titled, Emotional Presence we covered the first step to master your emotions; Presence. Emotional Awareness is your second step to master your emotions. Emotional awareness and emotional presence go hand in hand. The more present you are, the more aware you are of your moment-to-moment mental, emotional and physical state. This subtle awareness allows you to make quality decisions that are based on your emotional intelligence and creative reasoning. Emotional awareness reflects not only your ability to recognize and understand your emotions in the moment but also your ability to understand your patterns of responding emotionally across situations. Emotional awareness is the window into transforming your skills of healthy emotional expression. Most people will do just about anything to avoid looking at their emotions. Suppression, denial and projection are common ways to avoid dealing with emotions and consequently represent low emotional intelligence.

Healthy Emotional Expression

In order to master your emotions you have to be willing to dive into the abyss and explore your emotional terrain. Healthy emotional expression calls on you to take an objective look at a situation and how you are feeling about it.

1. Make a commitment to develop your emotional awareness everyday.

2. At least three times per day practice the Presence Exercise (outlined in the Emotional Presence post)

3. Then ask yourself, How am I feeling? If you are unsure consider if you are mad, sad, glad, happy, afraid or some  variation of these primary emotions.

3. Notice where you feel this feeling in your physical body.

4. Identify any thoughts you are having regarding these feelings.

5. Identify the current situation you are experiencing related to these feelings.

Now that you are present and aware you are ready for the next step; develop your emotional expression skills by releasing and letting go of your feelings.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Victor Frankl is known for losing his entire family during the holocaust and his remarkable journey of survival in the concentration camps. He invented Logo-Therapy from these experiences rooted in the power of your attitude to determine your experiences in life. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. This is not unlike the heroic stories from Nelson Mandela, Desumd Tutu and countless others. An attitude rooted in love vs. fear powerfully enables you to transform challenges into opportunities.

Love vs. Fear

Love is said to be the ultimate healer and the most powerful results generator. In its very nature, love is an expanding energy. It connects you with others, draws you closer and helps you see the big picture. Love causes muscles to relax, vitality to increase and blood pressure to decrease. When you are aligned with love, your life experiences are viewed from the filter of possibility, change, opportunity, trust and hope. Love leads to acceptance vs. resistance and enables you to move forward vs. feeling stuck in the past. Many great teachers have suggested that love is the opposite of fear. It is said that one person aligned with love and appreciation is more powerful than thousands who are in fear. Perhaps this is why Martin Luther King Jr., Victor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Mother Teresa are our most revered icons of social justice and change. They exemplified the motto Lead with Your Heart.

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

It is your inner light that will outshine the darkness and conquer fear. When you enter a room there is no dark switch. There is only a light switch said in another way, there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Responding to fear with fear only perpetuates resistance. Fear constricts your energy flow thereby causing muscle tension, fatigue, shallow breathing and sleeplessness. Fear often stems from feeling a sense of not being in control or feeling powerless. When you align with fear, your life experiences are viewed through the filter of worry, doubt, overwhelm, protection and narrow mindedness. Fear leads to pulling in the reigns of control through criticism and defensiveness propagating the very energy you may judge in others.

Lead with Your Heart

When you realize that there are really only two responses in any given moment, love vs. fear, you can’t help but realize there is an obvious choice to aspire towards. One offers freedom and the other bondage. If you want to transform challenges into opportunities we suggest choosing to lead with your heart.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Shift out of the neural hijacking of the emotional brain with diaphragmatic breathing.

• Breathe so that when you inhale you feel your abdomen rise and when you exhale feel your abdomen gently contract. This is called diaphragmatic breathing. Allow this to be the rhythm of your breath.
• Feel the complete and total support of the surface on which you rest. Should your mind begin to wander at any time, simply note that your mind has wandered and gently and firmly guide your awareness back to the sensations of your in-breath and out-breath. Thoughts come and go. They flow and they change. Simply note them when they arise and come back to the rhythm of your breath.
• Don’t worry if this feels new. It may take some practice for your body to adjust to this breath pattern. This is the most natural breath for your body. Allow yourself to find the effortless rhythm of your breath. Your body is aware that it is rejuvenating and being replenished with every in-breath and out-breath. How you breathe has everything to do with how you live. If you are not relaxed you cannot readily get out of the neural hijacking of your emotional brain. Consequently, you cannot easily get in touch with the power of your emotional intelligence.

Emotional Movement

Move your emotional energy by focusing on the area of your body that is currently holding your emotions.
Where do you feel your emotions in your body? You may notice sensations such as warmth, pressure, tingling, tightness, etc in one or more areas of your body.
Notice what you feel. Label your emotion while you breathe consciously and deeply in and out of this area for 5 full deep breaths. Consciously release this emotional energy on the exhale.
Do your best to stay out the story of why you feel the way you do and focus instead on releasing your feelings through your exhale. When you allow yourself to feel you move your emotional energy. Through emotional movement, you are working with the purpose of emotions. When you move this energy you disengage from the neural hijacking of your emotional brain. It is not effective to try and think your way through the feeling process. The more you practice this Emotional Movement Technique the more you strengthen your EQ.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Relationship FACT: Love is a conscious choice. In fact, love is a verb and it implies action. Being attracted to someone is also a choice. Given that love alters your brain chemistry, we can understand how it may not feel as though love is a conscious choice. But trust us, if you want to create a thriving and passionate relationship with conscious communication, consider that love is a conscious choice you make in the present moment.

Research shows that your brain chemistry is altered for up to 18 months after meeting someone that you develop strong feelings for. This love drug brain chemistry alteration leads to all of the amazing feelings you experienced in the beginning of a relationship: constantly thinking about each other, the desire to be together all of the time, high sex drive and feeling that he/she can do no wrong in your eyes. Well, what happens after 18 months when the love drug wears off?

Intimacy and Trust

This is where many couples begin to bewilderingly wonder WHAT HAPPENED? They believe the other person changed or they just fell out of love. All that happened is your brain chemistry returned to normal.

• You are finally able to focus on your work again or maybe actually make it to work.
• You are able to get to bed at a decent time or get out of bed in the morning.
• You can think about something else, anything else but your partner.
• Life has more balance and you are able to take your love to a whole new level.

Your Shadow

This is where true intimacy and trust are fostered and where conscious communication counts most. It is also where more conflicts begin to ensue as you feel safe enough to reveal new parts of yourself that your partner hasn’t seen. You have established a degree of intimacy and trust and now you begin to show what is lovingly called your shadow. Know that this is to be expected and presents the opportunity for applying conscious communication.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

The first step in emotional authenticity is emotional presence because the present moment is the only place you have real power to shift your state. Much stress and emotional upset is caused by lamenting over the past and worrying about the future. Often what occurs when people slow down and become present is they begin to notice how they really feel. Perhaps this is one reason there is so much busyness in the world today. People seem to always have something to do or somewhere to be. They are constantly talking about feeling behind with too many things to accomplish in a day and no time for relaxation.

Power of the present moment

As you get present and allow yourself to actually feel, you release the resistance and feel the relief and power of the present moment. It is as if you release the beach ball (your emotions) you were holding underwater for the past several weeks or years and allow your body, mind and spirit to relax.

Practice this simple Presence Exercise several times throughout the day to bring your attention to the power of the present moment and allow emotional authenticity.

Presence Exercise

Look - notice what your environment looks like, pay attention to subtle details.
Listen - notice the sounds in your environment, notice the sound of your breath.
Feel - notice your body, feel your breathing, become aware of any physical sensations.
Breathe - sink your awareness into your breath. Notice the sensations in your body as you breathe. Feel your in-breath and your out-breath. Your breath is always with you and thus serves as a perfect grounding resource. It is calming, soothing and connecting. Breathe so that you maximize your oxygen intake and relaxation potential by breathing deep into your abdomen on your inhale. Watch your abdomen rise and fall as you breathe.

After this simple presence exercise you may notice feeling more centered, calm and aware!

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Emotions give texture, color and meaning to life. Emotions transform life from an objective series of events into a living breathing experience. To experience the full range of emotions, to cry, laugh, or feel happy infuses our existence with meaning and value.

Energy in Motion

The word emotion is derived from the Greek word ‘emotere’ which is translated to mean energy in motion.’ In itself, emotional energy is neutral. It is simply the experience of energy moving throughout your body. Emotions serve however, as the carrier waves for the entire spectrum of feelings. It is the feeling sensation, the physiological reaction and the meaning you assign it that make a specific emotion positive or negative. Feeling is what we label as impatience, worry, anger, sadness, fear or joy.

Move your Emotion

Moving your emotional energy through your experience of body sensations is a powerful emotional expression tool. Notice when you feel stressed or upset where in your body this emotion is revealing itself through physical sensations. You may feel tight, tense, hot, cold, pressure or a host of other sensations. These are indicators of your emotion attempting to move itself (energy in motion). Learning the skills to move your emotional energy is often freeing and life changing.

When emotions are expressed in a healthy manner, they feel healthy. It is only when you avoid, suppress, or displace emotions that they become unhealthy. The full range of emotion serves to enrich, enliven and embue all aspects of life with meaning when they are expressed as energy in motion.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Written by Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kim Ward Ph.D.

Neural Hijacking

In the past it was believed that information from your senses was analyzed by the thinking brain (cortex) first. Now with new scientific findings we know your perceptions, go directly to the emotional brain (amygdala) without passing through the thinking, decision-making brain first.

Daniel Goleman in his research and book on emotional intelligence sheds great light on this subject. He describes chronic stress and the subsequent feelings of loss of control and hopelessness as a ‘neural hijacking in which the emotional brain triggers emotional reactions before the thinking brain has any chance to pick up a signal or evaluate it.

For example, imagine you have been working overtime for three weeks in a row. You just received a call from your sons school to come in for an urgent parent teacher conference to discuss his failing grades. In that moment, your emotional brain is causing a cascade of reactions and adaptations on hormonal, chemical, cellular and energetic levels impacting physical and psychological well-being. This occurs before you ever have a chance to logically evaluate the situation.

Emotions Have More Neural Power

Not only does the emotional brain respond first to your perceptions but research also demonstrates there are more neural pathways connecting the emotional brain to the thinking brain than the thinking brain has to the emotional brain.

Thus, it is not as effective to use your thoughts to quell your emotions. Maybe by telling yourself to ‘relax and wait and see what happens’ you will be able to suppress them for a while at best. Given the degree of chronic perceived stress in our society, it is as if the emotional brain is stuck on survival mode flooding your thinking brain with fears, worries, and pressures. It is no surprise that anxiety disorders equate over half of mental health issues and 70% of doctor visits.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Written by Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D.

Do you ever feel like you are riding an emotional roller coaster? Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down.

When things are going well the skies are blue, the sun is shining and you feel great but when things aren’t going your way, the storm of emotions blow in.

We call this ’conditional management of your emotions.’ Anytime you place your power in the hands of external conditions and events to determine how you feel, you intensify your emotional roller coaster ride and increase stress. 

How skillfully do you deal with your emotions?

• I distract myself so that I don’t have to deal with my feelings.
• I often worry or get anxious about the future.
• If I am upset I can’t get past it for hours.
• I feel as though stress is always present in my life.
• I have many unresolved feelings about my past that I am not sure how to deal with.
• I am uncomfortable with others’ emotions such as anger or grief.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not alone. Many people do their best to deal with lingering feelings such as impatience, anger, worry or hurt without lasting success. Then someone comes along and tells you ‘to just let it go’ and you feel like you must have missed that class in school or it’s just not possible for you to get past it. 

Perhaps it is a relief for you to know that all of us missed that class in school or work or at home because there wasn’t one. At least there wasn’t one that encouraged or modeled healthy emotional expression with step-by-step instructions for how to understand your feelings, how to actually feel them and how to use them to make healthy choices.

Yes, all of this is possible through learning a few skills for healthy emotional exploration and expression.

This post is the first in a series on how to master your emotions. In this series we will explain why your good intentions of ‘thinking’ positively and ‘just letting it go’ may not have brought you lasting results.

We will help you understand why the same upset feelings regarding an issue continue to surface month after month or year after year.  We will explore the neuroscience of emotions and what you can do to get some relief and express your emotions in a healthy way. 

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Written by Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D.