Emotions and Feelings 101 (and maybe 102)

Emotions, feelings, moods, all the same thing.  Right?  Not at all.  And understanding our feelings is so foundational to understanding ourselves and being able to heal in therapy I thought it would be helpful to put together this quick guide to share with clients to help you gain more understanding of your own human system.  There’s much more detail to all of this, but hopefully, this guide will help get the gist of what is happening inside you.

 

Our brains have evolved over thousands of years.  Some parts of our brains we share with reptiles, some with other mammals, and some are unique to humans alone.  Generally speaking, the lower parts of our brain are the most basic and most similar to reptiles.  As you move upward, your brain gets more sophisticated.  The lower parts of our brains are designed to keep us alive.  The upper parts help us connect with others, communicate, understand, and make meaning of life.  These are the parts that make us different from other animals.  But we also need to understand how the lower parts of our brain affect us too!

From: http://erikmessamore.com/what-is-emotion-regulation-and-how-do-we-do-it/

 

Emotionally speaking, the lower parts of our brain are responsible for instinctual survival functions in the face of a threat.  These are all actions that usually happen without our consciousness involved because the impulsive instinctual brain is faster than our cognitive brain.

 

Fight – get stronger and attack the threat

Flight – get away from the threat

Freeze – don’t move, play dead, so hopefully, the threat will go away

Fawn – act pleasing, innocent, harmless, and endearing so the threat doesn’t see you as a threat to avoid the conflict


Where our lower brains are not so smart is that in modern-day, the threat isn’t usually a tiger or assailant but could be a look from someone, a social media post, a raised voice from a friend or family member, an insult, or any number of things that raise our hackles in big or small ways.  Our brains sometimes respond in one of the above survival ways when our survival isn’t being threatened at all, especially if we have had past exposure to traumatic events.  

 

These four survival emotions get a little more sophisticated as we move to the mid-brain and with a little more awareness, they get shaped into the basic emotions that all humans in all cultures experience.  These emotions exist to help us relate to other people.  Different researchers have categorized them differently, but I like to use the five basic emotions that mostly rhyme to help people remember them.  MAD, SAD, AFRAD (afraid), GLAD, SHAME/GUILT.  Shame and guilt feel similar, but are two different things. Shame means I’m bad (unhealthy), guilt means I did something bad (healthy) to help us have remorse and repair.  

 

Notice most of these are what most people call “negative” feelings and only one is “positive.”  I think we evolved like this for a reason, to help us avoid doing things that cause us or people we care about harm.  But unfortunately, it leads to a negativity bias in our brains and a positivity bias in our external relationships trying to balance out the scales.  In reality, we need all of these feelings so there is no such thing as a positive or negative feeling.  They are all helpful information to help us understand our inner and external worlds.

 

If you can get a solid grasp of being able to feel and identify when you are feeling the 5 basic emotions, you have most of what you need to be an emotionally intelligent human being.  Being able to communicate emotions with others helps us to relate and connect with others, to understand and be understood, and to be able to give and receive support.  I consider this to be a foundational human skill.  As our relationships get more complex and we get better at communicating, we have need for more precise emotional words, so psychologists have invented various versions of the emotion wheel to show how these basic emotions get more nuanced.  

 

Some of these feelings can overlap, and we can feel multiple emotions at the same time.  So don’t misunderstand the wheel to be the ultimate truth.  See if you can find your own language for your own expression of your emotions.

Emotion Wheel

From: https://practicalpie.com/the-emotion-wheel/

 

As you can see, our feelings can go from quite simplistic and primal survival to emotions of relating to quite complex and nuanced.  That’s why it’s important to distinguish between emotions and feelings.  Emotions can sometimes feel big and overwhelming.  Almost as if the emotions have us more than we have them.  Feeling overwhelmed by emotion often comes from little awareness and understanding of emotions and triggers for them.  As we gain more awareness and skill, we can be a person having our emotions rather than our emotions having us.  This increase in awareness and distance from the raw intensity of emotion combined with thoughts turns them into feelings.  Feelings are very important information.  They help us make decisions about what is right for us and what we need to stay away from and can lead us to conscious action and/or communication.  

 

When we are consumed with emotion, we often don’t have access to critical thinking or discernment that is available when we are feeling.  Sometimes we even act out of an emotion, such as yelling at someone (anger/fight) or distancing ourselves or avoiding something (fear/flight) or going numb (fear/freeze).  This usually happens with little consciousness or choice.  So we are acting out an emotion (doing) rather than feeling and communicating about a feeling which is usually more helpful.

 

The more consciousness we bring to ourselves, the more choice we have to understand and act appropriately.  And we can often increase the time between the stimulus that causes the emotion and the response (impulsively or consciously) to act in a more appropriate way.  Without awareness, we respond impulsively or emotionally, which might cause more harm than good.  

 

Here’s a chart I made to visualize the process I’m talking about.  

As you can see, doing, feeling, and thinking follows the evolution of the brain.  Reptiles do without awareness or feeling.  Mammals have the ability to feel and relate to others but may not have words and thoughts like humans. Humans have all of the above with the addition of complex language and cognitive abilities.  One function isn’t necessarily better than another; we need them all.  Thinking can help us make sense of and respond more effectively to our emotions and feelings.  But when used to excess without connection to feeling or emotion or action, thinking can also disconnect us from ourselves, our life, and others.  So thinking, too has to be used and responded to appropriately, just like emotions. We need doing, feeling, thinking, and being all accessible to us at the right time and place.  

 

Further, overthinking and rumination often lead to a stuckness of emotion or feeling, which leads to moods.  Moods are more generalized, pervasive emotional states that can last days, weeks, months, or even years.   Emotions come and go, just like the weather.  When we try not to feel them by suppressing or repressing them, they can get stuck and lead to moods.   Unpacking moods, like being depressed, can take time to really understand all the inputs from both present and past experiences as well as the unnamed unexplored feelings that comprise the mood. 

 

As I said, this is a quick overview of our emotional systems.  There is some more information in the links above.  There’s a bit more to it, and some of this is a broad generalization to help distinguish what is happening. Understanding these basics help tremendously to help you understand yourself and others.  People often think that our thoughts control our feelings; and they do to some extent. But our survival instincts and the basic raw emotions that evolved out of them can be much more powerful than our thoughts.  Just try to control your feelings with thoughts when you get dumped by a partner you really cared about, lose a job that you loved, get into a physical fight, or anything else that touches into our survival needs.  

 

The way I see it, our thoughts and feelings and actions are all in relationship to each other, all equally valid, no one mode is more important than the other.  The more you understand what is happening inside of you and outside of you and have awareness of what emotions and feelings are being experienced, the more you can engage your full self and your relationships to prevent things from spiraling out of control into overwhelm,  unconscious action, or a stuck stagnant mood.   

 

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of CO. He has completed comprehensive training in the Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy, a mindfulness mind-body centered approach and is a student of depth psychology. Chuck guides individuals and groups in self-exploration providing them with insight and tools for change. He also incorporates nature as a therapy tool to help shift perspective and inspire new patterns.

 

Tending the Waters of Psyche and Soul

A Depth Psychology Growth Group Bridging Inner Life and Outer Life Adventures

Some Definitions of Soul

  • an active or essential part
  • the part of the human being that thinks, feels, and makes the body act
  • the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment
  • energy or power of mind or feelings; spirit; fervor
  • the cause of inspiration or energy; leading spirit; prime mover
  • spiritual or moral force 
  • the embodiment of some quality; personification
  • the spirit of a dead person
  • the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
  • a person’s total self

You may or may not believe you have a soul. That is not a prerequisite for this group. If you have a desire to deepen your connection with, relationship to, and grow the health of any of the above descriptions, this group is for you. This group is a space to learn about and work with your psyche, personal psychology developed by your experiences and narrative about those experiences, interpersonal relationships (how you show up with others), and the transpersonal (anything bigger than and beyond yourself).

Join us in community for depth healing utilizing the map and mirrors of depth somatic experiential psychology. This group will bridge the world of our ordinary waking life roles and structures with that of our inner world. This is not a group about fixing you, teaching you skills, or requiring you to be “better” – rather it is a group where all of you, in your brilliance and in your struggle with shadow, is welcome. It is a group that is led by psyche, soul, and spirit informed by your life and experience facilitated by a trained guide (not a teacher).

In this group, you bring the topics – based on what is alive in you.  What is challenging you? What is inspiring you? What is showing up in your world that feels impactful or meaningful? Whether that aliveness is a dream you had, a poem or song that moved you, a meditation practice that taught you, a social media post that triggered you or brightened your day, grief that brought you to your knees, a stuck-ness so tight it paralyzes you or a movement that opened or freed you, this group is a space to bring more life and soul into your world in a community of fellow practitioners.

 

Who is this group for?

In the group process, there are many “problems” or pain points that can lead someone to join.  It could be anxiety in general, or about the state of the world and its political, social, economic, and health issues.  It could be that you are feeling depressed, stuck, stagnant, alone, misunderstood, or constantly sad.  You may have a hard time knowing your place in this ever changing world.  This group starts with the philosophy that we are all human, and we are all in this together.  And through working through our individual “problems” together, we help each other. And perhaps even see that they are not problems, but invitations to grow. This group is for people willing to engage in their own healing by giving and receiving support, and opening to wisdom and support of a variety of modalities that connect you with your heart, mind, body, and soul.

We aim toward self leadership and self actualization.  How do we do that?

We are all struggling to know and become the fullest version of our “real,” true, unique selves. We create a space to learn more about ourselves and experience new aspects of ourselves through content, process, and interpersonal relationships with other group members.

We recognize we have the tendency to deny our own needs and feelings. To pretend to be someone we aren’t or to avoid facing our true self inhibits growth. In this group, we take responsibility for owning our needs and feelings and expressing unexpressed thoughts, so the facilitator and other group members co-create the space to meet those new places in yourself and possibly have your needs and feelings met in an embodied way.

We believe each individual is endowed with the urge to expand, develop, mature, and reach self-actualization. We believe that true growth and healing come from within, and this group is designed to help facilitate that process. 

Even in the best of times, it is easy to fall into despair – by not living the life that is yours to live or by feeling disconnected from the greater story of life and your place in the order of things. In these times of chaos and uncertainty, this group will help you reconnect to the life that is yours to live and reconnect you with the bigger picture and meaning to provide fuel and inspiration for the challenges we face.

Logistics

Ongoing. Weekly. Thursdays 11:30-1:00. In person with a zoom in option for health or travel.

Open to all genders age 25+.

8-week minimum commitment to allow for relationships and group containers to form.  Stay as long as the group is beneficial to you.

Financial Investment $30-$60 per group sliding scale.

About the facilitator: Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is passionate about group work being an important part of our growth and healing journey.  With over a decade of experience guiding individual and group processes in council, dreamwork, interpersonal process groups, psychodrama, meditation, Hakomi somatic psychotherapy, ego state (parts) work, Jungian psychology, movement, music, and nature based practices. He weaves all of these practices together to help clients locate themselves in the world co-creating new experiences of authenticity, depth, meaning, insight, and inspiration.  With the diversity of members, modalities, and lineages the community formed in a group experience offers more possibility and amplification of the growth process.  

 

 

To register for more information to decide if this group is right for you, email [email protected] or call 970.829.0478.

 

 

 

 

 

“The guest is inside you, and also inside me;

you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.

We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.

Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,

the daily sense of failure goes away,

the damage I have done to myself fades,

a million suns come forward with light,

when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,

inside “love” there is more joy than we know of,

rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,

there are whole rivers of light.

The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.

How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.

The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.

With the word “reason” you already feel miles away.”

~Kabir

SAFE – Working with our Emotions with Compassion for Ourselves and Others

‘‘When we don’t feel safe, our brains fall into a fear mindset and don’t allow for our natural states of joy, calm and happiness to arise.’’

SAFE is a simple acronym for a practice you can use to ignite the natural anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medicine of self-compassion. In this time of uncertainty, there are lots of things being felt. To make it through, we have to be able to work with our emotions in a healthy way, not ignore them or “just think positively.”  It might work for a short time, but eventually you’ll run out of energy to keep supressing other feelings and welcoming only positive ones. When you are feeling something you don’t want to be feeling, try this practice.

S – Soften into the feeling. This implies a type of gentle recognition of the feeling or sensation in your body. Focus your awareness toward it softly.  If you can, maybe even naming it. “Breathing in, opening to the sadness/fear/vulnerability that is there, breathing out, softening into it.”  But if you can’t name it easily, don’t get hung up on it.  Sometimes it is even better to not, as words and labels may make us jump to assumptions about it.  But do make sure it is a feeling or sensation in your body, not a belief or narrative about something.

A Allow it to be as it is, without resisting, trying to change it, or clinging to it.  For as long as needed, but aim for at least a few minutes.  Most likely not more than a few days.  If it lasts more than a few days or weeks, some outside help or support may be needed.

F – Feel into the emotion that is there even more with a kind attention and compassion for it. In doing this we can also drop in questions to connect our mind with our feelings:  “What is it trying to tell me?”  “What is it’s message for me right now?“ “What does this feeling believe?”” or “What do I need right now?” When we discover this we might give that to ourselves. For example, if we sense that we need to feel loved and to feel safe, we might say, “May I feel loved, May I feel safe, etc…”  We may need rest, connection, care, food, movement, etc.  I’d encourage you to keep your gift related to your inner process, rather than feeling like you need to take external action, especially to change or avoid the feeling.

E Expand awareness of all people who also experience this feeling.  Remind yourself that while your situation may feel unique to you, the feeling you are experiencing is also experienced by virtually every human on this planet.  This feeling, this vulnerability of sadness, fear, anger, guilt, shame, depression, anxiety, resistance, or any difficult experience is a universal human experience. This is a core component of self-compassion. Here is where we understand that we are not alone and that in this very moment there are thousands if not millions of people who are experiencing this very same feeling. The “E” of SAFE is where we inspire connection with the rest of humanity. In this practice we can also take what we learned from the “F” of SAFE and send it outward to specific people you know that also experience this or to humanity in general saying, “May we all feel loved, May we all feel safe, etc… Some people find it helpful to do this with a hand on their heart, stomach or both.

If you have trouble focusing on your inner experience in this way, it may be helpful to first ground yourself with input from your 5 senses.  Paying attention to information first from the outside world of what you can hear, see, smell, touch/feel, and taste.  Ask yourself, am I really SAFE in this moment?  Is there an immediate threat?  Most likely, there is not anything that has to happen this exact moment.  Then allow yourself to come back to the SAFE exercise.

SAFE Acronym by Elisha Goldstein, PhD, explanations and expansion provided by Chuck Hancock, LPC, EMDR II of Inner Life Adventures 

You Should Get Outside More (says science)

Summary of research and a few exercises you can useCanyon in NM

I don’t use the word should very often.  It’s a dirty word. And who am I to tell anyone they should do anything? But I will right now: you should get outside more!  And it’s not just me saying this, it’s science!

I’ve long been a lover of the outdoors participating in numerous sports and other outdoor activities over the course of my life. However it was about 10 years ago when I was on a 4 day backpacking trip with a self admitted stress-loving over-working friend of mine that I first caught a glimpse of the true power of the wilderness beyond being just a venue for recreation. It was on this trip that I solidified my decision to go back to grad school to become a counselor because I wanted to help people get to the place of openness, self-exploration, relaxation, and motivation that I saw in my friend that day.  I’ve learned a lot of skills and tools over the years, but none have been as good as nature to get the effects I saw that trip.

One of my biggest fears is being judged, so I’ve only dipped my toe in the outdoor therapy world until this point. The last thing I want to be judged as is a long haired tree hugging hippy who takes people into the woods to reconnect with nature with drum circles to find their lost soul (Not that there is anything wrong with any of that – I’ve done them all and they are great! You may consider trying those things too 😉 ).  But I know that scene is repulsive to some people so I’ve purposely stayed away from it professionally, because I know that sometimes people who are afraid to drop their guard enough to try something that far out of their comfort zone can be the people that need the power of the outdoors most.

So lately, I’ve been excited to find that more research is being done to understand what effects being outside does have on our minds and bodies. In this recent National Geographic article, the author does a great job summarizing the results of international research from the past few years. I still recommend reading it, but here are some of the main research points if you don’t have time.

Scroll down to the bold print to skip the research and get right to the exercise.

Being outside helps your brain take a break from it’s constant use. This can reduce stress, increase creativity, Snowy Trailand produce a difference in qualitative thinking. We think it lets the pre-frontal cortex unplug for a bit (the part of our brain in charge of cognitive function, rational thought, planning, personality, social expression,
inhibitions, decision making, executive functioning, and more.)  The most pronounced changes happens after being outside for 3 days.

But even a 15-minute walk in the woods causes measurable changes in physiology. Japanese researchers at Chiba University sent 84 subjects to stroll in seven different forests, while the same number of volunteers walked around city centers. The forest walkers hit a relaxation jackpot: Overall they showed a 16 percent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol, a 2 percent drop in blood pressure, and a 4 percent drop in heart rate. Researcher Miyazaki believes our bodies relax in pleasant, natural surroundings because they evolved there. Our senses are adapted to interpret information about plants and streams, he says, not traffic and high-rises.

The South Koreans have been doing research on the impact of work stress, long hours, digital addiction, and academic pressures. They are now devoting some forests as healing centers and prescribing time in nature to help combat these maladies. They have research that shows forest healing reduces medical costs

Several unrelated studies in England, Denmark, Canada, and Scotland all showed lower mortality, fewer stress hormones, less mental distress and lower incidence of 15 diseases including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and migraines even when adjusted for confounding variables. That is levels of income, education, employment, and exercise did not effect the data. Just living near green space made aHorsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins difference. If anything, lower income people seemed to benefit the most.

“In Finland, a country that struggles with high rates of depression, alcoholism, and suicide, government-funded researchers asked thousands of people to rate their moods and stress levels after visiting both natural and urban areas. Based on that study and others, Professor Liisa Tyrväinen and her team at the Natural Resources Institute Finland recommend a minimum nature dose of five hours a month—several short visits a week—to ward off the blues. “A 40- to 50-minute walk seems to be enough for physiological changes and mood changes and probably for attention,” says Kalevi Korpela, a professor of psychology at the University of Tampere. He has helped design a half dozen “power trails” that encourage walking, mindfulness, and reflection. Signs on them say things like, “Squat down and touch a plant.””

“Korean researchers used functional MRI to watch brain activity in people viewing different images. When the volunteers were looking at urban scenes, their brains showed more blood flow in the amygdala, which processes fear and anxiety. In contrast, the natural scenes lit up the anterior cingulate and the insula—areas associated with empathy and altruism. It may also make us nicer to ourselves. Stanford researcher Greg Bratman and his colleagues scanned the brains of 38 volunteers before and after they walked for 90 minutes, either in a large park or on a busy street in downtown Palo Alto. The nature walkers, but not the city walkers, showed decreased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex—a part of the brain tied to depressive rumination—and from their own reports, the nature walkers beat themselves up less.”

And the nature you visit doesn’t have to be in a wilderness area and it doesn’t just affect mood. Another study showed a 50-minute walk in an arboretum improved executive attention skills, such as short-term memory, while walking along a city street did not. “Imagine a therapy that had no known side effects, was readily available, and could improve your cognitive functioning at zero cost,” the researchers wrote in their paper. It exists, they continued, and it’s called “interacting with nature.”

San Luis Valley

To summarize, there is research that suggests viewing and/or being in nature can reduce stress, reduce disease (including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and migraines), decrease blood pressure and heart rate, improve attention, improve mood, increase empathy and altruism, increase creativity, decrease depressive rumination, and while I haven’t seen research that supports this, my experience is that most people tend to enjoy themselves and have a good time. Not bad for something that is free.

So like I said earlier, you really should get outside more. Just getting outside can help. Do it regularly, do it often, and at least once in a while, go for longer periods of time. If you want to make your time outside even more restorative and connecting, here’s a few tips and tools I’ve learned from personal observation that can enhance your experience.

  1. Disconnect from time. If you have a time limit, set a timer or alarm for 1/2 the amount of time you are willing to give to this experience. When this sounds, you will need to turn around and make your way back. Until then, don’t worry about time, your timer will tell you when you need to head back. Let yourself be fully present to the natural environment.
  2. Mark your transition from your urban/suburban/societal/structured/scheduled life into the natural world. When you leave the parking lot, sidewalk, building, etc and enter into natural space, make a mental note that you are shifting from one way of being into another. At this point, be sure your phone is on silent, your to-do list is put away, your calendar holds your obligations, and anything that is taking mental space is put on hold for the duration of your journey.If necessary, physically stop and mentally put down stresses, issues, people, thoughts, feelings, responsibilities, or anything currently bothering you that could get in the way of you being present with the natural world. Imagine a container to hold them and/or put them near a rock, tree, or entrance and leave them there. You can pick them up again on your way out (if you want).
  3. If there is something you are pondering or something is really bothering you and you would be open to letting your creative subconscious mind work on it for you, set an intention or ask a question as you enter this space. Then drop it. Notice what you notice (see below) while you are in the natural environment, and maybe there will be some insight into your situation. Or maybe not, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
  4. Come back to your senses!  Just notice what you notice. When in natural space, let your Mountain Streamanalytical mind take a break and instead focus on your senses. What do you sense outside of you with your sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch? What do you notice in your body as you move? What do you notice in your emotional and
    energetic state? What thoughts pop into your mind automatically? Just notice what you notice, then notice something else. Over and over again while you are there.
  5. Let your curiosity awaken. What do your eyes get drawn to? What sounds do you hear? What made them?  Don’t worry about right and wrong or really knowing the answer. Just be curious. Which direction will you head? Let your curiosity and intuition be your guide. When you find something interesting, stop and study it with all your senses.  What will you discover?  I’m getting excited for you!
  6. When it is time to leave, before you leave the space pause for a minute or two and reflect on all that you noticed. Offer thanks to yourself for letting yourself have the time and thanks to the space and any creatures, insights, or special moments that presented themselves.
  7. Bring the experience back into your ordinary life. Write about your experience and/or tell somebody that will just listen. Let these questions guide you: What happened here? (Recount as much as you can) What did you learn from it? What are the bigger picture deeper lessons? How can it inform my life? How did this time outside help me?Sun Shining Through the Trees

So there you go. Get outside. Deepen in your relationship with yourself and with the natural world. Do this with a friend or family member and deepen in your relationship with them. If you have questions or would like to share your experience with this exercise, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected].  Hope to see you outside!

 

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of CO. He has completed comprehensive training in the Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy, a mindfulness mind-body centered approach. Chuck guides individuals and groups in self-exploration providing them with insight and tools for change. He also incorporates nature as a therapy tool to help shift perspective and inspire new patterns.

 

 

 

Is your analytic brain still not convinced? Here are links to more articles and research.

Nature and Mental Health, Cognitive Function, Attention: https://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/Thm_Mental.html

Exploring the Mental Health Benefits of Natural Environments
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01178/full

Stanford researchers find mental health prescription: Nature.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/hiking-mental-health-063015.html

2 Minute Walk May Reverse Harms of Sitting
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/a-2-minute-walk-may-counter-the-harms-of-sitting/

Benefits Of Ecotherapy: Being In Nature Fights Depression, Improves Mental Health And Well-Being
http://www.medicaldaily.com/benefits-ecotherapy-being-nature-fights-depression-improves-mental-health-and-well-being-261075

Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567.abstract

Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051474

 

Offline Sources

Hartig, T., Mang, M., and Evans, G. (1991). Restorative effects of natural environment experiences. Environment and behavior , 23 (1), 3-26.

Kaplan, R. and Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of nature . Cambridge Press.

Kaplan. S. and Talbot, J. (1983). Psychological benefits of a wilderness experience. In Altman, I. and Wohlwill, (Eds.), Behavior and the natural environment . New York: Plenum Press.

Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process . Chicago: Aldine.

Ulrich, R. S. et al. (1991). Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of environmental psychology , 11 (3), 201-230.

 

 

Do you know of a good study not cited here? Please send it my way.  I’m collecting good empirical support to make time in nature an “Evidence Based Practice.”

 

 

Expanding Beyond “Mindfulness”

As I was hiking this morning, I was watching myself, being aware of what I was doing, thinking, feeling, and sensing and a thought occurred, that mindfulness is about so much more than our mind.  As a former software engineer, I was living in a world of thought and cognition, which of course is helpful for many things, but not everything life gives us.  There is so much more to the mind than just thought, and if our definition of mindfulness is Sun shining through the treesonly on thoughts or the absence of thought, there’s so much more we are missing.

Don’t hear me wrong, being more aware of our thoughts, evaluating them as fact/opinion, true/false, helpful/not helpful and working to actively change thought is an essential first step.    It is the foundational basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which has been the primary treatment for a couple decades now, but of course there is more.

First let’s be clear that our “mind” is different than our brain (the lump of cells in our skull).  And even our brain is not just thought.  As anyone who has seen the movie Inside Out will know, there are memories, emotions, core beliefs, and more that shape our personality and all are contained in our brain.  (As a side note, if you have not seen this movie yet, go see it!) Our “mind” is much broader and includes all of the components of the brain mentioned above, the remainder of our nervous system, body, and more.  Dr. Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine defines the mind as “an embodied and relational process that regulates energy and information flow.”

His definition is dense and can be broken down into much detail, but for now I just want to elaborate on a couple of points.  The mind regulates information flow – taking in information from our environment, information occurring within us, and information that may or may not leave us through expression.  The mind regulates energy input and output, such as the clamping down and low energy state known as depression.  The mind is embodied, that it is includes our central nervous system and peripheral nervous system that runs throughout our body and feels and expresses through the body.  And the mind is relational – our mind is influenced, shaped, impacted, and includes our relationships of the past and present.

So when we talk about mindfulness, we have to keep in mind that our mind is not just our brain, which is not just our thoughts.  It’s helpful to start with tools that help us learn awareness and focus, but then we also need to keep in mind that when we talk about mindfulness, we also need to consider and work with body-fulness, emotion-fulness, sense-fulness, thought-fulness, memory-fulness, self-fulness, other-fulness, relation-fulness, heart-fulness, personality-fulness, habitual behavioral pattern-fulness, and all the other components of being human.

You can try some exercises and see a diagram of this on my Mindful Practice page.

To explore all these areas, it takes awareness, skill, willingness, patience, and it is quite helpful to have a guide.  After all, how do you explore the relational aspects of mind by yourself?  Further, most of us tend to stay in our habitual comfort zone, and having someone to help point out the things we are not seeing on our own is an important part of the process of growth and healing.  Exploring all of this is what Dan Siegel calls “Mindsight,” and I call it your Inner (and outer) Life Adventure.

Happy exploring!

 

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of CO. He has completed comprehensive training in the Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy, a mindfulness mind-body centered approach. Chuck guides individuals and groups in self-exploration providing them with insight and tools for change. He also incorporates nature as a therapy tool to help shift perspective and inspire new patterns.

Connected, but alone?

Authentic, attuned relationship is a huge focus of mine both personally and in my therapy practice.  There is a lot of research supporting the importance of relationship as a healing factor.  In this video, psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle who has been studying how technology changes not only what we do but who we are discusses the impact of technology on our lives.  Some highlight quotes to tempt your curiosity:

“We expect more from technology and less from each other.”

“Technology appeals to us most where we are most vulnerable.”

“We are lonely, but we are afraid of intimacy.”

“From social networks to sociable robots we are designing technologies that give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control.”

Relationships are hard, and messy, and we often don’t know what to say.  Communicating only through technology gives us time to present our best self, craft the perfect message, but we miss each other in our authenticity.  Despite being more connected than ever, I talk to more people than ever reporting feeling alone.

Watch this for a few reasons why:

click to play

Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

 

And then let’s talk about how to get more authentically connected to yourself and others.

What do you think? Better yet, what do you feel? What do you experience? Let’s continue the conversation! You can find me at www.innerlifeadventures.com or email [email protected].  Want to meet?  Here’s how.

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is a National Certified Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor, and a Registered Psychotherapist in the state of CO. He has completed comprehensive training in the Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy, a mindfulness mind-body centered approach. Chuck guides individuals and groups in self-exploration providing them with insight and tools for change. He also incorporates nature as a therapy tool to help shift perspective and inspire new patterns.

You are Good Enough

It is a trap – feeling good enough.  So many people I know, myself included, have a complicated relationship with feeling good enough.  It is a constant desire to improve, to be better, to do more, and accomplish more.  We think this is a good thing – who doesn’t want to improve, be better, and accomplish more?  So not

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt

feeling good enough is helpful to a point that it can provide motivation to grow and improve.

However so many of us fall prey to the dark side where it leads us to not feeling good, period.  Not feeling like where we are and what we are doing right now is good enough can lead to dissatisfaction, disappointment, sadness, and eventually depression.  Obviously, when we believe we are not good enough in this way it brings us down rather than motivates us.  It saps us of our energy robbing us of our drive and ambition.

When confronted with this paradox, most of us put up a fight. We don’t want to let go of the feeling that we are not good enough and accept that we are actually good enough.  We fear that we will stop striving for more if we let ourselves feel good enough as we are.  We ignore how much the belief that we are not good enough is limiting us – causing us suffering because we are stuck, and we think telling ourselves we are not good enough will provide the motivation to become unstuck through our striving to be good enough.   But by feeling not good enough we don’t have the energy to move.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with wanting to grow, improve, and be a better person.  That is what I attempt to help people do every day.  So yes, take the time to define who you want to be and how you want to improve.  Define the person you see yourself when you are living life fully and feeling good about it.  It gives us goals to strive for.  And we have more ability to reach our goals if we aren’t beating ourselves up about not being there now.  The feeling “I want to be…” is only helpful as long as “I am good enough just as I am” is also equally true.

~chuck

What do you think? Better yet, what do you feel? What do you experience? Let’s continue the conversation! You can find me at www.innerlifeadventures.com or email [email protected].  Want to meet?  Here’s how.

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed, LPC is a National Certified Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor, and a Registered Psychotherapist in the state of CO. He has completed comprehensive training in the Hakomi Method of Experiential Psychotherapy, a mindfulness mind-body centered approach. Chuck guides individuals and groups in self-exploration providing them with insight and tools for change. He also incorporates nature as a therapy tool to help shift perspective and inspire new patterns.