HOW TO GROW AS A PERSON AFTER SUFFERING EMBARRASSMENT

This week we get to talk about embarrassment. Trust me, we’ve all had moments of extreme embarrassment, myself included! But as uncomfortable as it is, it’s an important feeling that helps you grow as a person.

Embarrassment is an acknowledgment to ourselves and to others that we made a mistake or did something that went differently from how we had hoped. One might experience physical discomfort, including increased heart rate, muscle tension, blushing, and a rise in temperature. When people feel embarrassed, they typically decrease eye contact, experience speech disturbances, smile, and move their bodies more.

The physical and social discomfort that comes with embarrassment is often hard for people to tolerate. Yet, socially, it actually makes us more likeable; people tend to be more forgiving when we can acknowledge errors via embarrassment. Others also tend to be more compassionate when we convey that we feel bad about what we did, which allows for healing and reconnection.

By acknowledging mistakes, embarrassment can help us grow by motivating us to change. Yet, if we refuse to see that something isn’t working, we remain stuck in ineffective patterns of thinking, acting, and relating to others.

This weeks question:

How has embarrassment motivated you? And, how has that motivation been used to inspire change in your life?

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. I’ll post the question and jump on myself to chat and answer questions.

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How is anger a protective response?

Welcome back! I hope you found some answers in last weeks topic of “Feeling Helpless”, and I’m glad that you are continuing with our discussions on the Eight Unpleasant Feelings. This week, we are going to talk about anger.

Anger is a protective response. You need to have it available as a way to respond to distress, harm, or pain. It is often elicited when you believe you have been wronged in a certain situation and where you also see yourself as morally right in that same situation.

Despite the overwhelming view of anger as a negative emotion, it can also prompt you to act on behalf of those less advantaged, where you witness unfairness to someone else, or engage you to help where someone is being victimized.

Anger reflects your emotional investment in something important to you; properly expressed, it lets others know that they hurt you and that they should not engage in similar behaviors again.

Anger never has to be explosive, wounding, or destructive, something that many people struggle to understand because of their own personal experiences with anger. The great irony is that harboring your feelings and avoiding anger can lead to big explosions later.

If you struggle with how your anger gets expressed, there are many steps you can take to express it more effectively. They include:

– Acknowledging that how you manage your anger is a problem.

– Deciding and committing to kind and well-intentioned behavior that does not escalate, demean, threaten, or physically hurt others.

– Noticing how, what, and where anger is experienced in your body.

– Noticing your patterns of expression before you erupt.

– Knowing your patterns and observing your bodily cues of anger.

We all struggle with anger, whether it’s anger within ourselves, or anger being used against us. But what is important, is knowing that there are steps that we can all take to experience and move through this unpleasant feeling so we can learn why that anger is present in our lives.>

This weeks question:

We all have memories of when we have been angry, and have regretted how we handled that situation. What are ways, that now looking back, you wish you would have handled that situation differently? And how can you move forward with handling anger in the future?

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. I’ll post the question and jump on myself to chat and answer questions.

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How can feeling helpless motivate change?

Helplessness is frequently tied to feeling small, powerless, and vulnerable and is often occurs when you are unable to have an impact or influence on an individual, event, or situation. It might leave you with a sense of being on edge or waiting for whatever is coming, which may trigger those “anxious” feelings.

Helplessness may also occur in situations where you have less control, no control, or where you feel out of control. A lack of control makes it impossible to avoid difficult or painful situations. As with shame, which we covered last week, helplessness activates fear responses in the body to help us prepare to deal with the situations where we feel out of control. Thus, sometimes feeling helpless can motivate change.

Yet, when people are exposed to prolonged periods of feeling helpless (e.g., abuse or neglect), such exposure can lead to more lasting and damaging effects. Animals and humans can experience what’s known as “learned helplessness,” which is similar to a depressive state; they have become so accustomed to facing inescapable pain that they no longer have motivation to act or make changes.

The good news is that connecting with others, asking for help, and taking action in the face of situations where you feel helpless can help you break free of that experience.

This weeks question:

If you experienced situations where you felt helpless, what have you done to connect with others, ask for help or take some important action?

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. I’ll post the question and jump on myself to chat and answer questions.

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg