The emotion of disappointment is incredibly powerful, yet we rarely discuss it. It's an everyday emotion that doesn't get the headlines that anger, grief, or depression might get. But I believe it can be at the root of much emotional dysregulation. By understanding disappointment—what is happening in your body and brain, and the cycle it can create—you can better regulate your emotions, feel more contentment, and feel better about yourself. By the end of this article, you will understand disappointment and the cycle it creates. You will also walk away with practical tools about how to cut that cycle and prevent disappointment from becoming overwhelming. You might also learn to recognize disappointment as the root of a number of other emotions. Defining Disappointment Disappointment is sadness or displeasure when your expectations are not met. Basically, there is a gap between what you expected or hoped for, what you wanted, and what actually happens. It is that moment when you realize that reality is not matching your desires and sometimes your needs. When we think of that, we do not fully appreciate how painful it is. I am going to give you some information on the neurobiology so you will understand more about why it is so painful. I also want to talk about what happens when we are children and disappointed, and how the authority figures in our lives respond to us. This can create a pattern for whether we internalize or externalize disappointment, how resilient we are, and which pathway disappointment leads us down. Disappointment Never Shows Up Alone Disappointment almost never appears by itself. It usually comes with frustration and irritation, sometimes anger at ourselves or at somebody else, sadness and hurt. Very often we feel hurt when we are unable to get what we want or need. It also brings up shame and embarrassment. I think it is critically important to understand that disappointment is a very vulnerable emotion, primarily because it says, "I wanted that, and I did not get it." For some reason, saying that makes us feel very exposed, very unworthy. As most of you know, I worked as a psychotherapist for 20 years. In that work as well as in the online coaching programs that I have, I have noticed that people feel a lot of shame when they are asked to express out loud what they really want in life. I know this personally because it came up for me the very first time I was asked that question. It felt embarrassing to say it. It is very vulnerable to say, "I want this. I want it to look like that." I think it brings up feelings of: maybe I am ungrateful, maybe I should be grateful for what I already have. Who am I to think that I could have something like that? I should not be wanting it. When we get disappointed, we are essentially saying, "I cared about that thing and now I am feeling hurt, sad, or angry because I did not get it." So disappointment is a signal to us of what we want or of what we wanted. Understanding how vulnerable disappointment can make us feel can help us regulate that emotion because we can look into it more deeply and question some of our assumptions. The Cycle That Disappointment Creates As I go through this, you might want to jot down for yourself what the cycle is for you. I will be giving some examples, and it is helpful for you to begin to think through how this works for you. If you do not have anything to jot this down with right now, no problem—you can come back to it. Basically, disappointment starts with an event that does not match your expectations, desires, or wants. For some people, that mismatch will immediately create physical feelings: a sinking in the stomach, a feeling that the rug was pulled out from under you, a deflation. For some people, it might be more of a feeling of tension. The emotions that can accompany these physical feelings vary. If you feel a lot of tension, the emotion that can come up right away could be irritation, frustration, or anger. If you get that feeling that the rug is pulled out from under you, that could be shock. That feeling in the pit of your stomach could be simply disappointment, or it could be sadness. The reason I want you to be aware of your own cycle is that sometimes people are first aware of the physical feelings, but others are first aware of the emotional feelings. And a different group of people might be first aware of the negative thoughts that come up as soon as there is a mismatch between expectation and reality. The thoughts could be negative thinking about yourself, or it could be negative thinking about others. Your brain interprets the event, turning it into a story. And very often that story is driven by your negative core beliefs. If you have a negative core belief of "I am unworthy," the story will be, "Well, you did not deserve this. You are unworthy. You are not good enough." If your negative core belief is "I cannot count on others," well, this just reinforced that. I have a number of videos on negative core beliefs, and understanding which yours is and why it developed is very important. I am going to come back to that towards the end. In the meantime, I want you to know that I have a free PDF called " Transform Your Negative Core Belief. " It helps you understand which of those beliefs is truly at your core, and it gives you a handful of techniques to begin to rewire those beliefs. How the Cycle Spirals The way your brain interprets the mismatch is going to tie to those pre-existing negative beliefs. And all of that ties to early childhood experiences. This cycle is based on the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) cycle. When an event happens and we interpret it, our thoughts That loop back and affect how we feel and how we behave. Similarly, all the feelings that came up with the disappointmet impact how we think and how we behave. The behaviors that very often come from disappointment can be avoidance or lashing out. Avoidance would be avoiding taking any risk because you do not want to feel disappointment again. This contributes to future problems, because taking reasonable risks is necessary to move you to where you want to be. And therefore there is more disappointment in the future. This cycle begins to wire our brain in a way that avoiding disappointment becomes the biggest thing we focus on, and our world can get more and more constricted. Lashing out: If one of your habitual patterns is anger, you might get angry and lash out at loved ones, which pushes them further away and makes the situation worse. Or you might go into a spiral of lashing out at yourself, and those negative core beliefs get more and more ingrained. This is not a good cycle. I want to help you understand it and shift it. The Neurobiology of Disappointment Deep in our brains, there is an ancient evolutionary part called the lateral habenula. You can think of this part of the brain as the "disappointment hub." This part of the brain activates when an anticipated reward does not materialize. That feel-good chemical you have heard about—dopamine—kicks in when we are anticipating a pleasure, when we are anticipating something good. Before an event, that chemical can kick in. But when that reward is not realized, the lateral habenula releases two other neurotransmitters. One is glutamate and the other is GABA. Glutamate is an excitatory chemical. It revs us up and amplifies the signals we are receiving. GABA is inhibitory. GABA slows things down and dampens signals. They have opposite effects, but they are released at the same time. The ratio of how much of each is released impacts how disappointed we feel. The ratio between these two chemicals is like the dimmer switch on how disappointed we feel. If we release a lot more glutamate compared to GABA, it is like turning that switch up—our disappointment increases. If we release more GABA, then we are lowering that dimmer switch. That is why sometimes we can handle disappointments without any problem, and other times they feel devastating. Given that dopamine floods our system when we are just anticipating something, when that mismatch happens, the dopamine levels can plummet, which gives us that sinking feeling and that real sadness. As I am saying this, I am thinking sometimes people feel a little sad even when an event meets their expectations because the dopamine does not always continue to be released—just a little aside there. The Long-Term Effects of Repeated Disappointment What happens if we regularly experience a lot of disappointment and we have a strong reaction to that disappointment, which would be contributed to by that negative cycle we talked about? When you have a lot of that, your brain can learn to stop anticipating good things. If wanting something leads to pain, I better not want anything at all. This causes a rewiring in the brain where that dopamine cycle dampens, and we neurologically withdraw from motivation and anticipation. The good news is we can rewire the brain. Our brain learns and changes throughout our whole lives. With the right guidance and the right effort, you can begin to rewire that pattern. I do not want you to lose hope here. How Childhood Shapes Our Response to Disappointment As we explore this, I want to encourage you to look at the patterns from your childhood as if it is a fact-finding mission, not a fault-finding mission, because it is much more productive to really look at this as "Why did I develop these patterns?" so you can have empathy towards yourself without immediately going to blame. Let us think about a 2-year-old. I am sure many of you have spent time with two-year-olds. If you think about it, those 2-year-old tantrums are almost all about disappointment. They are almost all about that 2-year-old wanting something or wanting to do something that they either cannot get or they are not allowed to do. It is disappointment mixed with frustration, and it is an unbelievably powerful emotion. It is so powerful that the 2-year-old ends up on the floor screaming and banging their fists. This is a challenging stage for parents. I do not know any parent who does this stage perfectly, but some do it adequately and others maybe do not. But it is a universal stage. It is so instinctual, so basic to us. When you think about it this way, you can understand how common this is and how much power this emotion that we rarely discuss has. Common Parental Responses to Disappointment Many parents will try to calm the child, which is good. But often we do that by brushing away the disappointment. "Oh, do not be so disappointed. We will do such and such tomorrow." This can be frustrating for a parent because the child could be hugely upset—you promise to take them to the park and there is a thunderstorm happening. You cannot take them to the park. But the child does not understand that. They do not have any perspective. The fact that a parent tries to bring in perspective makes sense. But if this pattern of dismissing the child's upset continues, that child will learn, "This is an emotion I am not supposed to have." The child will not feel seen or heard. Worse, sometimes a parent might totally withdraw from the situation, which is very threatening to a toddler. Toddlers and young children are completely dependent on their caregivers. If the caregiver withdraws physically or emotionally, that is very threatening to that child's survival emotionally. Other parents might get angry and lash out. Thinking through how your disappointments were handled can help you understand how you feel about that emotion right now. I also want to talk about parents who panic when their child is disappointed. They might get anxious and try to jump in and fix it right away. They might even give in to whatever it was—take the kid outside in the storm, whatever it was. The parent might panic and try to get the kid not to be so upset. But that also teaches us that this is an anxiety-provoking emotion and that if this emotion is scary to my caregiver, wow, that is really scary. Comment below if this makes sense and if you know the pattern of how you were responded to when you were disappointed. This completely natural state happens a lot, very frequently, and you learn from how you are responded to. Becoming a Disappointment As you got a little older, you might have begun to be aware of your parents' disappointments. If disappointment was such a horrible, scary emotion when you had it, you immediately will think it is a horrible, scary emotion for them to have. They might respond that way too. You may develop a feeling of "I am a disappointment to my caregivers." It could also be "I am a disappointment to my teachers, to my siblings," and that eventually will lead to an internalized negative belief: "I am a disappointment." I think you can see why this article is as long as it is. This is a very complex emotion that impacts us significantly. Even later in life, as we grow up and move away from our parents, other people have a hard time with our disappointment and we have a hard time with theirs. When somebody is disappointed, we all jump in right away. We want to make them feel better. We want to say, "Oh, it is not so bad," or "Oh, you will get it next time." We want to whitewash the pain. If you find yourself in that situation doing that to somebody else who is disappointed, maybe just slow down, take a moment and say, "Wow, I totally understand why you are disappointed. That is really hard." Let them sit with it. If you practice doing that for others—and maybe you already can do that, I am not judging here—but if you can do it for others, you can then begin to do that for yourself, which is going to lead me into the practical tools I want to talk about. Three Practical Tools for Managing Disappointment #1: Accept and Acknowledge the Emotion This relates to what I just said. Accept and acknowledge the emotion you are having. Acknowledge that you are disappointed. Let yourself take a minute to feel it without having to fix it. I know this always sounds counterintuitive to people, but our emotions ebb and flow. They do not ever stay exactly the same. Generally when we push away or try to whitewash or cover up an emotion, it gets stronger. Whereas if we just sit with it and feel it and think, "Okay, where do I feel this in my body? What am I thinking? What thoughts is this bringing me to? What if I just sit here with the physical feelings and let them be for a second?" With this awareness and acknowledgement, bring in some diaphragmatic breathing. Let your body, let your physiology know that you are okay. This may not feel good, it might hurt, you do not like it, but you are okay. Your body can begin to respond to it with more calm, with more of that GABA, and you can contribute to that with your own emotional regulation tools. #2: Become Aware of Your Cycle Become intimately aware of that cycle. What you feel in your body, what emotions you are feeling, what thinking you are having, and your behaviors as well—how those all interact with each other. Once you have a true awareness of your cycle, you can figure out where is the easiest spot to intervene. In general, we cannot directly change our feelings other than by simply sitting with them. We cannot do something to make them change. What we can do is question our thinking, begin to think about things differently, or change the behaviors. #3: Pick a Behavior That Breaks the Pattern Pick a behavior that does not go with your typical downward spiral and practice engaging in that behavior. Behavior is the most dramatic way to begin to change the wiring in our brains. A challenge for you could be to pick something that you have been avoiding because you are afraid of that disappointment. It could be something small. It does not have to be a major thing. Just go for it. Do it. See what happens. Approach it as if it is a scientific experiment. It could be: - Applying for an opportunity you have been avoiding - Simply texting a friend that you have been afraid to text because you are worried that they will not respond the way you want them to - Sharing an idea that you have with somebody when you have been avoiding that because you are worried that they will not like the idea These could be small things, but pick one and go for it. Moving Forward As I wrap up here, my other videos on emotional regulation skills will be really helpful for this. Just thinking about disappointment as one of those core emotions that can set you down a negative cycle, you can maybe begin to think about it differently so that you bring in those emotional regulation tools simply for disappointment. As one of my friends said, that is an everyday emotion. We feel that all the time. I really hope this was helpful. Make sure to check out that PDF—I also have a free webinar called "Rewire Your Brain," and it goes a little more into how our behaviors can help to rewire some of these patterns we have developed. Make sure you are subscribed so you will see the next video on this topic, which is going to expand on these tools. Let me know what you think. Let me know the questions you have and I will see you next week.

You've left your family of origin, done personal growth work, and become a much more well-rounded person . You mostly feel good about yourself., or maybe you even feel really good about yourself! Yet when you go home for the holidays, it seems you turn right back into your old role! It's like a time machine because you suddenly begin to react the way you would have when you were much younger. You remind yourself of your 7, 10 or 14 year-old self and you think, " How could I be acting this way ?" Today's blog will give you a quick rundown of how these family roles typically present during family events and holidays. The Hero Child or Caretaker The hero child or caretaker is usually the one cooking all the food, cleaning up, arranging the events, even coordinating how other family members get there. If this is you, you probably make sure you're buying gifts for everybody. You might even buy gifts for that relative who never buys gifts for others so that person has something to give. You might be doing everything for everybody because that's always been your role within your family system. What does it lead to? Exhaustion, irritability, resentment, stress, and even loneliness. Because even with all the effort you've put in, you're not getting the feeling you're looking for. You're not getting a return on that effort. And the resentment you feel is toxic for you. Resentment is like taking poison but hoping it hurts the other person. It's a toxic emotion to feel, and it often signals that we're doing too much. Suggestions if this is your role: Pull back a little. Let things not be perfect. Let things slide. The Scapegoat The scapegoat grew up being blamed for everything, and it probably still seems to happen when your family of origin gets together. You probably dread going to the holidays because you know you're going to be criticized about everything. Anything that goes wrong will be blamed on you. You'll probably be resented by the hero child I just described. Even if you've stepped out of this role in other areas of your life, you still might act out or do something that justifies some of their blame or criticism. That's a miserable place to be. It can also be a really lonely place. You feel hurt. Nobody seems to understand or acknowledge that. It's exhausting. The Lost Child The Lost Child often skips out on holiday events. If this is you, you might live across the world from your family. You probably hate the conflict that arises during the holidays. You don't want to be part of it and you can't tolerate the arguing. You avoid asserting your own needs because that usually creates conflict, and you feel it isn't worth it. But then you end up feeling unseen, unheard and uncared for. The Mascot And then if you're the mascot, you're expected to tell jokes and keep everybody cheerful. It doesn't matter how you're really feeling inside—you need to make those jokes. You need to cheer everybody up. You need to provide entertainment and distraction from any real problems. You probably end up feeling alone, because nobody really knows you. You might even be resentful at the other family members - the lost child who just disappears and doesn't deal with anything, the Hero Child is stressing themselves out for no reason, and the Scapegoat who keeps causing chaos. Suggestions: Prior to your family gathering, you can identify one or two behaviors that you would like to change and set a boundary for yourself. This boundary is not dependent on anyone else - it is dependent on you changing how you respond to everyone else who is probably doing what they always do! Be compassionate with yourself. Breaking these patterns is SO hard! Be gentle and understanding if you slip back. Try to have compassion for your family... know that they developed their role as a way to cope with the same problem. And for your parents - they grew up in their own families of origin and may have suffered in ways no one is aware of. This does not mean you have to accept unacceptable behavior!! Just know that judging often leads to more isolation and to resentment. I wish you peace and joy this holiday season!

Have you ever had a reaction to something that seemed way out of proportion to what actually happened? These overwhelming responses aren't character flaws or overreactions—they're emotional triggers, and understanding them can transform how you view yourself and others

Chasing happiness can actually backfire. I know this sounds completely backwards, but there is actually a fair amount of science and research that backs up this paradox. In this article, I'm going to talk about why this happens and what you can learn from it. And of course, the really big question is: what should we all be doing instead? The Philosophy Behind the Paradox Over 150 years ago, the philosopher John Stuart Mill observed that the people who were happy were those who were focused on something else, not specifically on their own happiness. Yet we live in a society that pretty much tells us that we should always be trying to be happy, we should always be trying to improve our happiness. The pursuit of happiness is actually written into the US Declaration of Independence. The Science of the Happiness Paradox Some of the seminal research on this topic was actually done over 20 years ago at the University of California at Santa Barbara when Jonathan Schooler put out a research report, which he called "The Pursuit and Assessment of Happiness Can Be Self-Defeating." Since then, there has been a lot of research that has supported this point. In 2011, Iris Mauss, a psychologist and professor at UC Berkeley did a study analyzing whether the people who really valued being happy were actually happier than others or less happy. For the research, they gathered a group of women and had them do a self-report questionnaire where they ranked their life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and overall feelings of wellbeing. They also asked the participants to report their current stress level, and whether there were big stressful events that had recently happened in their lives. What they found was that of the women who were experiencing a low level of stress, the ones who valued happiness more were actually less happy. But in the group of people who were experiencing a high degree of stress, there was no difference in happiness level between those who really valued happiness and those who didn't. It's interesting that the pursuit of happiness really seems to backfire when life is the best, when stress levels are low. I think this is because we get that feeling of "I should be happy, I'm not happy, but I should be because I have all this stuff, or all these things are going well, so I should be really happy." When we're under a lot of stress or things are really difficult in our lives, we don't put that pressure on ourselves. Let me know if that makes sense to you, but it definitely makes sense to me. Iris and her research team decided to follow up with another study because the first showed correlation between valuing happiness, stress levels, and happiness—but not causation. It didn't show that people were less happy because they valued happiness more. They designed a study with two groups. One group read an article about how important happiness was. The other group read a neutral article. Then they showed some participants from each group a happy movie and others a sad movie. For those watching the sad movie, there was no significant difference in how they felt. But there was a substantial difference in those watching the happy movie. The ones who had been primed to value happiness—who read about how important it was—reported being less happy than the group who read a neutral article and watched the same happy movie. These research findings have been followed up with numerous other studies showing similar results. What This Means for You But the important question is - what does this mean for you? It's a hard thing to stop valuing happiness... because... we all want to be happy! We are so conditioned to think, "What do I need to do to feel happier? Why don't I feel happier now? What would make me feel happier? Given everything that's good, I should be happier." This leads to all that self-criticism I've talked often about on this channel, and it makes us feel bad about ourselves. So what can we take away from this? Why the Happiness Paradox Happens Researchers who study this have identified two main explanations. One I'm going to call the "high bar and disappointment" angle, and the other is the "constant monitoring" angle. The High Bar and Disappointment Angle If you value happiness highly, you can create a very high bar of what that means. In reality, we all experience conflictual feelings most of the time. Those moments where we are purely happy are rare and not sustainable. But if we think we should be purely happy with no caveats, then we're likely to be disappointed. I was a psychotherapist for 20 years, and I found in working with people—and I've experienced it myself—that disappointment is one of those emotions we really dislike. It's not talked about as much as grief or anger, but I think disappointment is one of the most difficult emotions. I would sometimes be amazed at the degree to which people would try to avoid disappointment because they hated it so much. With this happiness paradox, if you're always setting the bar high and then you're disappointed all the time, that's a horrible feeling. Obviously, it cycles in on itself. It's been hard for me to read this research without thinking about my grandmother. Her parents were immigrants who did not speak much English. Until my grandmother was five, she spoke their language and she went to school not knowing any English. She did not have an easy childhood. Her parents were quite poor, and I think she had the view that life was going to be hard. By the time I knew her, she was moving into retirement and things were easing. I remember how she would have so much joy and happiness at the simplest things: picking blueberries, having a dessert, dancing. There's an element where it feels a little sad. I would have wanted her to expect more. I felt like she deserved more. But she was quite happy and didn't have any sense of being entitled to an easy life or happiness. I do try to channel her every now and then. The Monitoring Problem The monitoring problem is when we constantly ask ourselves, "Am I happy now? Why aren't I happy? How happy am I? What is it I'm feeling?" We're always monitoring our emotional state. Obviously some degree of this is needed. But we're talking about balance. If this is something you do frequently, it's worth knowing that constant self-monitoring has been tied to increased depressive symptoms. Five Practical Strategies to Stop Chasing Happiness I am going to focus on five things that you can begin to put in place to help you shift away from that prioritizing of happiness and towards something that maybe will surprise you with happiness. #1: Accept All of Your Feelings, Including Your Negative Feelings Part of the problem is that we try to push away those negative feelings. We don't like to feel anger or guilt or sadness, and we go to a lot of effort to push them away. It doesn't work. I know this is very hard and it's very complicated. I do have a lot of videos and blogs on emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. But the main point is to stop focusing on some kind of unattainable ideal. We are almost always going to have a mix of feelings, and sometimes good enough is good enough. Acknowledging and letting yourself feel what you actually feel can actually be really helpful. Not doing this leads us to a lot of guilt and negative self-talk, which is my point number two. #2: Let Go of the Self-Criticism There's an element in a lot of online content which says, "If you're doing it right, if you put your energies in the right way, in the right area, you're happy." I believe this content contributes to how badly we feel when we aren't happy. Sometimes it is true that if you approach things in the "right way" we are happier. But not always. We don't have control over everything, and human life can be hard. I also have videos that go into stopping the negative self-talk and changing these things. I know it needs a lot of work, and I do have an online program called Roadmap to Joy. In that program—and even if you're not interested in the program, bear with me because I think you'll understand the point I'm making—I really focus on the feeling of joy, not happiness. I think joy is about those little tiny moments, usually moments when we're mindfully present, usually moments that are pretty simple like the ones I mentioned that would bring my grandmother joy. It's really those small things. It's not always the big goals. I also have a free webinar called " Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence ." In this webinar, I go into some of the scientific research on how we can actually change the focus of our brain away from things that are either problems or triggers and move towards more mindfulness and more joy. That webinar has a lot of practical tools as well. #3: Focus on the Activity You're Doing, Not the Feeling You're Having This recommendation comes from a lot of research. In particular, when you are engaging in activities, be focused solely on that activity. This is particularly true for the ones you get to choose. An example that comes to mind for me is skiing (I love to ski). When you're skiing, you can think of nothing else. You can't really spend time assessing, "Am I happy? Am I not happy?" (Although sometimes if you're cold you might be focused on that and 'why AM I doing this now?!'...) but basically you have to be really hyper-focused on what you're doing. It's incredibly relaxing to have my mind and my body focused at the same moment on the same thing. I think people who engage in music or art feel the same way. #4: Prioritize Positivity, Not Happiness I want to bring in a caveat with this, but first let's talk about prioritizing positivity. This would mean asking, "How can I look at this in a positive way?" Practices like gratitude have been shown overall to help improve well-being. There are some mindfulness practices that help with this: taking extra time to breath in the sight and smell of a beautiful flower for example. Taking the time to enrich our experience of the positive involves mindfully putting your focus on something positive with all your senses: hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste. Now, my caveat here is that false positivity is not helpful. If trying to be positive just ends up making you feel more guilty because you really can't do it, or more frustrated, skip this one. Maybe there are little small ways to build it in—the smell of a cup of tea—but not forcing yourself to change how you think. That's why I said there's a caveat for me on the issue of prioritizing positivity, although research does show that this helps people overall feel more wellbeing. #5: Focus on Things That Bring You Meaning and Purpose Rather Than Happiness Purpose doesn't have to be some big huge purpose. It doesn't have to be an enormous goal. Your purpose could be taking good care of your pet. Your purpose could be being there when your grandchildren call. Or your purpose could be learning more about poetry. Engaging in activities that give you meaning and pursuing goals for that type of satisfaction can sometimes surprise you with more contentment. The Bottom Line The science directly contradicts our culture's obsession with happiness. Constantly engineering your life for peak positive emotion is a fundamentally flawed strategy. To end today, I want to share the full quote from John Stuart Mill as it ties into a lot of what we've been saying here: "Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness—on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way."

Why Traumatic Memories Are Different—And How EMDR Actually Changes Your Brain Traumatic memories stay live, present, and intrusive until we process them. It is not just that they feel different—it is how they are stored in your brain. Today I want to explain what a traumatic memory is, how traumatic memory processing works, and how it helps turn that memory into more of a normal memory where you are not re-experiencing it. And I know that most people who have trauma memories want to get rid of them entirely. They ask, "Can you erase this from my brain?" That is not possible. But when you process the memory and it no longer brings up all the physiological and emotional symptoms, when it is not reinforcing the negative core belief that developed during the trauma—it is incredibly freeing. Most people I worked with, once they completed processing their memories, would say, "Wow, I can think about it now, and while I know it happened and I am not happy about it, it feels totally different. It feels like it is in the past. It feels like more of a story. I am not re-experiencing it and I am not feeling continually triggered by it and it is no longer intrusive." Those are major wins . Characteristics of Traumatic Memories Let me quickly outline the characteristics of a traumatic memory. Sensory Information Dominates Traumatic recall is dominated by sensory information—sounds, smells, feelings. The sensory details are stronger than any kind of storyline. Fragmented Rather Than Narrative You might remember one piece or very intensely remember a sound or smell, but not remember what happened right before or right after the event. The memory is in fragments and flashes. Time Distortion Traumatic memories feel fresh and current. The sensory details feel like they are happening now. It does not feel like the event happened long ago, and there is no sense of narrative time in the traumatic memory. People comment on this constantly: "Why do I feel this so intensely when it happened 40 years ago?" This makes them feel like they are losing their minds. But it is all about how the memory is stored. Connected to the Physiological Feelings From the Time of the Event Another characteristic is that traumatic memories come with the physiological feelings that happened at the time. If you froze, you might freeze when you remember it. If you fought or fled or wanted to flee, you will have those same feelings when that memory surfaces. And then, when you have these memories with that flood of physiological symptoms and emotions, it can reinforce those neural pathways. This is also why sometimes jumping into processing traumatic memories—if you have not done the required prep—can be overwhelming. For EMDR in particular, there is substantial preparation before you begin to process traumatic memories. If you are trying to work with them on your own and you have not developed tools and skills to physiologically relax, it can be overwhelming. Later in the blog post, I'll provide information on how you can navigate this. How Traumatic Memories Are Stored Differently in the Brain Researchers at Yale University and Mount Sinai were able to document that when people were recalling traumatic memories—instead of simply a sad memory—the traumatic memories were not stored in the hippocampus (via fMRI imaging). When they recalled the traumatic memory, that part of the brain did not light up. Whereas when they recalled a sad memory, there was the expected activity in the hippocampus. ( Reference for research : Perl, et al. Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Nature Neuroscience, November, 2023) The hippocampus is our file organizer for memories. When normal memories are stored, there's activity in the left front part of our brain—where our language centers are and where we think about stories in narrative fashion. Traumatic memories are stored in the right back part of the brain, which produces nonverbal memories and remembers sensory details. This part of the brain is in the limbic system—the part that doesn't have a sense of time. Research has shown that when stress chemicals flood our system, they shut off access to the hippocampus and normal memory storage. Just knowing that your traumatic memories are stored differently in your brain can help increase self-compassion. The trauma had a physical impact on you and your brain, and it is not your fault. Getting over that sense of self-blame and shame is essential to recovery. Neuroplasticity Now, I do not want you to get discouraged hearing that trauma had a physical impact on you, because it is possible to heal and rewire the brain. This is because we have neuroplasticity—our brains are changeable. Neuroplasticity means that a neuron (a brain cell) can be molded through our experiences, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and habits. I go into a much deeper dive on this in a free webinar I have (** Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence **). Just know that you can change the neurochemistry of your brain. This is what EMDR and other trauma-informed, trauma-focused therapies work toward. How EMDR Processes Traumatic Memories With traumatic memories, you cannot just will them away. You cannot just "get over it." But "processing" traumatic memories can move them from the limbic system where they are stored (with all their intensity and emotion) into your long-term memory storage. This is one of the goals of EMDR therapy. The Importance of Physiological Safety and the Processing Stage Some people feel that when they talk about their trauma, they get re-traumatized. And this can be the case. The most important thing needed so that this does not happen is to integrate the processing of the memory with physiological relaxation and at least some sense of safety. I know a sense of safety is very difficult for many trauma survivors. However, practicing physiological relaxation techniques help you learn to move at least to a place of neutrality where your body can feel like, "I am not in danger this immediate moment"—that is sufficient. EMDR therapists are trained to work with people prior to the active processing stage to make sure they can stay in a zone of tolerance. I talk more about the zone of tolerance in other blogs and videos on emotional regulation, but it means staying within a certain range of emotion—not getting too hyper and not shutting down into a freeze state. Learning emotional regulation skills prior to active processing is important. When you begin to actively process the memory—actively bring it up, talk about it—you notice the very early signals that you are getting too activated or moving into a freeze dissociative state. Then you return to some grounding techniques, diaphragmatic breathing, to a feeling of safety with the therapist you are working with. Once you have lowered your pulse rate and re-centered, you can go back in. **It is the modulation and moving between different physiological states that helps the processing.** You are processing it into more of a story, more of a narrative that happened in the past, and that happens over time. Memory Fragments Come Together WIth EMDR, as the memory becomes a story, it is less fragmented. It has less of a physiological impact. When I worked with people using EMDR, it would often surprise me how different pieces would begin to fill in the memory, and often how the focus of the memory could shift. Here is an example of a client who was in a serious car accident. Now, I avoid using detailed examples of trauma in my posts because they can be very triggering for people. If you are particularly sensitive to car accidents, you can skip this section. This client initially remembered flashes, smells, sounds, lights, but not much about what happened immediately before or after the accident. As it was processed, they began to fill other details about the accident and about what happened prior to the accident. Toward the end of the processing, they remembered what happened after—the fact that the EMS team showed up and that they received the help they needed. This portion of the memory became a very important part of the memory for them. Prior to the processing, the feeling of "I'm in danger" had surfaced every time they had the memory. This belief gradually changed into "I can find the support I need." The memory changed from a fragmented, sensory memory into a narrative memory. It no longer flooded them with the sights, sounds, and smells of the accident. The client was able to move to a physical understanding that the event happened awhile ago and that they were physically safe sitting in my office, a feeling of being okay. Processing Negative Core Beliefs The other thing that gets processed with EMDR are the negative core beliefs that go with trauma. All traumas change some element of self-concept. EMDR therapists are trained in helping you identify these negative core beliefs and finding a "good enough" positive belief that can be strengthened. A feeling of "I'm in danger" (in a car accident, for example) can move to a feeling of "I can find the support I need." Bilateral Stimulation Another thing that makes EMDR unique is the bilateral stimulation of the brain. This is often done with eye movements, but can also be with sounds that alternate between the left and right ear, or tappers that alternate a pressure in opposing palms. This external stimulation of both parts of the brain helps facilitate having the whole brain involved in thinking about the trauma, not just the fear center of the brain. For processing trauma, you want to make sure your whole brain is online, which is connected to that physiological relaxation. When you are relaxed, your whole brain is online. When you are in fight, flight, freeze mode, it is your limbic system, your amygdala taking over. When Professional Help Is Not Accessible I know that not everybody has access to an EMDR therapist or a trauma-informed therapist. If you are in that situation, I encourage learning the emotional regulation tools. There is also an online Virtual EMDR software program that assists you in self-administered EMDR (Click here for information. If you decide to move forward, put this code into the promo box on checkout for 20% off: AWAKENJOY20. Self-administered EMDR is not for everyone ( here's a video on that topic ). However, I have talked to many people who have benefited from the VIRTUALEMDR Software. (I am an affiliate, which means this channel/blog receives some support if you sign up through this link) Moving Forward with Hope You cannot will your traumatic memories away. Avoiding them and avoiding the things that trigger them does not help in the long run. I hope you know that **healing is possible.** Processing your traumatic memories can move them into long-term memory storage where they will feel like they happened long ago in the past and you are not re-experiencing them. This also means that the sights, sounds, and situations that may have triggered you into a PTSD reaction will not trigger you. While you might want to erase the memory completely, moving it into long-term storage is a major win. I hope this was helpful! I wish you health and healing. See you next week. Reference for research: Perl, et al. Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Nature Neuroscience, November, 2023

How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding When you get reactive, what happens? Do you: Lash out in anger? Automatically say yes when you mean no? Shut down in the middle of a conversation Run away? We all have our habitual mode of reactivity, but what these reactions have in common is that they're not conscious choices and they usually lead to negative consequences. Today's blog explains how calming down reactivity is the most important skill for regulating emotions. By the end of this article, you'll understand what reactivity is and where yours came from. You'll understand that power lies in the space—the space between an event and our reaction or the space between our emotion and our response. And I'm going to share six strategies for expanding that space, allowing you to choose how to respond instead of defaulting to automatic reactive behavior. Understanding Reactivity: It's Not Your Personality Most of us live far more reactively than we realize. We have automatic behaviors that kick in, and we repeat them over and over to the point where we say, "Well, that's who I am. That's my personality." But when you understand the origin of reactivity, you'll probably shift that belief. Our reactive pattern comes from our fight, flight, and freeze survival mechanism—a primitive survival mechanism. If we grow up in a dysfunctional family or with significant trauma or stress (including neglect), we develop patterns very young that help us survive. When they become so ingrained that we repeat them over and over later in life, they prove ineffective. For example, if you have a parent who rages, you might learn to freeze or flee. Then later in life, any time there's conflict, you either freeze or flee. A different child in that same family might be the one who fights with the rageful parent. They grow up feeling that in order to survive, they have to fight with that parent, so they become the fighter. Then later in life, whenever there's conflict or stress, they fight. The Four Reactive Patterns There are four reactive patterns. Three are the ones mentioned above that you are probably familiar with: fight, flight, and freeze. The fourth is the fawn response, which is when someone immediately engages in people-pleasing behavior or diminishes themselves to accommodate another. This response also comes from trauma. Someone who fawns automatically moves into a position of appeasing the other. As a child, this might have been necessary for survival, and then it becomes deeply ingrained—so ingrained it feels like part of your personality. Later in life you find yourself doing it constantly, even when it's unnecessary. The Costs of Chronic Reactivity Chronic reactivity comes with serious costs: 1. You often feel out of control and ashamed. You know that these reactions don't lead to the outcome you want. This brings up significant shame and guilt. 2. Reactivity causes damage to relationships. If you're a fighter, this is obvious. But it damages relationships if you're a fleer as well. If you're a freezer, people often feel shut out. If you fawn, people feel like they don't know where you stand and can't be close to you. All four reactive patterns impact our relationships. 3. You aren't making decisions aligned with your values and long-term goals. 4. You're reinforcing the neural pathways each time you engage in these behaviors. The Power of the Space Between The Event and The Response One of the greatest quotes on this topic comes from Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and neurologist who survived the Nazi concentration camps. He wrote an incredible book I highly recommend called Man's Search for Meaning . He founded a school of thought within psychology and psychiatry based on the premise that man's search for meaning is the most powerful motivational force in our lives. You are not your automatic reactions. You have the capacity to choose. We're going to talk about strengthening that capacity to choose and expanding your ability to access that space between the stimulus and the response. Six Strategies for Expanding the Space Strategy #1: Awarenes s of your habitual pattern and awareness of when you initially get triggered. Know what situations, people, or emotional events trigger your reactivity. Learn to recognize the signs. Some signs could be physical: your face getting hot or your pulse rate increasing. Some might be behavioral: you might have a nervous habit or something you say when you are nervous that you don't mean. Some signs might be cognitive: your mind goes blank if you're a freezer. The quicker you recognize the signs, the quicker you can adjust and slow your reactivity. One exercise to expond your awareness is to keep a journal for a week or two. Note at the end of each day: Did I get reactive today? What was the situation? What did I do? When did I realize I was being reactive? As you pay attention and think it through, I guarantee your awareness will begin earlier and earlier. Strategy #2: Stop, Take Five, and Think The second you realize that something reactive is happening within you: Stop, take five deep breaths and think. You don't have to respond right away. You don't have to answer someone immediately. If you're a fleer, you don't have to run away right away. Stay grounded, take five. That "take five" can vary. Sometimes it's just five breaths in the moment. Sometimes you might need five minutes. With bigger issues, you might need five hours—you might need time to process what's going on. Strategy #3: Reset Your Physiology Regularly practice the things that help you calm your physiology in the moment. I guarantee that when you get reactive, your pulse rate jumps, your breathing becomes more shallow, and your muscles become more tense. You may or may not be aware of those different physical signals, but as you think this through, you'll become more aware. The best tools for physiologically relaxing are grounding tools and diaphragmatic breathing tools. You take them everywhere you go, they're free and they're accessible. However, you need to practice them when you're not reactive in order to be able to access them when you are. I often recommend people practice one of these tools (whichever one is easier or more accessible) for minutes at a time, a few times a day. This gives you greater ability to access that tool when you are activated. There are other tools that work for people: playing with your pet, taking them for a walk, being out in nature. Those things may not always be accessible, so it's good to have the other tools as well. Know what tools work for you. Strategy #4: Mindfulness and Meditation I know these are hard for many people, but these are the tools that will give you the greatest ability to pause—to access that space between something upsetting and your response. I talk more about this in a free webinar I have called Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence . It's about an hour and 15 minutes and definitely worth it. I hear from many people that they learn a tremendous amount. It's about rewiring the neural pathways that have developed over a long period of time and lead to your reactive behavior. Strategy #5: Cognitive Reappraisal This is about thinking about the situation differently. This is not an early step in this process because with reactivity, you must first access some physiological calming so your amygdala calms down. This enables you to bring your frontal lobe online, so you can begin to think about the situation and have the capacity to change how you are thinking about it. This is a much bigger topic than I can address fully today, but I have several videos and blogs on cognitive distortions, and this blog also discusses it: Skills for Emotional Regulation . Example 1: Let's say you are highly sensitive to criticism and you become very reactive when criticized. When your boss criticizes you, your brain might jump into "I could lose my job" or "I hate my boss, but I'm trapped and can't get out of this." At the same time, your body is reacting as if you're in physical danger. There are several different ways of seeing the situation that are probably more accurate: • Your boss is kind of a jerk. He doesn't deliver criticism well, and it impacts everyone. It is unpleasant, but you are not in physical danger, and the catastrophizing is not needed. If you want to find a different boss and a different job, you can calm down and plan accordingly. • Or let's say your boss is generally reasonable and you know you are overreacting. You can reassure yourself that you're not in physical danger, and reassure yourself that it is ok to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, which is true. Bosses usually offer criticism because they care about the employee and want to help them improve. If you look at it as a tool for learning—with a feeling of "I'm ok as I am, I just need to learn some things differently" you will be able to calm down and take productive action. Example 2: A friend doesn't text you back and you immediately get worried you might have done something wrong. You review your last conversations, going over and over them. Your thoughts escalate about how made the person is, or that they will disappear. If you are able to identify that this way of thinking is a habitual pattern from your past, you can stand back from your reactivity and assess it. Bringing in cognitive reappraisal and recognizing the pattern, will help you shift your thinking to, "She's probably just busy. I can try her again tomorrow." Strategy #6: Value-Based Decision Making Once you've calmed down and created space, you can think through what response to the difficult situation best reflects your values and your goals in life. Ask yourself: • What response would be most aligned with my values and my long-term goals? • What response helps achieve what I want to achieve? • What response will make me feel good about my handling of the situation no matter what the outcome is? Knowing our values is a North Star for us. It relates to the concept that the search for meaning is vital. In the Roadmap program I have ( Roadmap to Joy and Authentic Confidence ), the first module is on identifying your values. Which ones do are truly yours versus the ones you were told to have by family or society? What are the most important ones? This self-exploration helps guide your decisions throughout life . Remember to Practice the Tools and Have Self-Compassion, and Freedom Practice makes progress—all of this takes practice and time. Have self-compassion. Know where your reactivity came from and that it made sense to develop this pattern. The freedom is in the response you choose, not in the automatic reaction. You can still feel anger, and yet not act out in anger . You can feel anger, and choose your response. You can still get your feelings hurt, and yet not act out with your habitual pattern. All of us will have our feelings hurt, something will make us angry, things will happen that make us sad. All of this is going to happen. I know it can be very tempting to listen to those people who say, "If you do everything right, life is perfect." But that simply isn't true. Knowing your emotions, knowing yourself, and being able to choose your response—that's a wonderful thing. If you found value in this blog, please share it with someone else you might benefit! I appreciate you, and I'll see you next week.

Traumatic reactions hit out of the blue, coming from nowhere. These responses don't feel caused by a thought or a particular way of thinking. They feel out of control and overwhelming.

Do you tend to stuff your feelings down, pushing away emotions like fear, sadness, and anger? This is called emotional suppression and while it is common, it comes with significant hidden costs. Suppressing emotions has been shown to increase your stress response, impact memory and negatively impact relationships

People who are emotionally dysregulated frequently feel shame... and they certainly can be shamed by others. This dysregulation is not your fault AND you can improve your emotional regulation. Emotional regulation is learned. It is not an inherent personality trait.