Tricks to remember emotions

Question 1

Being “in the weeds”

Answer 1

Stressed

Question 2

Being “blown”

Answer 2

Overwhelmed

Question 3

Coping strategies for anxiety

Answer 3

Worry, avoidance

Question 4

We experience social pain and physical pain in the same part of our brains, and the potential exposure to either type of pain drives ___.

Answer 4

Fear (including fear of social rejection)

Question 5

There is no courage without ___.

Answer 5

Vulnerability

Question 6

Swimming laps

Answer 6

Comparison

Question 7

“Be like everyone else, but better.”

Answer 7

Comparison

Question 8

We are left wanting to be better versions of ourselves.

Answer 8

Admiration

Question 9

It fosters a desire for connection with and to move closer to that thing or person.

Answer 9

Reverence

Question 10

___ doesn’t seem to be a singular emotion but rather a cognitive evaluation in response to feeling anger, sadness, and/or fear. In other words, we think it in response to how we feel.

Answer 10

Jealousy

Question 11

Some level or ___ in small doses and expressed appropriately is a normal part of healthy relationships. Maya Angelou: “___ in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening.”

Answer 11

Jealousy

Question 12

___ is part of the envy family

“I’m not mad because you’re resting. I’m mad because I’m so bone tired and I want to rest. But, unlike you, I’m going to pretend that I don’t need to.”

Answer 12

Resentment

Question 13

Now, when I start to feel resentful, instead of thinking, “What is that person doing wrong,” or “What should they be doing,” I think, “_ … _.”

Answer 13

“What do I need but am afraid to ask for?”

Question 14

While resentment is definitely an emotion, I normally recognize it by a familiar thought pattern: “_ … _.”

Answer 14

“What mean and critical thing am I rehearsing saying to this person?”

Question 15

Ted Lasso declared the office a ___.

Answer 15

“Schaudenfreude-free zone.”

Nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection

Question 16

Good friends aren’t afraid of your light. They never blow out your flame and you don’t blow out theirs - even when it’s really bright and it makes you worry about your own flame. When something good happens to you, they celebrate your flame. When something good happens to them, you celebrate their flame. To illustrate, we’d have our kids hold their hands out, palms flat and open, and say, “If this is your flame and the wind picks up, good friends cup their hands around your flame to prevent it from going out. And you do the same for them.”

Answer 16

Freudenfreude

Question 17

Abby Wambach would “point and run” after a goal to celebrate the person who made the assist or the coach who called the play.

Answer 17

Freudenfreude

Question 18

“___ is your imagination calling to you.”

Answer 18

Boredom

Question 19

We were packing for spring break at Disney World when Steve, who was looking in my bad, said, “Babe, should we reality-check expectations for the week?” Somewhat frustrated, I replied, “No. I think we’re good, babe.” Steve pointed to the three books I had stuffed into my carry-on bag and said, “Tell me more about those.”

Answer 19

Unexamined and unexpressed expectations, aka stealth expectations

Question 20

Questions to ask to reality-check, communicate, and dig into the intensions driving someone’s expectations.

Answer 20

What expectations do you have going into this? What do you want to happen? Why? What will that mean to you? Do you have a movie in your head? Are you setting goals and expectations that are completely outside of your control?

Question 21

In the short term, we tend to regret ___. When we reflect back over the long term, we tend to regret ___.

Answer 21

(1) bad outcomes where we took action

2) actions we didn’t take (missed opportunities

Question 22

The idea of “no regrets” doesn’t mean living with courage, it means living ___. To live without regret is to believe we have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with our lives.

Answer 22

Without reflection

Question 23

With ___, we don’t think we can fix the situation, while with ___, we feel there is something we can do.

Answer 23

(1) frustration, (2) anger

Question 24

Cartoon of observing the stars, vs. cartoon of observing a butterfly and then picking up a biology book.

Answer 24

Awe vs. Wonder

Question 25

“How often do we observe people and ourselves dismissing new data or information that challenges our ideas, in order to avoid ___ or the risk of being wrong? If you ask me, stopping to think, engaging in careful deliberation, and revising old thinking are rare and courageous actions.”

Answer 25

Confusion

Aim for the “zone of optimal confusion” (Brené Brown’s future punk band)

Question 26

“Prime the pump”

Answer 26

We have to have some level of knowledge or awareness before we can become curious. We aren’t curious about something we are unaware of or know nothing about. “To induce curiosity about a particular topic, it may be necessary to ‘prime the pump.’”

Question 27

“Choosing to be ___ is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”

Answer 27

Curious

Question 28

The reason why Brené Brown doesn’t like surprises and reads the plots of potentially stressful movies before watching them.

Answer 28

Surprise is an amplifier. We can think of surprise as a bridge between cognition and emotion. Once the brain works out the unexpected thing that’s happening, we move into emotion. More surprising events result in stronger emotional reactions.

Question 29

Appeals specifically to one’s sense of humor.

Answer 29

Amusement

Question 30

Her kids’ developmental milestones left her feeling __. Other examples: leaving a job, moving, coming home from vacation, etc.

Answer 30

Bittersweet

“What all of the comments have in common is sadness about letting go of something, mixed with happiness and/or gratitude about what’s been experienced and/or what’s next.”

“I don’t think I was fully aware of the depth of humanity that lives in the curves of this emotion.” (After gathering examples from her social media channels).

Question 31

What’s spoken: “I wish things were the way they used to be in the good ol’ days.”
What’s not spoken: “when people knew their places.”

Answer 31

“Nostalgia emerged as a double-edged sword, a tool for both connection and disconnection. It can be an imaginary refuge from a world we don’t understand and a dog whistle used to resist important growth in families, organizations and the broader culture and to protect power, including white supremacy.”

“It’s important to reality-check our nostalgic ideas … Were the comfort and safety of that past experience real? If so, were they at someone else’s expense?”

Question 32

“Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me” and “I smoke two packs a day.”

Answer 32

Cognitive dissonance.

Self-delusional resolution: reject the health information
Healthy resolution: quit smoking

“When we’re faced with information that challenges what we believe, our first instinct is to make the discomfort, irritation, and vulnerability go away by resolving the dissonance. We might do this by rejecting the new information, decreasing its importance, or avoiding it altogether. … In these challenging moments of dissonance, we need to stay curious and resist choosing comfort over courage. It’s brave to invite new information to the table, to sit with it and hear it out. It’s also rare these days.”

Question 33

“While ___ pushes us to resolve the tension of conflicting information, ___ challenges us to straddle the tension of two conflicting elements and recognize that they can both be true.”

Answer 33

Cognitive dissonance, paradox

Question 34

“The ___ is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions…only the ___ comes anywhere near to comprehending the fulness of life.” - Carl Jung

Answer 34

Paradox

“Paradoxes force us to think in expansive ways and lean into vulnerability.”

Question 35

“The biggest watch-out with __ and __: Are you dressing something up in humor that actually requires clarity and honesty?”

Answer 35

Irony and Sarcasm

Question 36

“___ not only takes away our ability to breathe, feel, and think–it comes for our bones. ___ often causes us to physically crumple in on ourselves, literally bringing us to our knees or forcing us all the way to the ground.”

Answer 36

Anguish

The element of powerlessness is what makes anguish traumatic. We are unable to change, reverse, or negotiate what has happened.

(It may take time and help).

Question 37

“Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.”

Answer 37

“It is important to know that hope is learned. Children most often learn the habit of hope from their parents. To learn hopefulness, children need relationships that are characterized by boundaries, consistency, and support. Children with high levels of hopefulness have experience with adversity. They’ve been given opportunities to struggle, and in doing that they learn how to believe in themselves and their abilities.”

“Hope is a function of struggle–we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort.”

Question 38

Three elements to cultivate a hope practice

Answer 38

setting goals, thinking through pathways, and developing a strong believe in ourselves and what we can accomplish

(In the context of Hopelessness and Despair)

Question 39

“Will this issue be a big deal in five minutes? Five hours? Fide days? Five months? Five years?”

Answer 39

“Permanence can be a tough one for me … When I’m really scared, worried, overwhelmed, stressed about what’s happening, and trying to find perspective, I ask myself: [These questions].”

The 3 P’s traps to focus on to build resilience:
Personalization - thinking about ourselves as the problem without recognizing the larger context
Permanence - the feeling that the struggle will never end, and pervasiveness - i.e.
Pervasiveness - the trap of thinking it has stained every aspect of our lives

(In the context of Hopelessness and Despair)

Question 40

There is a reason we love sad movies.

Answer 40

“We like to be moved. We like to feel connected to what it means to be human, to be reminded of our inextricable connection to one another. Sadness moves the individual ‘us’ toward the collective ‘us.’”

Question 41

“Each person’s ___ is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that …. they share a need for their ___ to be witnessed. … The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.”

Answer 41

Grief, grieve

Quote from grief expert David Kessler on “Unlocking Us”

The need for connection, storytelling, and story catching