The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You

by Karla McLaren

Overview

Emotions-especially the dark and dishonored ones-hold a tremendous amount of energy. We've all seen what happens when we repress or blindly express them. With The Language of Emotions, empathic counselor Karla McLaren shows you how to meet your emotions and receive their life-saving wisdom to safely move toward resolution and equilibrium. Through experiential exercises covering a full spectrum of feelings from anger, fear, and shame to jealousy, grief, joy, and more, you will discover how to work with your own and others' emotions with fluency and expertise. Here is a much-needed resource filled with revolutionary teachings and breakthrough skills for cultivating a new and empowering relationship with your feeling states.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591797692
Publisher:	Sounds True, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/01/2010
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	528,957
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Karla McLaren
Empath Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and pioneering educator whose empathic approach to emotions has taken her through the healing of her own childhood trauma, into a healing career, and now into the study of sociology, anthropology, neurology, cognitive psychology, and education. She is the author of The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You (Sounds True, 2010), the online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (Sounds True, 2012) and The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill (October, 2013).

Karla has taught at such venues as the University of San Francisco, Omega Institute, Naropa University, Kripalu, and the Association for Humanistic Psychology. Additionally, as a prison arts educator with the William James Foundation, she has utilized singing, drumming, and drama to help men in maximum security prisons explore and heal long-held emotional traumas. She is currently developing new forms of Empathy and Social Interaction curricula for neurologically diverse populations.

Karla lives in California with her husband, Tino Plank, a Master's level nurse educator who works in hospice and end-of-life care.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Part I Restoring Your Native Language

1 Introduction 3

Creating a Conscious Life

2 My Empathic Journey 9

The Difficult Beginnings of Empathy

3 Troubled Waters 25

How We Got So Confused

4 It Takes A Village 39

Surrounding Your Emotions with Support

5 Reviving Your Essential Nature 57

Making Room for Your Central Self

6 Avoidance, Addiction, and Awakening 77

Understanding the Need for Distractions

7 Unintentional Shamans 91

The Role of Trauma in Soul-Making and Culture-Building

8 The Role of Emotions in The Resolution of Trauma 113

Water Will Carry You Home

9 The Steadfast Promise 123

Why Love Is Not an Emotion

10 Building Your Raft 125

The Five Empathic Skills

Part II Embracing Your Emotions

11 Wading Into The Water 161

Awakening All of Your Emotions

12 Anger: Protection and Restoration 167

Includes Rage, Fury, and the Healing of Trauma

13 Apathy And Boredom: The Mask for Anger 191

14 Guilt And Shame: Restoring Integrity 197

15 Hatred: The Profound Mirror 215

Includes Resentment, Contempt, Disgust, and Shadow Work

16 Fear: Intuition and Action 235

Includes Anxiety, Worry, and the Healing of Trauma

17 Confusion: The Mask for Fear 257

18 Jealousy And Envy: Relational Radar 263

Includes Greed

19 Panic and Terror: Frozen Fire 281

Includes Healing from Trauma

20 Sadness: Release and Rejuvenation 295

Includes Despair and Despondency

21 Grief: The Deep River of the Soul 311

22 Depression: Ingenious Stagnation 327

Focusing on Situational Depression

23 Suicidal Urges: The Darkness Before Dawn 345

24 Happiness: Amusement and Anticipation 359

25 Contentment: Appreciation and Recognition 365

26 Joy: Affinity and Communion 369

Includes Exhilaration and Honoring Happiness in Others

27 Stress And Resistance 377

Understanding Emotional Physics

28 Emotions Are Your Native Language 387

The Fine Art of a Life Well Lived

Acknowledgments 393

Notes 395

Further Resources 399

Index 405

About The Author 415

Editorial Reviews

“This book changed the way I relate to others, and to myself, forever.” —Gavin De Becker, author of The Gift of Fear

“Karla McLaren's unique, empathic view of emotions surprisingly revalues even the most "negative" emotions and opens pathways to understanding the depths of the human soul.” —Michael Meade, author of The World Behind the World and The Water of Life

“In my graduate education in counseling psychology, I found very little information about our emotions. Yet in my work as a therapist and educator, I've seen that emotions are key to healing. Karla McLaren's book offers an outstanding guide to the signals and messages emotions send us, along with clear instructions for intelligent and emotion-supporting actions we can take in response. Karla has made a huge contribution to the well-being of us all; The Language of Emotions will become required reading in all of my courses.” —Nancy Feehan, MFT, adjunct professor of counseling psychology at the University of San Francisco

From the Publisher