Quotes About Emotions

Relationships in life don't really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you've been close to lives on somewhere inside you. Your past lovers, your parents, your friends, people both alive and dead (symbolically or literally)--all of them evoke memories, conscious or not.

Don't judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don't be afraid of the truth.

It's impossible to get to know people deeply and not come to like them.

Avoidance is a simple way of coping by not having to cope.

But many people come to therapy seeking closure. Help me not to feel. What they eventually discover is that you can't mute one emotion without muting the others. You want to mute the pain? You'll also mute the joy.

Happiness (t) = w0+ w1 ?t?jCRj+ w2 ?t?jEVj+ w3 ?t?jRPEj Which all boils down to: Happiness equals reality minus expectations.

Your feelings don't have to mesh with what you think they should be," he explained. "They'll be there regardless, so you might as well welcome them because they hold important clues.

Sometimes in their pain, people believe that the agony will last forever. But feelings are actually more like weather systems—they blow in and they blow out. Just because you feel sad this minute or this hour or this day doesn't mean you'll feel that way in ten minutes or this afternoon or next week. Everything you feel—anxiety, elation, anguish—blows in and out again.

every decision they make is based on two things: fear and love. Therapy strives to teach you how to tell the two apart.

Well you seem like you're enjoying the experience of suffering, so I thought I'd help you out with that... There's a difference between pain and suffering,' Wendell says, 'You're going to have to feel pain- everyone feels pain at times- but you don't have to suffer so much. You're not choosing the pain, but you're choosing the suffering

it's our honesty with ourselves that helps us make sense of our lives with all of their nuances and complexity. Repress those thoughts, and you'll likely behave "badly." Acknowledge them, and you'll grow.

Therapy elicits odd reactions because, in a way, it's like pornography. Both involve a kind of nudity. Both have the potential to thrill. And both have millions of users, most of whom keep their use private.

We marry our unfinished business.

Every laugh and good time that comes my way feels ten times better than before I knew such sadness.

During an initial burst of pain, people tend to lash out either at others or at themselves, to turn the anger outward or inward.

Relationships in life don't really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you've been close to lives on somewhere inside you.

People often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn't the absence of feelings; it's a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings.

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seen like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

Typically, a patient might have a difficult session about a childhood trauma, then come in the next week and announce that therapy is no longer needed.

complaining about the way a relative would try to make me feel guilty, my father quipped, "Just because she sends you guilt doesn't mean you have to accept delivery.

So what I say is this: You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on, and pretending to feel a certain way isn't one of them.

I regularly made an effort to remember one of the most important lessons from my training: There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

Until you tell me what's really on your mind, you'll stay stuck exactly where you are.

You want to mute the pain? You'll also mute the joy.