Quotes About Emotions

Being the cool girl feels like shit.

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?

There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest.

Some scientists have come up with a complex mathematical equation to predict happiness based on the premise that happiness stems not from how well things go but whether things go better than expected.

but I figured that this comment was just one of John's defenses against getting close to anybody or acknowledging his need for another human being.

anger serves another function—it pushes people away and keeps them from getting close enough to see you.

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it,

But I assure him that he's not breaking down; he's breaking open.

I was finding it hard to manage my negative thoughts because, outside of Wendell's office, they didn't have much of an outlet.

Are people really supposed to be done grieving after two months? Can't grief last six months or a year or, in some form or another, an entire lifetime?

This bereavement exclusion no longer exists, partly because of the timeline: Are people really supposed to be done grieving after two months? Can't grief last six months or a year or, in some form or another, an entire lifetime?

identifying his in-the-moment feelings, because feelings lead to behaviors. Once we know what we're feeling, we can make choices about where we want to go with them.

It's not that she's hiding her feelings; it's that she can't access them. There's a words for this kind of emotional blindness: alexithymia. She doesn't know what she's feeling of doesn't have the words to express it.

mistaking feeling less for feeling better.

losses tend to be multilayered. There's the actual loss (in my case, of Boyfriend), and the underlying loss (what it represents).

we imprison ourselves with a narrative of self-punishment. If we have a choice between believing one of two things, both of which we have evidence for—I'm unlovable, I'm lovable—often we choose the one that makes us feel bad.

Before you speak, ask yourself, What is this going to feel like to the person I'm speaking to?

I'd been mistaking feeling less for feeling better. The feelings are still there, though. They come out in unconscious behaviors, in an inability to sit still, in a mind that hungers for the next distraction, in a lack of appetite or a struggle to control one's appetite, in a short-temperedness,

John points to his tears. "See?" he says. "My fucking humanity." "It's magnificent," I say.

There's a difference between pain and suffering. 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. ... If I'm clinging to the suffering so tightly, I must be getting something out of it. It must be serving some purpose for me.

Breakups are awful," Claire says, popping some grapes in her mouth. "But we'd be negligent if we didn't do them.

Talking can keep people in their heads and safely away from their emotions.

numbness isn't the absence of feelings; it's a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings.

He glances toward his cell, which is vibrating again, but I don't follow his gaze. I stay with him, trying to hold on so he won't get pulled away whenever an unwanted feeling appears and go numb. 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.