Storybase word-a-rama November 17, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, emotions, NaNoWriMo, software, writing.add a comment
This wicked online tool comes up with more funky cool emotion/action words than you can poke a stick at….. even more than I come up with on long hard night of Vodka and Red Bull! Fantabulous for art and life alike… check it out.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Emotion? November 16, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, emotions, goals, management, mothers, neuroscience, school, values, writing.add a comment
Crap things only feel crap when we make those emotions wrong and try to avoid them in ourselves and others. When we try to avoid making anyone feel hurt or upset or angry or frustrated or confused or overwhelmed. But, what’s so bad about feeling any of those things?
I reckon there oughta be two compulsory things in this world: YOGA and ARTS
YOGA – coz crappy posture = crappy feelings = no oxygen to the brain = no access to the powerhouse of resources you’re dragging around with you every day. If people actually felt great in their bodies and stopped taxing them so bad thru misuse everything would change.
ARTS – coz then you rekindle the love of the dance of life, an innate passion for contrast and curiosity for depth and meaning. Everything you see, hear, feel, notice and observe becomes less about trying to keep the peace or maintain balance (balance schmalance, this is a life of divine extremes, a dance, swinging like a pirate on the pendulum between the furthest points, then swinging even further on the next run), and it all becomes material for your next creative project, regardless of your chosen art form.
Art is myth, and myth is the language of the soul. We all know that a good story has twists and surprises, it isn’t bland and numb and
predictable, so why would we curse our lives to be that way?
My stand-up comedy teacher said: “Personal development is great, but make sure you don’t get too fixed. You’ll run out of material.”
Feeling Delicious November 16, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in emotions, goals, love, neuroscience, values.add a comment
A friend wrote me a discourse about depression and such, followed by the PS “I think you would argue that a ‘painful’ emotion is not a ‘bad’ emotion.” hehehe – he was right, that’s exactly what I was thinking!
There ain’t no such thing as negative and positive, good and bad, esp when it comes to emotions. They’re all different colours and tastes and textures. I choose to group emotions into taste categories, like sweet, sour, savoury, bland, tangy, spicy, etc.
I really like the concept of tastes and hungers re: emotions, coz hungers get satiated and return, tastes vary from moment to moment. They’re a message, a calling from deep within us, calling us to go open the fridge and search for meaning, pick up the phone and delivery menu, a call to action to make a change to our biochemistry, our focus, a call to give ourselves a boost of nurturing and nutrition. Emotions are that same call to action.
The biggest issue comes when we misinterpret emotions, or when they get stuck in an inappropriate trigger/anchor loop. And some complement each other, and some clash.
And it’s not just doctors that focus on ‘taking the pain away,” loved ones and bystanders do that too. Often loved ones can be the most potent enablers of all. Empathy is a bad idea if you use it to make people (or yourself) feel more comfortable staying in one emotion or another (even excitement), instead of interpreting those emotions as a call to action. If ANY emotion hangs around too long, you end up stuck and numb.
The key, I feel, is flexibility and interpretation, and not getting stuck on unaware autopilot, salivating on cue like pavlov’s mutts (aware autopilot is way cool, tho).
I fully, fully, fully agree with the inarticulate nature of ‘depression’. After working with some teens earlier this year, I actually did a post on precisely that, with a bunch of emo-vocab to play with…… (my most highly commented/replied-to post to date, btw) http://jdverse.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/make-or-break-words/
