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    The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings
    The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings
    The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings
    Ebook360 pages5 hours

    The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings

    By Darlene Mininni

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    About this ebook

    Have you ever been stuck in a bad mood? Are you often helpless to stop your mind's negative thinking? Can you find peace when you're feeling overwhelmed?

    Imagine what life would be like if you had an emotional toolkit. When confused or upset, you'd have powerful tools at your fingertips to help you understand your emotions and master your troubling feelings. With The Emotional Toolkit, help has arrived.

    Meticulously researched, The Emotional Toolkit is a remarkable guide based on a highly successful course Dr. Darlene Mininni developed and taught to undergraduate women at UCLA. Now she's offering this essential information to women of all ages. Written with warmth and intelligence, Dr. Mininni teaches you the messages your emotions are trying to send you. She offers seven concrete, easy-to-follow "power-tools" scientifically proven to boost your emotional well-being.

    With an emotional toolkit, you will harness the power of your mind and body to reduce your distress. Scientists confirm that women using the strategies from The Emotional Toolkit have less anxiety and sadness and are happier and more optimistic than before. And you can be, too.

    Filled with helpful tips, quizzes, resources and insightful case studies, The Emotional Toolkit is an inspiring lesson on how to take charge of your emotions and create more happiness in your life. Finally, here is the emotional education you never received.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 24, 2006
    ISBN9781429907224
    The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings
    Author

    Darlene Mininni

    Darlene Mininni has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and a master's degree in public health. For fifteen years she was an educator and behavioral health specialist at the UCLA Arthur Ashe Health & Wellness Center. She is an experienced speaker and workshop leader.

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      Book preview

      The Emotional Toolkit - Darlene Mininni

      Part One

      Opening

      Your Toolkit

      1

      It’s Time for Your

      Emotional Education

      Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

      —Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher

      Imagine having your own Emotional Toolkit. When you experience a feeling that is confusing or distressing, you reach into your Toolkit and find the tool that helps you cope more effectively You find a tool that helps you understand your feelings more fully or respond with more clarity You find a tool that can actually change the chemicals in your body that influence your feelings.

      Each tool in the Emotional Toolkit has been scientifically studied at universities and medical centers throughout the country and has been shown to improve emotional well-being. I’ve done exhaustive research and included only those strategies with a proven track record for success.

      The tools are practical, usable skills that help you manage your emotions. They are not academic or theoretical or abstract. They are real skills to use in everyday life.

      The Emotional Toolkit is more than a book; it is an opportunity to get what most of us missed: a how-to course in the basic skills of your emotional life. Even if you are, or have been, in psychotherapy, this book can supplement the process with action-based strategies that will complement and enhance the therapy experience. This book is for you if you’ve ever felt:

      confused about what you’re feeling

      powerless to reduce the intensity or duration of your distressing feelings

      consumed by your thoughts and feelings

      unable to shift your unpleasant moods

      overwhelmed trying to stay centered in a fast-paced world

      Why Is This Book Focused on Women?

      Let’s face it. Haven’t we all felt some of the feelings on the preceding list at one time or another? I know I have, and so have most of my friends, colleagues, clients, and students. And it’s not just women who experience these feelings—men do, too. Men also feel pressured and confused and overwhelmed, and all the Emotional Tools in this book work just as well for men. However, I decided to focus this book on women because I’ve had many years of experience in teaching, counseling, and writing about women. As such, I’ve gathered many people’s stories to share—as well as stories from my own life.

      Mind you, confidentiality is of utmost importance to me, and I would never break that trust. I’ve removed all identifying information from the stories you’ll read in this book, and in many cases, I’ve created composites. Still, I think it’s critically important that we share our stories with one another. Although you may sit and read this book alone, it is my hope that you will feel connected to some of the women you read about.

      The Seven Power-Skills

      This book presents seven tools to help you manage your emotional life with mastery:

      Tool 1, thought-shifting. Your negative thoughts directly affect the quality and intensity of your feelings. Positive affirmations are not the answer because, for most people, they don’t work. Thought-shifting includes four steps that can help you shift your thoughts from judging to supporting.

      Tool 2, meditative arts. The meditative arts include belly breathing, mindfulness meditation, and meditation-in-action. These powerful body-mind tools can reduce anxiety, sadness, and anger. They can also increase your happiness and optimism by transforming your thinking patterns and increasing activity in the region of your brain associated with upbeat and happy moods.

      Tool 3, communication. The key to becoming an effective communicator is not just learning a few techniques, but also understanding what your communication style is and how it developed. When you use strategies that are consistent with your needs, you will be able to reduce anxiety, sadness, and anger.

      Tool 4, emotional writing. It’s hard to believe that just writing about your distressing feelings can change them, but it can. People who write about their deepest feelings in a specific way are less depressed, less anxious, and more positive about life than are those who write about trivial things.

      Tool 5, physical movement. Emotional exercise, movement that can shift your emotions, can take whatever form you like—walking, dancing, or yoga, just to name a few. When done in a prescribed manner, movement can be as effective as a minor tranquilizer at reducing anxiety-related muscle tension. It can also create an effect in your brain similar to that of antidepressant drugs like Prozac.

      Tool 6, connection. Feeling connected to others can decrease your sadness, anxiety, and loneliness and can even increase your self-esteem. Activities like entertaining people at your home or belonging to a bowling team are the happiness equivalent of more than doubling your income.

      Tool 7, psychotherapy. Most people who seek therapy report less anxiety and depression as well as better relationships than do those with similar problems who don’t go to therapy. Therapy works best when you have a good relationship with your therapist, learn new skills, and are encouraged to take action.

      From this array of strategies, you can choose the Emotional Tools that are right for your personality and your situation. Over time they may change. The goal is to know yourself well enough to say, Yes, when I use this tool, I know I’ll feel better. Keep in mind that it is not necessary to incorporate all these techniques into your life at the same time. That would be overwhelming and would defeat the whole purpose of making you feel better. Instead, use the tool or tools that work best for you.

      Managing Your Emotional Life

      You don’t need me to tell you that life has its ups and downs. M. Scott Peck started his classic book The Road Less Traveled with the line, Life is difficult, and it’s true. No matter how charmed your life is, you will experience a range of emotions from joy, love, and exhilaration to sadness, anger, and fear. And this is normal.

      In addition to your day-to-day reactions to life, there are cyclical emotions you can expect to experience. According to Yale University psychology professor and researcher Daniel Levinson, adults will have predictable crises in their lives separated by times of calm. These crises arrive approximately every five to seven years and have to do with your evolving identity.

      Your evolving identity is the way you change as a result of time, experiences, and just plain living. For example, the challenges and choices you face in your twenties or thirties—What kind of work will I do? Will I marry? Where will I live?—are different from the ones you face in your forties or fifties when you might ask, Have I made good choices? Is there something I’ve neglected to do in my life? Each time you reevaluate your life, you may bring up feelings of excitement and anticipation as well as loss and confusion. All of this is to be expected.

      Sometimes people strive for great wealth or fame, thinking it will insulate them from distressing feelings and imagining that once they have arrived they will be forever happy. They are often surprised to realize that a short while after attaining their goals, they still feel the same way they have always felt, experiencing the ups and downs of life. As author Jon Kabat-Zinn so aptly says, Wherever you go, there you are.

      Your emotions have a purpose: they are signals that can tell you important things about yourself, if you listen. Anxiety can be a sign that you need to be alert to a potential danger. Anger might occur when you feel you’ve been violated in some way. And sadness can be a validation that you have lost something valuable. It’s as if your body is saying, Look at me; something in your life needs attention! Our aim is not to remove all unhappy emotions, but rather to reduce the amount of time they exist and to decrease the distress that gets created around

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