What is Codependency? Codependency refers to a mental, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual reliance on a partner, friend, or family member. The term was originally coined in the 1950s in the context of Alcoholics Anonymous to support partners of individuals who abused substances, and who were entwined…
What are emotions? Emotions, often called feelings, include experiences such as love, hate, anger, trust, joy, panic, fear, and grief. Emotions are related to, but different from, mood. Emotions are specific reactions to a particular event that are usually of fairly short duration. Mood…
People tend to use the words self-esteem and confidence interchangeably. However, while the two are related, they are not exactly the same. It’s important to know the difference between self-esteem and confidence in order to develop both. Just about everyone struggles with low self-esteem…
Rumination occurs when you have constant and repetitive thoughts about something; typically, a problem or situation. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, rumination is defined as “obsessive thinking about an idea, situation, or choice especially when it interferes with normal mental functioning.” Common phrases that…
Guilt and shame are two words that we use almost interchangeably. They both describe a negative emotion in response to our actions, but they have very different meanings. In this article, we’ll discuss that difference between shame vs guilt in detail because it has…
What is compassion? Compassion is the heartfelt wish to help others become free of their suffering. In Buddhist teachings on the Four Immeasurable qualities, compassion is the wish that everyone be relieved of suffering and the causes of suffering. Its twin sister, lovingkindness, is…
Emotional abuse can look like many things. It can be one person trying to control another person. It can be a type of deceit in words that we sometimes call gaslighting. It can be one person habitually belittling another person. At the other end…
So often, when you ask a couple, that has been married for a long time, what the key to a successful relationship is, they will say: Compromise. Compromise is often treated like the sacred cow of relationships. But it’s time for this outdated idea…
Anxious and frightening emotions can feel the same and be easily confused. Fear and anxiety are closely related. Both contain the idea of danger or possibility of injury. Fear and anxiety both produce a similar stress response to a real or a perceived threat.1…
In order to get our very important emotional needs met, we need to feel safe, to feel in control, to feel loved or cared about, to feel purposeful, to feel valued, to feel stimulated, to feel capable – these are some of the emotional…