The Real Meaning of Resentment & the Relief of Letting Go...
Arthur sat at his desk close to tears. Once again the head teacher had singled him our and humiliated him in front of the whole school. He
hated him. Hated him for making him have to fight back tears in front of bigger boys. Hated him for making him feel stupid and useless. He hated Mr McDonald with all his heart and he always would.
A History of Hatred
Arthur is now 68 and still hates Mr McDonald. But Mr McDonald is dead. He left his head teacher's life behind him 30 years ago. And even while he still lived, could Arthur's resentment reach him and warm his conscience so that he might feel remorse? No.Hatred Over Time Becomes Resentment
Mastering Anger with EFT
In Hidden Anger: How Your Journal Can Help You Let off Steam in a Healthy Way, I talked about how to use a journal to externalise and begin working with feelings of anger and frustration. In this post I want to share how to use Emotional Freedom Techniques to further process the words on your page that cause you anger, injustice, or hurt. If you aren't yet familiar with Emotional Freedom techniques you can read a quick 5 minute walkthrough of how to do EFT here. You might like to print it and have it handy while you work through this exercise.
Before we begin, here's an account of one very angry man and how he used EFT to get control of his anger once and for all.
Scents & Sensibility: The Power Your Sense of Smell Holds Over Your Emotions
Most of us have experienced moments in our lives where a particular smell brings an old memory right to the front of our mind with incredible detail. In a study at Northwestern University researchers are looking into the link between the sense of smell and our emotions and why a certain perfume or the scent of baking pie can conjure memories of a long-dead loved one. While conversely, the smell of diesel fuel might trigger a flashback for a soldier suffering from PTSD.
Aroma Induced Time Travel
If I smell a particular home baking smell I can instantly see my Great Aunt Edna's kitchen, I can see her, her apron, the cooker, the griddle she used to make me Welsh cakes, the kitchen table where I sat to eat them. Everything in such incredible detail. Just from one brief whiff of a particular baking smell I'm instantly transported with full recall to that moment.
Sometimes we might find ourselves perfectly recalling an event that we thought we had forgotten about, but there it is available to us in stunning detail due to one specific scent flipping open a file in our brain, and there it is a complete memory with all it's detail. We can see what we saw at that time, hear what we heard, it's all there. What's also there is the emotional recall, instantly we feel how we were feeling at that time. In the case of Aunt Edna's kitchen that's a nice experience.
But what if the memory wasn't so good? To use a mild example, I used to feel nervous when I smelled methylated spirits. Why? Because the smell took me straight back to waiting to see my childhood dentist. The smell of meths still brings an image of a shiny lino floor leading from the waiting room to the room I sat in to have a tooth extracted, but due to a little trick I learned some years ago, it's now a memory without any sense of nervousness.
Getting Clear with EFT: Banishing Niggling Negative Emotions
One of the many great things you can do with Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is clear your head and settle those niggling negative emotions and experiences that can pile up and get you down. For improved sleep and focus try this quick ten minute exercise for dumping what’s on your mind and settling to sleep with a lighter mental load.If you’re not yet familiar with EFT, you can get a quick walkthrough here (it’s free). http://easyeft.wordpress.com/eft-the-basics/