tears and tribulations

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emotions, feelings, Leonardo da Vinci, quotes, tears, thoughts

Today one of my students had a bit of a cry. Overwhelmed by the stress of working, studying and running her first own home the emotions ran a little wild and trickled down her face in wet, unhappy tears.

I did my best to console but I couldn’t help but wonder about the demands this modern world puts on us all. Between working, paying the bills, shopping, cleaning, new projects, possible hobbies, friends and family we seem to have no time at all to take a breath and process.

All the ideas, thoughts, stress, anger, hurt and emotions cartwheel around inside of us, banging into each other, overturning logic and any sense of calm we may have had, often leaving no way of escape except through the tear-ducts of our eyes.

So maybe tears are just a way of making space inside of us for new trials and tribulations, allowing a moment of calm to clear up the mess and put things back into place and perspective.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

Leonardo da Vinci

a silent tear

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crying, emotions, feelings, health, mental-health, miscellaneous, random, tears, well-being

I stayed in last night, content to tidy away Christmas, put it back into it’s box. As I wrapped, packed and stowed I listened to music and drank a glass of deep red wine. But my flighty mind got distracted by hidden thoughts and forgotten memories and suddenly a silent tear fell.

I had to stop and take a moment to figure out why, without any warning, a wave of sadness had washed over me. As the tear rolled down my cheek a second followed, then a third and in a jingle-bells a steady stream of tears was escaping from my eyes.

Emotions are tricky things and while I tried to figure out what it was that I was actually feeling I discovered a plethora of loneliness, missing my dad, frustration over not achieving my goals, lost hopes and dreams. But as the tears flowed I slowly felt better and I remembered what I knew about tears.

Tears are quite wonderful drops of water as there are three different kinds: reflex, continuous and emotional. Reflex tears are the kind that clears out any little particles that may distract or obscure our view. Continuous ones are produce in an endless stream to lubricate our eyes and even nose.

Now while reflex tears are made up out of 98% of water and continuous ones contain lysozyme, an enzyme that breaks down bacterial cells, an anti-bacterial fluid that protects our eyes and nose from infections, emotional tears actually contains stress hormones.

This means that when ever we are sad,angry, stressed, afraid or any other emotional state that causes tears to well up in our eyes, we are shedding stress hormones and other toxins. In addition to this crying stimulates our endorphin (feel-good hormones) production.

Crying is good for us,  tears help us heal and allow our body to get rid of hormones that disrupt our inner equilibrium. Tears heal the heart and body and allow us to bypass depression. So while tears can’t fix a situation they help us calm down, our breathing and hearth-rate slows down when the tears subside, leaving our hearts soothed and more at peace.

A few silent tears shed late at night may have left me red-faced, snot-nosed and a little breathless but hopefully also a little bit more capable to tackle what the future holds.  But whatever may happen I wholeheartedly agree with Antonie de Saint-Exupery

It is a secret place the land of tears

More tearful information:  Biological Role of Emotional tears (NY Times), The Health Benefits of Tears (Psychology Today),

keeping lids on things

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emotions, food, jar openers, keeping lids on things, lids, miscellaneous, pain in the neck, preserves, psychology, quotes, random, sleep, thoughts, tin opener

Late last night I curled up in bed with a book trying to finish the last few pages, when unusually for me my eyes kept shutting on their own accord and no matter how hard I tried to keep them open, they would not budge.

When I finally gave in and let myself drift off into dreamland I couldn’t help but wonder about how the papery thin bits of skin that fold over your eyes can feel like the heaviest things in the world. As sleep is so important for our well-being it probably is a  good thing that our eyelids shut and won’t be pried open when we are in need of a few hours shut-eye, but what about all the other lids in the world?

Lids on jam, pickles and relish should give a distinct pop when you open them for the first time, letting you know what is inside the glass is untainted and ready to eat. Getting said lid of your preserves may be a little tricky at first but then that is what men and jar openers are for.

Then there are all the lids we keep on our emotions, sometimes, good sometimes bad. Anger shouldn’t be preserved and bottled up forever but letting it out all the time isn’t a good idea either, just lift the lid in the appropriate moments and let the anger out, in a controlled way, before it boils over. Keeping a lid on stress can lead to physical pain like tummy ulcers, hives and tension, so it is better to make sure the lid is lifted and the goods are aired before they literally turn into a pain in the neck.

We often hide away our inner-most thoughts and feeling in the back of our emotional larder, sealing the jars and containers airtight, sometimes forgetting to label them and hoping they will keep. But as any good therapist will tell you it is better to get out that tin-opener and take a good look at what is inside, because often the picture on the lid doesn’t really match the contents and the sell-by date could be long passed so it would be better to throw them out.

It does seem a little ironic that men are good at opening jars but most find it easier to keep a firm lid on emotions and thoughts. They may feel more in control by letting their partner guess what they want or need, or maybe they just have never lernt how to put emotions into words. Unlike women who tend to keep petty annoyances bottled up and stored on the vanity table in an attempt to foster closeness. Both aren’t good tactics as silence can lead to depression and isolation, two jars on a shelf standing together but each completely in vacuum.

So as I unscrew the lid off my home-made jam (nektarine and peach) and spread the preserve on my rye bread I can’t wait to see what other lids I will pop today and which contents spill out. Because as industrialist Henry J. Kaiser said so eloquently

You can’t sit on the lid of progress. If you do, you will be blown to pieces.

demanding TV

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candy store, choice, digital candy, digital-candy store, emotions, Films, Grenville Kleister, on-demand tv, pasta sauce, psychology, quotes, regrets, relationships, Tv, wrong place right time

Yesterday evening when I sat down with a glass of wine to see if the world of telly had anything exciting on offer I was in for a big surprise: I now have on-demand TV. Odd really as I was at the launch on Tuesday (see my post wrong place right time) but somehow I had completely forgotten about it.

Anyway when I pressed a button on the remote my flat-screen told me I had a choice, I could watch normal “live” TV or the pick of the day or I could choose from a selection of series and films. At first I couldn’t believe my luck, I felt like a kid in a  digital candy store, but soon I was somewhat overwhelmed, there where so many buttons to press and decisions to make and in some cases even euros to pay. On the one hand it was nice to be able to pick and choose, on the other it was hard to know what I wanted.

I suppose it’s a little like life, we want as many choices as possible but then can’t make up our minds. It doesn’t matter if it’s what career we what to pursue, what dream to follow, who we want to date, what dress, shoes or pants to buy or even as simple as what kind of sauce we want to have with our pasta. I suppose the problem with making a choice, saying ‘yes’ to one thing, is that it always means we have to say ‘no’ to something else. If it’s just the pasta sauce that may not be such a big problem as we can just go back and pick another flavour the next time, with a career or dream or partner it may not be as simple.

And sometimes when we say ‘no’ to one thing we feel regret if the choice we made doesn’t turn out the way we hoped. Regret is one of those feelings that in psychology is termed a ‘moral emotion’, like guilt it is a feeling we get that we turn towards ourselves and not at others. But unlike guilt regret is something that is very hard to make up. When you feel guilty you can often ask for forgiveness and move on, but going back in time to change a choice is something we just can’t do. The upside to having moral emotions is the fact that it means you’re are not a psychopath as they are incapable of any moral feelings, so yeah to that.

But like guilt regret only makes us feel bad about ourselves and keeping those feelings alive doesn’t help us as they are not productive in any way. The best we can do is learn from our decision and move on, leave it behind us and understand that regret is only born out of knowledge we often didn’t have at the time when making the choice. If we had known our job would make us unhappy, our relationship would fail or the pasta sauce tasted awful we wouldn’t have made the choice in the first place.

So when I finally decided on what I wanted to see, I was thrilled with the fact that a video rental store had moved into my living-room and I was happy to pay a few euros to see I film I had missed in the cinema. And even though I know that I will make choices I may regret in the future I completely agree with American author Grenville Kleiser:

A ton of regret never makes an ounce of difference.

feeling a little bit azure

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blue, colours, emotions, feelings, green, love, passion, psycology, red, sad

After a sleepless night I got up this morning feeling a little bit blue. The well known heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach and a tightness around my heart, making me a little sad, a little lethargic and not quite my usual self.

So while I stood waiting for the kettle to boil, choosing to allow the feelings of sadness to take over for a little while, I started to think about colours. and what impact they have on emotions. Why is it that when I see big bright yellow sunflowers I have to smile or when the sea is a clear blue or green with sunlight dancing on it, it makes me happy and when the sky is heavy with grey clouds I just want to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea?

It’s not just how we feel about colours but how we use colours to describe feelings. I love all shades of green, from the vivid apple green that makes me grin to the placid dark green of a forest. It is a calming colour, hence the name green room where people sit and relax before appearing on TV, yet we also say green with envy. Blue is  most named when asked “what is your favorite colour”, it also has significant meaning in most religions and has a calming effect, yet blue food does not generally appeal to us. And why do associate blue with feeling sad? Red is the colour for passion, love and actually does speed up our heart beat but if someone wears red it makes them look heavier as it draws attention to the body and thieves prefer stealing red cars. Yellow is considered an optimistic, happy colour and it actually makes the brain produce more serotonin (happy hormones). But looking a little yellow is never a good sign.

Pondering these thoughts that that are running around in my brain I take a sip out of my big red (energy) mug and sit down on my orange (ambition, but also a new attitude) and pink (romance and gentle feelings)  patterned desk chair and start typing on my grey/silver (practical) keyboard . And I make up my mind, that if I am feeling a little bit blue today I at least want it to be azure … the colour of the sky or the Romonovs china, a colour that comes from Persia and complements my eyes.

Colour Psycology