How to Release Negative Emotions: 10 Constructive and Healthy Ways

Sad mask with bad feeling words and happy mask with good feeling words

Most people think that emotions are not controlled. They come and go from somewhere in the brain or the body, and we have no control over them. In my coaching, I come across this misconception with every new client. Usually, they are not happy about something in their life and they come to me because they do not think they can change it on their own.

In general, emotions are not a problem. If they are happy emotions and if we feel good about them, we do not want to change them. But if they are painful and make us uncomfortable, then we want them out of our system and fast – and usually for the right reason. Feelings manifest into our physical world. If you think of emotions as vibrations, then we feel their vibration in our body as a physical reaction.

When I was young, my younger sister and I were fans of Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life.

We borrowed it from the local library and she bought it for me as a birthday gift. In the book, Louise Hay describes the connection between body and mind and explains how every thought, feeling, idea and action has a physical manifestation.

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What Others Think about You Is … None of Your Business

Man covering his face with a mask showing words like meaning, persona, memory, conditioning, etc

When I was young, if someone asked me to complete the sentence “What others think about you is …” I would have said, “the most important thing in life”. I thought that, because of how I grew up. My mom, who is over 75 years old now, still thinks that we live to impress other people and navigate our life based on what they think about us.

When I studied Education, I realized that most parents in the world teach this to their kids. At first, they say, “Whatever your parents think about you is the most important thing in life”. Later on, they say, “What your teachers think about you is also important”.

They are all very surprised when their kids become teenagers and transfer this to their peers and add, “Whatever your friends think about you is the most important thing in the world”.

It is a natural progression. If you practice worrying and navigate your life based on what others think about you, you become good at … worrying and navigating your life based on what others think about you.

Simple!

When you follow this path, you never learn who you are and how to navigate life based on what you think of yourself.

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Your Child’s Subconscious Mind Has No Sense of Humor

When people ask me to summarize my studies, I say they were all about how the brain works. The first four years focused on how to use this knowledge to stimulate learning. Later on, I learned how to work with the subconscious mind to avoid misery and have more success and more happiness.

Learning about the brain is a never-ending quest. There is much research in the world about the brain and its functions in health, in success, in relationships, in learning and in everyday life. Over the years, I have tried to share my learning about the brain and its functions through this blog, especially in relation to parenting and education.

Why parenting and education? Because these two areas are very close to my heart. Since you are reading this, you probably care about them too.

Today, I would like to share some insight that is very important in parenting and in education. I want to tell you how the conscious and the subconscious minds work. Specifically, I want to tell you about how the subconscious mind deals with humor.

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Addiction in the Family

Addiction a dependency on an object, a substance or an activity. As hard as it is to admit, we are all addicted in some way or another. If you want to know if you are addicted do something, take it out of your life for a week and watch your reaction.

People can be addicted to food, phone, TV, a person (like their spouse), work, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, glue, sex, medication, gambling, drugs and more. I had a friend who was addicted to pain killers. She took them as if she was eating candy, and it became obvious she had an addiction because she could not cope without them and needed more and more of them over time.

It is very important to remember that every addiction we develop is an attempt to fill an emotional and/or physical “hole”. We want it to give us the feeling we are missing without it. This is as true when we talk about drugs as it is when we talk about food.

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Biological Parents are Best for Child Safety

When children are born, their parents are typically concerned for their safety. People spend a fortune making sure their children use the safest beds, the safest car seat and safest stroller. This is very natural and very important. For some reason, when the same parents’ relationship breaks down and they separate, the importance of their kids’ physical and emotional safety is often neglected.

Why?

Because once they separate, the decision-making process about the children is divided. Unfortunately, in some cases, parents’ separation means that one parent raises the kids and the other poses a risk to their safety. In other cases, the conflict between the parents puts the kids’ emotional, and sometimes physical, wellbeing at risk. In severe cases, both parents are a risk to their children’s safety and there is a need to remove them from their home completely.

My sister is a social worker in a special unit that takes kids away from their family and puts them in foster care. This always happens because the emotional and/or physical safety of the child is at risk and none of the parents is able to keep them safe. My sister claims that this just moves the kids from one unsafe place to another unsafe place. Unlike Cinderella’s fairy tale, their stories never end in living happily ever after. Instead, stepparents and foster parents struggle greatly to supply a safe environment for the children.

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The Truth About Teachers’ Poor Social Responsibility

What if we stopped testing so much and just used thhe extra time for things like ... teaching?

I think that teachers have a social responsibility. Teaching is all about making a difference in the world by inspiring children to be the best they can be. Being in education myself, I often think of my role as that of a social activist.

You see, teaching is the best way to make the ripple continue. I have a social responsibility to give my students the tools to build this world. And to live in it in peace and harmony, with themselves, with the land they live, on and with others. This way, they will continue this cycle with everyone they meet in their life.

Making a difference is on the agenda of everyone who considers becoming a teacher. It’s part of the job description nobody ever reads before embarking on their teaching adventure, but everyone totally understands within a very short time of teaching.

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There is Life after Relationship Breakup

Woman punching man in anger with boxing glove

Relationships are at the heart of human society. Some say that being in a relationship is a basic need. In the bible, even the animals in Noah’s ark were in pairs. I think we are meant to be in relationships. Having a partner to share our life and be with us along the way gives lots of certainty in life. Together we share love, friendship, adventures, struggles, finance and children, and together, it is always easier and more fun. Unfortunately, sometimes, it just does not work. In fact, in our society today, relationship breakup comes more often than not and with it comes pain, grief and loss of hope.

I work with many couples through relationship breakups and with individuals rebuilding their life after breaking up with a partner, and I can reassure you, there is life after a relationship breakup. Usually, couples feel a hole in their heart that they wish to fill up. The desire to fill this hole drives them quickly into a new relationship that looks exactly like the one they left in pain.

Why?

Because the separation originated from a hole inside of them, which they thought the other did not fill, and they enter the new relationship with the same mindset. After a short time of excitement and attention, they realize that the new partner, lover or boyfriend/girlfriend cannot fulfill their needs and they go through the same breakup with more pain, more grief and more loss.

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Excuses, Excuses

We all have excuses for many things in life. If we examine our excuses, we will find that we only use them for the things that aren’t working in our life. We never make excuses for what works, do we?

Excuses are stories we tell ourselves to justify things that didn’t go according to the expectations of others and even our own. We have excuses for why we didn’t succeed, why we forgot, why we couldn’t and even why we missed opportunities. The list is endless.

Usually, we bounce between blame and justifications to overcome disappointment. It’s important to understand that it is not necessary to be hard on yourself whenever you come up with an excuse, and you should practice acceptance as another coping mechanism. Excuses are essential for our survival. Without them, we would not be able to overcome failure, but if we use them too often, we do more damage than good to our emotional state.

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The Importance of Traveling with Kids

Traveling with kids is great fun. This is me and my kids posing on the beach

Traveling has been part of my life in the last 22 years. It started with a move from one country to another with a 4-year-old daughter and ended up being a passion. Last month, Gal and I went on a 3-week road trip with our 2 younger kids, Tsoof, my 20-year-old son, who had just graduated from university, and Noff, my 14-year-old daughter, who was starting 10th Grade. This road trip it reminded me again that taking kids out of the comfort zone of their rooms, TV, computer, mobile phones and friends, and introducing them to a different world, can do magic.

Recently, I worked with a couple (let’s call them Bob and Matilda) who had a conflict. He dreamed of taking the kids (16 and 14) on a 6-month road trip and she was shocked and concerned about the kids not going to school during that time. Bob had memories of his family, at the age of 9 years old, taking 6 months off to travel in England and he wanted to give his kids the same experience, before it was too late. Matilda had memories of a different childhood, in which she was never ever allowed to miss school, not even for a day.

I understood them both.

I grow up like Matilda did. We were not “allowed” to be sick (my mom had to work, my dad had to work, and we had no one to stay with us at home), so we didn’t miss school. I have to say there was something good about it, because in my adult life, I’ve never missed work or study due to sickness.

I also understood Bob, because I had traveled with my kids and witnessed the huge growth we all went through as a family and as individuals. I guess when you experience it once, you understand the value of it forever.

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How to Prepare Your Child for the First Day of School

Boy smiling apprehensively on the first day of school

Recently, I got a request from a friend to help her prepare her son for school. When she went with him to soccer practice, she realized he was on his own, not really following the coach’s instructions or mixing with the other kids. Then, when she registered him for school, she met parents who told her about their own kids and she felt she was neglecting her son by thinking he would learn everything he needed at school. When she asked me about the academic requirements, she was a bit surprised when I told her that other skills were as important, maybe even more important, than reading and math.

The first day of school is a very happy moment for every family. If the new student is not your first child, you probably know the drill. The excitement is still there with less anxiety. But if this is your first child, you can feel the excitement bubbling in your stomach in anticipation. The sense of pride is mixed with worry.

Is my child ready for school?

Am I ready for school?

First timers, parents and kids alike, can ease the process of starting school by preparing ahead of time and using the right focus. They should start the preparations early and do not rely solely on the school’s orientation days.

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