Use This 4 Step Technique to Decide if You Can Trust Your Feelings or Not

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [via World of Psychology]



Whether you realize it or not, every minute of every day, you are experiencing feelings.

Whether it’s a burst of frustration when you realize you forgot your keys, a second of peaceful calm as you recall your day at the beach last month, or a pang of painful helplessness when you think of a family member who is struggling with addiction, emotions come and go, one after another, constantly.

Just as your physical feelings reside in your body, so do your emotions. Many people describe feeling sadness in their belly, anxiety in their throat, anger in their chest or arms, for example. Where you feel your feelings is unique to you, but rest assured that you have feelings, and if you focus in on a feeling, you can locate it in your body.

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20 Brilliant Ways People Avoid Their Feelings (and the Havoc it Wreaks)

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [via World of Psychology]



We humans are connected by a river that runs through us all. It’s a powerful river, deep and still in some places, frothy and rapid in others, yet sometimes dry and arid, and other times flooded.

We are all stimulated, challenged, warmed, cooled, driven, and connected by the emotions that are biologically wired into us at birth.

An important fact that most people never consider: We cannot choose what we feel.

The feelings we naturally feel are biological and automatic. Emotions arise automatically from our deepest self, a deeply personal expression of who we are, what we want, what we need, what we enjoy and who we like.

Our emotions tell us when we need to protect ourselves (fear), when to prepare (anxiety), when to reach out (lonely), when to let go (grief), and what we need (longing). They also tell us much more about ourselves, if we would only listen.

It is also true that, however useful our feelings are, they can hurt us. Feeling sadness, rage, grief or pain can be deeply unpleasant. Especially when we do not know what to do with those feelings.

In truth, it is our responsibility to listen to our feelings, use them to guide and connect us, and also manage them.

But if you grew up in a family that did not know how emotions work and did not teach you how to listen to your feelings, use them, and manage them (the definition of an emotionally neglectful family or Childhood Emotional Neglect or CEN), you may find yourself with only one trick up your sleeve when you come upon rapids in the river.

Unfortunately, it’s the lowest common denominator of tricks and the trickiest of tricks. Because it seems to work but it only makes things worse.

Avoidance.

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Hazel’s comment:
You will get a word picture of my husband of 38 years! Not been an easy ride particularly as he self-medicates with alcohol.

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The Difference Between Self-Esteem, Self-Worth, Self-Confidence and Self-Knowledge

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [via World of Psychology]



I have noticed that there is a great deal of confusion between the four common struggles listed in the title. Sometimes folks ask me if they are all the same.

The differences can be subtle and there can be overlap, yes. But they are all indeed different in some very specific ways. Ways that are important to understand as you think about your own view of, and feelings about, yourself.

So let’s start with a little “quiz.” As you read the descriptions below, see if you can identify which person has low self-esteem, which has low self-worth, who has low self-confidence, and who has low self-awareness.

Then read on to see if you identified them correctly, and also to learn much more about each of these common struggles.

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15 Benefits of Healing Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [World of Psychology]



Becoming aware of the silent role of Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) in your adult life is no small thing. It’s true.

Once you know it, you cannot go back. You now know what you know, and like the cake that cannot be unbaked, you are changed forever.

Childhood Emotional Neglect: When your parents fail to respond enough to your emotional needs as they raise you.

But just as you cannot go back, it’s also hard to go forward. Even though you realize why you struggle with emptiness or numbness, disconnection and/or lack of fulfillment, it’s natural to assume that since it’s rooted in your childhood, you must be stuck with it forever.

But it is my goal to make sure that every man, woman, and child who is living with CEN learns that this assumption could not be more wrong.

As a psychologist who has treated almost every diagnosis in the book, I have never seen a mental health struggle that is more fixable and has its roots in more areas of one’s life, than CEN. Nor have I seen one that has such a clear and defined path to healing.

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When Expectations Hurt: How I've Forgiven My Absentee Father and Healed

a post by Bridget Garcia for the Tiny Buddha blog


“What will mess you up most in life is the picture in your head of how it’s supposed to be.” ~Unknown

I may have said a few words that hurt my father’s feelings, but…

See, here’s the backstory.

I’m thirty-four years old, and I started having a relationship with my biological father at age twenty-one. During my childhood years I would see him every now and then even though he lived less than three miles away from my home. I don’t have any memories of being with my dad for birthdays, holidays, family vacations, or even just hanging out watching TV at home.

When I was twenty-one my father called and said, “Hey, I’m outside your house.”

I went outside and he said, “Your mom told me you just had another baby.”

I said, “Yes, I did.”

By this time I rarely had any dealings with my father, and I had some negative feelings about him because he was not in my life in the way I felt he should have been.

A part of me was upset and confused as to why he wasn’t around during my childhood when I needed him. I wanted his guidance and protection, and I felt that he hadn’t given that to me.

We had a conversation, and he told me that I was welcome at his home anytime and that I should come around more often. Despite how I was feeling, I decided I would give it a try because a part of me wanted to be daddy’s girl.

So, I did just that. I called him as often as I could and would go by his house for visits. I finally got comfortable enough that felt like I was in a good place with my dad. He has a wealth of knowledge, so we began having deep conversations about different things in life, and he would give me advice on things I was going through.

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6 Things Adults With Childhood Emotional Neglect Need to be Happy

a post by Jonice Webb for the World of Psychology



Funny thing about people who grow up with Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN): they go through their entire adult lives with a set of requirements for happiness in their minds. But sadly, those requirements end up keeping them from being happy.

CEN folks don’t know it, but the things they think will make them happy have little to do with their actual happiness. In fact, their notion of happiness is mostly about protecting themselves.

Growing up with your feelings unvalidated (Childhood Emotional Neglect) sets you up to feel that there is something wrong with you for simply having normal human feelings. Then, moving through your adulthood, you then feel you must not only protect yourself from your own feelings and needs but also hide them from others.

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How I Overcame Childhood Emotional Neglect and Learned to Meet My Needs

a post by Sherise Tan for the Tiny Buddha blog


“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.” ~Mitch Albom

“Your feelings are valid,” said my life coach during one of our sessions, as we were working on an issue I had with my parents.
I had to do a double take. My feelings are valid? She actually accepts them as they are?

Eventually it started to dawn on me: My parents never validated my feelings. This sudden revelation earlier this year threw me into a dark period of my life.

When I was growing up, my parents criticized me for being “overly emotional” and “too sensitive,” and I never felt they truly accepted me.

My whole family shied away from expressing emotions, so I learned not to express or talk about my emotions either. I felt deeply disconnected in romantic relationships and often didn’t want to depend on others for help. Something felt completely off in my life, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what.

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The Difference Between Honoring an Emotion and Indulging It

a post by Jonice Webb for the Childhood Emotional Neglect blog [via World of Psychology]

One of the most important challenges of growing up with your emotions under-responded to by your parents (Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN) is that you then enter adulthood without the essential knowledge of what to do with your emotions.

If your parents had noticed and named what you were feeling; if they had talked with you about your intense child emotions they would have automatically been teaching you that your feelings are real, are important, and can be managed. And just as importantly, their “emotion coaching” would have taught you some vital emotion skills for your life.

Everyone has intense emotions from time to time. I have discovered that even the people who experience themselves as emotionally empty or numb due to Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) actually do have moments of strong feelings at various times.

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