Why emotional wellness?

Why Emotional Wellness?

Our need for emotional wellness may be greater than we initially realize. What is the underlying cause of drunkenness which causes so much grief to families and costs us so much, in the courts and hospital system? What is the cause of shootings (power over behavior)? In Canada we have spent over 1,000 million dollars on the gun registry and the carnage continues. Apparently trying to control (another power tactic) guns is not working. What of the robberies (invasion of your privacy) that are driven by the need for funds to buy drugs? What is the underlying cause of drug use?

Estimates say that health care, legal costs and lost productivity caused by alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use in the US alone, costs approximately $559 billion per year. See http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/addiction-science/introduction/drug-abuse-costs-united-states-economy-hundreds-billions-dollars . So what is the value of an emotional education?

After much study and reflection, I believe that emotional issues are part of the cause of many of these societal ills. What we commonly do is to try putting a band aid on the issue (why didn't the gruesome pictures on cigarette boxes effectively curb their use?), rather than addressing the underlying issues. Not that these measures are totally ineffective, but other approaches deserve exploration. I believe there are other avenues or angles from which these issues could be addressed.

My literary work is an attempt to generate a dialogue and language surrounding emotional wellness. This will allow us to speak into the lives of people we know and love, in order to help them get over their emotionally driven behaviors. These behaviors include drug abuse, alcoholism, bullying (shootings), self harm, anger, road rage, sarcasm, shyness, all types of addictions and obsessions, sexual issues, affairs and blaming to name a few.

Phrases and words like responsibility, feeling through (which requires great courage), emotional journal, time line, unmet need, driven behavior, powerlessness, worthlessness, hurt, shame and guilt would be common conversational topics at the office, water cooler and at family dinner tables.

I look forward to our dialogue and the positive outcomes that will result.

Getting along at Christmas time

       I heard it said that the best topic to write about is people's personal demons. But what is a demon? Is it that little internal nudge that makes you do what you don't want or stops you from doing what you should? Maybe it's that anger or drinking problem? Whatever pet peeve it is, it causes you to do something or feel negative. Well, guess what? There's a solution.

       Many of these issues have their genesis in our emotional pools or reserves, which we gained in childhood. This is an extensive though not unfathomable study, one which many could benefit from. An example would be an unmet need from childhood, like attention from one's parents, which causes us to get angry as adults when we are ignored in some way - could be someone who cuts us off in traffic or texts while talking to us. Whatever the trigger, our negative response comes from the pool of emotion we gained as kids when our folks did not pay attention to us - this may be true or may have been our perception.

       But what can we do about it? Feel through the emotion from your childhood and the negative emotional response we are having in adulthood will subside. Wow!! Easy to say but hard to do. We may need the help of a therapist to help us make the connections between our adult issues and the childhood experiences that are at the root of these disconnected behaviors.

       Janice Berger has been doing this work for over 25 years and has helped many people to emotional  wellness. She has authored an excellent book on the topic which I found very insightful.