FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

2. Sometimes it's hard to know what you're feeling. How can I figure that out?

I often hear women say, “I don’t know what I’m feeling. I just feel bad.” When you can figure out exactly what you’re feeling, you can figure out the messages your emotions are sending you. Every feeling has a predictable set of body sensations and thought patterns. For example, if your body is tense, you’re clenching your jaw or your heart is pounding, and your thoughts start with the words, “What if…” like “What if I can’t do this?” then you’re anxious. Sadness and anger have equally predictable patterns. When you learn the patterns, you’ll know the feeling.

Your feelings exist for a reason: to provide you with important information about yourself. All emotions can be reduced to four because there are 4 main messages your emotions are sending you. For example, sadness is telling you that you’ve lost something you value, so any feeling that is about loss is connected to sadness. If you’re feeling regret that you never pursued a singing career, that's the loss of an opportunity. If someone you love dies, you feel grief. That’s the loss of a connection.

Absolutely. Men feel pressured and confused and overwhelmed too, and all the Emotional Tools will work just as well for men. I decided to focus my work on women because I've had many years of experience teaching, counseling and writing about women.

Every emotional tool has been scientifically proven to work, but only you will know which work best for you. For example, when I first started teaching these skills, I was a big advocate of sitting meditation. As time went on, I learned that some women - either because they were high-energy people or highly anxious -had a hard time being still. In some cases, sitting meditation made them feel more distressed, not less. What these women needed was to meditate while moving their bodies. I showed them how to meditate either during physical movement, such as during a walk or in yoga, or how to meditate while they were doing their daily activities such as taking a shower or washing the dishes. The change in their emotions was dramatic.

All the time. I've used every Emotional Tool that I teach women to use. I have found that it's helped me navigate my emotional life with more mastery. It doesn't mean I never stumble, but when I do, I'm better equipped to pick myself up.