WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER IS HARD ON HERSELF

How many of us or our daughters have this crazy belief that if we are super hard on ourselves, we’ll finally be motivated to take the actions we need to take?

Human brains are a crazy a thing, and have it totally backwards.

Moms can possibly relate to this illustration…

Back when many of us were raised, our parents possibly yelled at us, if not worse, in order to motivate us to get our work done.

Think of that person hunched over you, threatening you to finish that homework, or else.

Yes, most likely you then went to your room and put in the least amount of effort possible to get them off your back.

But now that we are older, possibly hearing similar voices in our heads that we are now generating ourselves... we have options.

If I judge, criticize or berate myself, what will that make me want to do?

Maybe put in just enough work to escape that nagging voice in my head.

Or maybe I’ll just try and tune it out altogether...

And watch Netflix instead.

So if I tell myself: You are so lazy, get your work done already!

That thought generates a feeling for me. In this case possibly defeated.

That feeling feels pretty lousy... it drains my energy.

And so what do I do when I feel defeated?

Even if I willpower my way to get some work done, from a place of feeling defeated it won’t be my best work.

If I do any work at all…

There are two types of feelings generating our actions…

One is open, expansive, and relaxed. Think excited, motivated, confident, competent.

And the other one is tight, closed, and constricted. Angry, frustrated, deprived, or doubtful.

Even when you don’t know which exact emotion a thought has generated for you, you can pretty much figure out which camp you are in in the moment.

Open or closed, which you could also call positive or negative.

Social scientists have long wondered what really is the point of positive emotions.

Up until about the 1990s, the leading theory was that the reason we have emotions is because emotions prompt us to a specific action, which we call Specific Action Tendencies. These emotions then trigger rapid changes in our biochemistry to support those actions for our survival.

Fear prompts us to flee. Anger urges us to attack. Disgust compels us to expel.

This is vital for our survival as a species.

But researchers were getting a little bit stumped, because positive emotions don’t really act like this.

Not entirely.

Think about inspiration, gratitude, interest, pride, awe, serenity, love, hope, joy, amusement…

What specific action does joy urges us to do? It’s hard to say, right?

And one can argue that serenity literally urges us to do nothing.

So this was a real pebble in the shoe for many researchers studying emotions. And because of this, most researchers didn’t even touch positive emotions for a long time.

However, thanks to Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a leading professor in the field of Positive Psychology, we now know that positive emotions are actually vital for our survival and have an equally important evolutionary purpose.

Positive emotions broaden our perspectives. They help us think more expansively to see the big picture – the forest and not just the trees – completely expanding our horizons. Civilizations, cars, sky-scrapers were imagined using these emotions.

So positive emotions broaden, but they also build.

They build up our psychological resources and create resilience. They help fertilize our social connections and boost our immune systems. And they strengthen our physical health and create resources we can draw upon way down the road, such as from friendships we’ve nurtured over the years.

So what positive emotions do is broaden the thought-action repertoire.

This means that positive emotions expand the possibilities of what can happen.

When there is fear, there is one thing to do. One specific action to take.

When you are in a positive emotional state, there are many options.

And by doing that, broadening your thought-action repertoire, it builds resources and skills for your survival.

They broaden your mind, build your best future and fuel your resilience.

So here is the thing. Negative emotions help us focus in on an issue.

But many negative emotions, such as shame, like to look away and hide. It’s not an emotion that’s helpful to fuel our actions from.

When we are hating on ourselves and identify as bad or broken, we are stuck in shame, depleting ourselves and much more likely to go under the covers.

But - at the base of every emotion your daughter feels - there is a sentence.

A story.

And that story is what's generating her feelings.

So every time she feels a big emotion and we can help her locate the sentences creating it - your daughter can learn to start taking control over how she feels.

Because feeling shame is optional. Created by optional sentences in her mind.

And when she starts to understand that, she can learn to step out of it.

Because a positive open emotion will carry her much farther in anything she chooses.