Emotional Outlet Quotes

She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make her internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that build up of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out. - My Bestfriend's Girl -

I didn’t get her cutting at all. She’d done it sporadically, ever since the accident and it scared me each time. She'd try to explain it to me, how she didn't want to die—she just needed to get it out somehow. She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet—physical pain—was the only way to make the internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

and afterward, after it was done, it was too much, and I felt like I was going to... I don't know.... explode, and it was just too much, I had to let it out you know? I had to- I interrupted her hysteria It's okay, I understand. That was a lie. I didn't get her cutting at all. She'd done it sporadically, ever since the accident and it scared me each time. She'd try to explain it to me, how she didn't want to die - she just needed to get it out somehow. She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make her internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who, before anything has reared its ugly head, have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies. The habit fitted snugly into my well-established world of make-believe.

At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear. The addict dreads and abhors the present moment; she bends feverishly only toward the next time, the moment when her brain, infused with her drug of choice, will briefly experience itself as liberated from the burden of the past and the fear of the future—the two elements that make the present intolerable. Many of us resemble the drug addict in our ineffectual efforts to fill in the spiritual black hole, the void at the center, where we have lost touch with our souls, our spirit—with those sources of meaning and value that are not contingent or fleeting. Our consumerist, acquisition-, action-, and image-mad culture only serves to deepen the hole, leaving us emptier than before. The constant, intrusive, and meaningless mind-whirl that characterizes the way so many of us experience our silent moments is, itself, a form of addiction—and it serves the same purpose. “One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove the emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.”14 So writes Eckhart Tolle. Even our 24/7 self-exposure to noise, e-mails, cell phones, TV, Internet chats, media outlets, music downloads, videogames, and nonstop internal and external chatter cannot succeed in drowning out the fearful voices within.

Painting is a great outlet for those inner emotions you cannot get out any other way.

Watch it...people who keep things inside them develop all sorts of disease...all that emotional gunk's got to find an outlet. Angry people develop cysts; stubborn people get arthritis; resentful people die of cancer.

Books, for me, are lifesaving. They have been my companions, my teachers, my entertainment, my emotional outlets, my escape. They’ve taught me how to cook, how to love, how to mourn, how to cope, and how to feel. They’ve allowed me to sort through my own feelings and escape into someone else’s.

The heterosexual emotions of young children can find a natural, wholesome and innocent outlet with other children; in this form they are a part of play, and like all play, they afford a preparation for adult activities.

It might not be pleasant for the listener, it might disempower and unsettle the witness to a breakdown, but crying was good. Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that buildup of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out.

It would be good to be full of holes, she says. Then all the things you can’t express would maybe just flow out.

Horror, terror, fear, panic: these are the emotions which drive wedges between us, split us off from the crowd, and make us alone. It is paradoxical that feelings and emotions we associate with the “mob instinct” should do this, but crowds are lonely places to be, we’re told, a fellowship with no love in it. The melodies of the horror tale are simple and repetitive, and they are melodies of disestablishment and disintegration . . . but another paradox is that the ritual outletting of these emotions seems to bring things back to a more stable and constructive state again.

We see only that which we are. I like to think of it in terms of energy. Imagine having a hundred different electrical outlets on your chest. Each outlet represents a different quality. The qualities we acknowledge and embrace have cover plates over them. They are safe: no electricity runs through them. But the qualities that are not okay with us, which we have not yet owned, do have a charge. So when others come along who act out one of these qualities they plug right into us. For example, if we deny or are uncomfortable with our anger, we will attract angry people into our lives. We will suppress our own angry feelings and judge people whom we see as angry. Since we lie to ourselves about our own internal feelings, the only way we can find them is to see them in others. Other people mirror back our hidden emotions and feelings, which allows us to recognize and reclaim them.

We are afraid of what we will do to others, afraid of the rage that lies in wait somewhere deep in our souls. How many human beings go through the world frozen with rage against life! This deeply hidden inner anger may be the product of hurt pride or of real frustration in office, factory, clinic, or home. Whatever may be the cause of our frozen rage (which is the inevitable mother of depression), the great word of hope today is that this rage can be conquered and drained off into creative channels … …What should we do? We should all learn that a certain amount of aggressive energy is normal and certainly manageable in maturity. Most of us can drain off the excess of our angry feelings and destructive impulses in exercise, in competitive games, or in the vigorous battles against the evils of nature and society. We also must realize that no one will punish us for the legitimate expression of self-assertiveness and creative pugnacity as our parents once punished us for our undisciplined temper tantrums. Furthermore, let us remember that we need not totally repress the angry part of our nature. We can always give it an outlet in the safe realm of fantasy. A classic example of such fantasy is given by Max Beerborn, who made a practice of concocting imaginary letters to people he hated. Sometimes he went so far as to actually write the letters and in the very process of releasing his anger it evaporated. As mature men and women we should regard our minds as a true democracy where all kinds of ideas and emotions should be given freedom of speech. If in political life we are willing to grant civil liberties to all sorts of parties and programs, should we not be equally willing to grant civil liberties to our innermost thoughts and drives, confident that the more dangerous of them will be outvoted by the majority within our minds? Do I mean that we should hit out at our enemy whenever the mood strikes us? No, I repeat that I am suggesting quite the reverse—self-control in action based upon (positive coping mechanisms such as) self expression in fantasy.

Rage is a powerful thing. People get upset over many things. Frustrating jobs, small paychecks, bad hours. People want things; people feel humiliated by others who have the things they want; people feel deprived and powerless. All this gives fuel to rage. The anger builds and builds and if there is no outlet for it, pretty soon it transforms the person. They walk around like a loaded gun, ready to go off if only they could find the right target. They want to hurt something. They need it.” He refilled his glass and topped mine off. “Humans tend to segregate the world: enemies on one side, friends on the other. Friends are people we know. Enemies are the Other. You can do just about anything to the Other. It doesn’t matter if this Other is actually guilty of any crimes, because it’s a matter of emotion, not logic. You see, angry people aren’t interested in justice. They just want an excuse to vent their rage.” Doolittle sighed. “And once you become their Other, you’re no longer a person. You’re just an idea, an abstraction of everything that’s wrong with their world. Give them the slightest excuse, and they will tear you down. And the easiest way for them to target you as this Other is to find something that’s different about you. Color of your skin. The way you speak. The place you’re from.

When a parent interferes with a child's anger response in these heavy-handed ways [ridiculing, ignoring, isolating, goading, punishing, distracting, hitting, joking], the anger increases and is redirected at the parent: now the parent is the one who's violating the child's sense of well-being by interfering with a natural and necessary outlet of emotion. Most parents stifle this secondary outburst of anger, too, only this time with more force. [...] Instead of allowing the anger to flow through the child's system the first time it's expressed, the parent unwittingly fans the anger, then dams it up. The anger becomes trapped in the little girl's stomach, muscles, and jaw, and becomes an enduring wound.

Lafayette showed a courtier’s love of compliments, was a master of flattery, and liked to hug people in the French manner. Perhaps Washington doted on the young man because he dared to express emotions that he himself stifled, thawing his frosty reserve and opening an outlet for his suppressed emotions.

Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that build up of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out.

She knew that Mr. Gryce was of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses and emotions. He had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form of self-indulgence.

But even when Facebook isn't deliberately exploiting its users, it is exploiting its users—its business model requires it. Even if you distance yourself from Facebook, you still live in the world that Facebook is shaping. Facebook, using our native narcissism and our desire to connect with other people, captured our attention and our behavioral data; it used this attention and data to manipulate our behavior, to the point that nearly half of America began relying on Facebook for news. Then, with the media both reliant on Facebook as a way of reaching readers and powerless against the platform's ability to suck up digital advertising revenue—it was like a paperboy who pocketed all the subscription money—Facebook bent the media's economic model to match its own practices: publications needed to capture attention quickly and consistently trigger high emotional responses to be seen at all. The result, in 2016, was an unending stream of Trump stories, both from the mainstream news and from the fringe outlets that were buoyed by Facebook's algorithm. What began as a way for Zuckerberg to harness collegiate misogyny and self-interest has become the fuel for our whole contemporary nightmare, for a world that fundamentally and systematically misrepresents human needs.

What you are feeling is not something that should just be ignored, but something very significant. The feelings inside you will not easily disappear just because you decide to suppress or ignore them. Many psychological problems come about when repression becomes a habit and the energy of those suppressed emotions is unable to find a healthy outlet. Just as stagnant water becomes fetid and toxic, so it is with our emotions.

What a lot of people use the internet for is really about meeting their attachment needs. So on Facebook, what do people seek? They have “friends,” they “like” each other. These are attachment dynamics. And addiction in general is rooted in disturbed attachments in the first place. So whether people are using the internet to escape their emptiness, boredom, loneliness, emotional pain, lack of meaning, or lack of connection with others, of course there’s going to be internet addiction. It’s not new; it’s just a new outlet for the same dynamic. The reality is that instead of the internet connecting people, which it could do, it often isolates them even more. So once more, we have to ask: what does the compulsive digital activity do for you? What about it satisfies you in the moment? And how do you lose that sense of excitement with life itself, that sense of connection, that the device (falsely) promises you? From what and why do you need to distract yourself? In short, what trauma are you wanting to soothe or escape from?

Goals you refuse to chase don't disappear — they become ghosts that haunt you. Do you know why strangers rage at each other online and are so quick to be angry and offended these days? Because their passion has no other outlet. When you refuse to deal in joy, you don't quit being emotional; you just funnel all that fury somewhere else. Many a troll was born from the heartache of a goal he dared not finish. Maybe a troll is just someone who lost to perfectionism so many times he gave up on his own goals and decided to tear down someone else's.

The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides—and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

In the Middle Ages, marriage was considered a sacrament ordained by God, and God also authorised the father to marry his children according to his wishes and interests. An extramarital affair was accordingly a brazen rebellion against both divine and parental authority. It was a mortal sin, no matter what the lovers felt and thought about it. Today people marry for love, and it is their inner feelings that give value to this bond. Hence, if the very same feelings that once drove you into the arms of one man now drive you into the arms of another, what’s wrong with that? If an extramarital affair provides an outlet for emotional and sexual desires that are not satisfied by your spouse of twenty years, and if your new lover is kind, passionate and sensitive to your needs – why not enjoy it? But wait a minute, you might say. We cannot ignore the feelings of the other concerned parties. The woman and her lover might feel wonderful in each other’s arms, but if their respective spouses find out, everybody will probably feel awful for quite some time. And if it leads to divorce, their children might carry the emotional scars for decades. Even if the affair is never discovered, hiding it involves a lot of tension, and may lead to growing feelings of alienation and resentment. The most interesting discussions in humanist ethics concern situations like extramarital affairs, when human feelings collide. What happens when the same action causes one person to feel good, and another to feel bad? How do we weigh the feelings against each other? Do the good feelings of the two lovers outweigh the bad feelings of their spouses and children? It doesn’t matter what you think about this particular question. It is far more important to understand the kind of arguments both sides deploy. Modern people have differing ideas about extramarital affairs, but no matter what their position is, they tend to justify it in the name of human feelings rather than in the name of holy scriptures and divine commandments. Humanism has taught us that something can be bad only if it causes somebody to feel bad. Murder is wrong not because some god once said, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Rather, murder is wrong because it causes terrible suffering to the victim, to his family members, and to his friends and acquaintances. Theft is wrong not because some ancient text says, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Rather, theft is wrong because when you lose your property, you feel bad about it. And if an action does not cause anyone to feel bad, there can be nothing wrong about it. If the same ancient text says that God commanded us not to make any images of either humans or animals (Exodus 20:4), but I enjoy sculpting such figures, and I don’t harm anyone in the process – then what could possibly be wrong with it? The same logic dominates current debates on homosexuality. If two adult men enjoy having sex with one another, and they don’t harm anyone while doing so, why should it be wrong, and why should we outlaw it? It is a private matter between these two men, and they are free to decide about it according to their inner feelings. In the Middle Ages, if two men confessed to a priest that they were in love with one another, and that they never felt so happy, their good feelings would not have changed the priest’s damning judgement – indeed, their happiness would only have worsened the situation. Today, in contrast, if two men love one another, they are told: ‘If it feels good – do it! Don’t let any priest mess with your mind. Just follow your heart. You know best what’s good for you.

The platforms, designed to accommodate and harvest infinite data, inspired an infinite scroll. They encouraged a cultural impulse to fill all spare time with someone else’s thoughts. The internet was a collective howl, an outlet for everyone to prove that they mattered. The full spectrum of human emotion infused social platforms. Grief, joy, anxiety, mundanity flowed. People were saying nothing, and saying it all the time. Strangers swapped confidences with other strangers in return for unaccredited psychological advice. They shared stories of private infidelities and public incontinence; photos of their bedroom interiors; photos, faded and cherished, of long-dead family members; photos of their miscarriages. People were giving themselves away at every opportunity.

How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity.

The anger and aggression that women feel, however, can always be abated by an infinite list of beauty products, some of which have the added benefit of eliminating the appearance of anger entirely. Even if a woman is angry, no one should know it by looking at her face – optimally lineless, expressionless, and, in some cases, actually paralyzed. In 2015, news outlets announced a plastic surgery that promised to fix women with 'resting angry face,' popularly known as Resting Bitch Face. Plastic surgery, facial exercises, and even 'facial yoga' hinge on the idea that showing strong, particularly angry, emotions is bad and makes women undesirable. Antidepressant advertising targeting menopausal women encourages them to be tranquil, sedate, and, essentially, nice to look at. Lotions, creams, and injections are 'soothing' and 'calming'. Good skin care, the way to overcome 'angry' rashes or textures, has become a matter of carefully managing not just the feel of the body but also the disciplining of emotions.

Through the fall, the president’s anger seemed difficult to contain. He threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” then followed up with a threat to “totally destroy” the country. When neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of them killed a protester and injured a score of others, he made a brutally offensive statement condemning violence “on many sides … on many sides”—as if there was moral equivalence between those who were fomenting racial hatred and violence and those who were opposing it. He retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda that had been posted by a convicted criminal leader of a British far-right organization. Then as now, the president’s heedless bullying and intolerance of variance—intolerance of any perception not his own—has been nurturing a strain of insanity in public dialogue that has been long in development, a pathology that became only more virulent when it migrated to the internet. A person such as the president can on impulse and with minimal effort inject any sort of falsehood into public conversation through digital media and call his own lie a correction of “fake news.” There are so many news outlets now, and the competition for clicks is so intense, that any sufficiently outrageous statement made online by anyone with even the faintest patina of authority, and sometimes even without it, will be talked about, shared, and reported on, regardless of whether it has a basis in fact. How do you progress as a culture if you set out to destroy any common agreement as to what constitutes a fact? You can’t have conversations. You can’t have debates. You can’t come to conclusions. At the same time, calling out the transgressor has a way of giving more oxygen to the lie. Now it’s a news story, and the lie is being mentioned not just in some website that publishes unattributable gossip but in every reputable newspaper in the country. I have not been looking to start a personal fight with the president. When somebody insults your wife, your instinctive reaction is to want to lash out in response. When you are the acting director, or deputy director, of the FBI, and the person doing the insulting is the chief executive of the United States, your options have guardrails. I read the president’s tweets, but I had an organization to run. A country to help protect. I had to remain independent, neutral, professional, positive, on target. I had to compartmentalize my emotions. Crises taught me how to compartmentalize. Example: the Boston Marathon bombing—watching the video evidence, reviewing videos again and again of people dying, people being mutilated and maimed. I had the primal human response that anyone would have. But I know how to build walls around that response and had to build them then in order to stay focused on finding the bombers. Compared to experiences like that one, getting tweeted about by Donald Trump does not count as a crisis. I do not even know how to think about the fact that the person with time on his hands to tweet about me and my wife is the president of the United States.

Why do we despise, ostracize and punish the drug addict when as a social collective we share the same blindness and engage in the same rationalizations? To pose that question is to answer it. We despise, ostracize and punish the addict because we don’t wish to see how much we resemble him. In his dark mirror our own features are unmistakable. We shudder at the recognition. This mirror is not for us, we say to the addict. You are different, and you don’t belong with us. Like the hardcore addict’s pursuit of drugs, much of our economic and cultural life caters to people’s craving to escape mental and emotional distress. In an apt phrase, Lewis Lapham, long-time publisher of Harper’s Magazine, derides “consumer markets selling promises of instant relief from the pain of thought, loneliness, doubt, experience, envy, and old age.” According to a Statistics Canada study, 31 per cent of working adults aged nineteen to sixty-four consider themselves workaholics, who attach excessive importance to their work and are “overdedicated and perhaps overwhelmed by their jobs.” “They have trouble sleeping, are more likely to be stressed out and unhealthy, and feel they don’t spend enough time with their families,” reports the Globe and Mail. Work doesn’t necessarily give them greater satisfaction, suggested Vishwanath Baba, a professor of Human Resources and Management at McMaster University. “These people turn to work to occupy their time and energy” — as compensation for what is lacking in their lives, much as the drug addict employs substances. At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear. The addict dreads and abhors the present moment; she bends feverishly only towards the next time, the moment when her brain, infused with her drug of choice, will briefly experience itself as liberated from the burden of the past and the fear of the future — the two elements that make the present intolerable. Many of us resemble the drug addict in our ineffectual efforts to fill in the spiritual black hole, the void at the centre, where we have lost touch with our souls, our spirit, with those sources of meaning and value that are not contingent or fleeting. Our consumerist, acquisition-, action- and image-mad culture only serves to deepen the hole, leaving us emptier than before. The constant, intrusive and meaningless mind-whirl that characterizes the way so many of us experience our silent moments is, itself, a form of addiction— and it serves the same purpose. “One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove the emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.” So writes Eckhart Tolle. Even our 24/7 self-exposure to noise, emails, cell phones, TV, Internet chats, media outlets, music downloads, videogames and non-stop internal and external chatter cannot succeed in drowning out the fearful voices within.

Do encourage movement: “Let’s swing our arms to the beat of this music. I always feel better when I stretch, don’t you?” Movement always improves sensory processing. Do encourage the child to try a new movement experience: “If you’re interested in that swing, I’ll help you get on.” Children with dyspraxia may enjoy new movement experiences but need help figuring out how to initiate them. Do offer your physical and emotional support: “I’m interested in that swing. Want to try it with me? You can sit on my lap, and we’ll swing together.” The child who is fearful of movement may agree to swing at the playground if he has the security of a loving lap. (Stop if he resists.) Do allow your child to experience unhappiness, frustration, or anger: “Wow, it really hurts when you don’t get picked for the team.” Acknowledging his feelings allows him to deal with them, whereas rushing in to make it better every time he’s hurt prevents him from learning to cope with negative emotions. Do provide appropriate outlets for negative emotions: Make it possible to vent pent-up feelings. Give her a ball or a bucketful of wet sponges to hurl against the fence. Designate a “screaming space” (her room, the basement, or garage) where she can go to pound her chest and shout. Do reinforce what is good about your child’s feelings and actions, even when something goes wrong: “You didn’t mean for the egg to miss the bowl. Cracking eggs takes practice. I’m glad you want to learn. Try again.” Help her assess her experience positively by talking over what she did right and what she may do better the next time. How wonderful to hear that an adult is sympathetic, rather than judgmental! Do praise: “I noticed that you fed and walked the dog. Thanks for being so responsible.” Reward the child for goodness, empathy, and being mindful of the needs of others. “You are a wonderful friend,” or “You make animals feel safe.” Do give the child a sense of control: “If you choose bed now, we’ll have time for a long story. If you choose to play longer, we won’t have time for a story. You decide.” Or, “I’m ready to go to the shoe store whenever you are. Tell me when you’re ready to leave.” Impress on the child that others don’t have to make every decision that affects him. Do set reasonable limits: To become civilized, every child needs limits. “It’s okay to be angry but not okay to hurt someone. We do not pinch.

He beams, ‘Legos, I just love it. I wanted so badly, and Mummy said I would get on my birthday. Thanks.’ He rushes to kiss my cheeks. I wonder how effortlessly kids express their emotions.

I was unable to leave immediately for another reason: this was that the lavishness (unknown to the Courvoisiers) for which the Guermantes, whether opulent or practically ruined, were famous when they entertained their friends, was not only lavishness in material terms but also, as I had often experienced with Robert de Saint-Loup, a lavishness of charming words, courteous gestures, a whole gamut of verbal elegance nourished by real intensity of feeling. But as this last, in the idleness of fashionable existence, finds no outlet, it poured forth at times, seeking some channel of expression in a kind of fleeting effusiveness, which was all the more anxiously solicitous, and which might, on the part of Mme de Guermantes, have been mistaken for affection. She did in fact feel it at the moment she let it overflow, for she discovered then, in the company of the friend, man or woman, she was with at the time, a sense of intoxication, in no way sensual, similar to that which music induces in certain people; she would find herself picking a flower from her bodice, or a medallion, and giving it to someone with whom she would have liked to prolong the evening, yet with the melancholy feeling that to prolong it would have led to nothing but idle chatter, which would have absorbed nothing of the nervous pleasure, the fleeting emotion of the experience, and which would have been reminiscent in this respect of the impression of lassitude and regret that follow the first warm days of spring. And as far as the friend was concerned, it was important that he was not too taken in by the promises, more thrilling than any he had ever heard, proffered by these women, who, because they are particularly susceptible to the sweetness of a moment, turn it, with a delicacy, a nobility not granted to ordinary creatures, into a masterpiece of endearment and kindness, and no longer have anything of themselves left to give in the moment that follows. Their affection does not outlive the moment of elation that dictated it; and the subtlety of mind which had led them at that point to intuit all the things that you wished to hear, and to say them to you, will enable them, a few days later, to pinpoint your foibles and use them to entertain another of their guests with whom they will in turn be enjoying one of these moments musicaux which are so short-lived.

Walking through the halls of my son's high school during lunch hour recently, I was struck by how similar it felt to being in the halls and lunchrooms of the juvenile prisons in which I used to work. The posturing, the gestures, the tone, the words, and the interaction among peers I witnessed in this teenage throng all bespoke an eerie invulnerability. These kids seemed incapable of being hurt. Their demeanor bespoke a confidence, even bravado that seemed unassailable but shallow at the same time. The ultimate ethic in the peer culture is “cool” — the complete absence of emotional openness. The most esteemed among the peer group affect a disconcertingly unruffled appearance, exhibit little or no fear, seem to be immune to shame, and are given to muttering things like “doesn't matter,” “don't care,” and “whatever.” The reality is quite different. Humans are the most vulnerable — from the Latin vulnerare, to wound — of all creatures. We are not only vulnerable physically, but psychologically as well. What, then, accounts for the discrepancy? How can young humans who are in fact so vulnerable appear so opposite? Is their toughness, their “cool” demeanor, an act or is it for real? Is it a mask that can be doffed when they get to safety or is it the true face of peer orientation? When I first encountered this subculture of adolescent invulnerability, I assumed it was an act. The human psyche can develop powerful defenses against a conscious sense of vulnerability, defenses that become ingrained in the emotional circuitry of the brain. I preferred to think that these children, if given the chance, would remove their armor and reveal their softer, more genuinely human side. Occasionally this expectation proved correct, but more often than not I discovered the invulnerability of adolescents was no act, no pretense. Many of these children did not have hurt feelings, they felt no pain. That is not to say that they were incapable of being wounded, but as far as their consciously experienced feelings were concerned, there was no mask to take off. Children able to experience emotions of sadness, fear, loss, and rejection will often hide such feelings from their peers to avoid exposing themselves to ridicule and attack. Invulnerability is a camouflage they adopt to blend in with the crowd but will quickly remove in the company of those with whom they have the safety to be their true selves. These are not the kids I am most concerned about, although I certainly do have a concern about the impact an atmosphere of invulnerability will have on their learning and development. In such an environment genuine curiosity cannot thrive, questions cannot be freely asked, naive enthusiasm for learning cannot be expressed. Risks are not taken in such an environment, nor can passion for life and creativity find their outlets. The kids most deeply affected and at greatest risk for psychological harm are the ones who aspire to be tough and invulnerable, not just in school but in general. These children cannot don and doff the armor as needed. Defense is not something they do, it is who they are. This emotional hardening is most obvious in delinquents and gang members and street kids, but is also a significant dynamic in the common everyday variety of peer orientation that exists in the typical American home.

There could be no greater stress than that generated by denying the authentic self. Because your life energy is being diverted and therefore depleted, you are compromised mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. What about the long-term, cumulative effects of all this? I wasn’t just being dramatic when I said denying who you really are can kill you. In his book Real Age, Dr. Michael Roizen points out that for every year that you live with high stress, you shorten your life expectancy by three years. According to his research, if you don’t have an outlet for your true passion, it costs you another six years. If someone is draining your energy due to constant turmoil and conflict, you lose another eight years.

we come and go as we please. Resources aren’t limited. Money and economies are nonexistent. Precious metals are as common there as dirt. We do whatever pleases us.” “Sounds more like Heaven than Hell.” “Heaven is overrated. Too many rules.” She looked down when she laughed that time. Something about the shy aversion of her eyes and the sound of her laugh was making me...feel...something. But my brain kept confusing whatever overwhelming feeling this was with a desire to squish her, as if I could find an outlet for this annoying emotion by just taking her face in my hands and squeezing. I managed to resist. “What did you do there?” Her question snapped me out of my fantasies of affectionately crushing her.

HOW MBS DEVELOPS FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW: Childhood and adult stressors trigger feelings of fear, anger, or resentment, which are stored in emotional memory (internal child). Personality traits learned in childhood create a strong sense of duty, self-blame, self-criticism, guilt, and excessive concern for others (internal parent). In situations where people feel trapped by stressful events that trigger emotions from childhood hurts, or feel a conflict between what they want for themselves and what they feel they need to do for others, MBS symptoms are likely to develop, especially if there is no outlet to express these feelings or the feelings are actively suppressed.

The uniting philosophy in these cases isn’t religious, but patriarchal. Just as McVeigh envisioned a federal government emasculating the sovereignty of men, school shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis saw his advances being rejected by a female classmate as a nullification of his masculine sovereignty, leading him to kill ten in the Friday, May 18, 2018, high school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Again, as men are taught that emotions are for women and the only acceptable means of communication is anger, their aggrieved entitlement is routinely finding an outlet in senseless violence.

Since they had lived in the children's home, the girls' bond had grown tighter. Because of their shared grief it had seemed natural for the girls to turn to each other for emotional support in a house full of strangers. Their family unit had shrunk from three to two, and now they lived further away from their school friends, so they relied on each other for a social outlet too

Release. Engage in rejuvenating activities like yoga and meditation to release stressful emotions and to relax and reset your body, especially if it is tense. Trauma tends to get trapped within the body. Yoga and meditation can be useful outlets to “detox” from the impact of negative situations.

It’s perfect because I’m a Virgo,” she explains to him. “Virgo is an earth sign, and we are the pickiest of the earth signs. But water signs, like Scorpio, soften us up and give us an emotional outlet.” She regards us solemnly. “It’s a very powerful balance.

Practice something that you’re good at and makes you happy. Immerse your skills and abilities into something that you’re truly passionate about. It could be dancing, writing, painting, traveling, gardening—or even something as simple as going for a walk with your headphones on or walking your dog. It’s a distraction that will help you get in the flow and live in the present moment. It will help you get out of your mind and focus on something that you already love. Creativity can be another good outlet for your emotions. Adult coloring books, knitting, journaling, drawing—all of these activities, as well as others, can make you more resilient and increase your sense of well-being.

While you’re trying to meet someone’s requirements, you tend to forget your own. In such times, you unknowingly repress your emotions. You know you can’t afford to look weak. In such cases, even though you aren’t expressing your feelings, it might show in the smallest of ways. Anything small can put you off. You’re lashing out on the smallest of inconveniences. You’re more short-tempered than usual. You’re bound to scream at the smallest of things just because you don’t have another emotional outlet. If you want to scream, it’s okay. Shout or yell at the heavens for taking someone away from you. Just make sure you’re screaming at home or in a car and not at somebody else. Make a safe space.

My debut poetry book "I was not born a sad poet"- was born as a result of me trying to live, understand myself, understand where life was taking me to and the environment I existed in. I was not in control of my life. I was in a state of limbo. For many years Writing became my outlet for every emotion that showed up. Writing became my survival kit.

If you find that releasing your grief through art helps you, consider writing or drawing your emotions to your parents. Let them know that you're sad, angry, or confused. If you’re in shock, disbelief, or denial. Doing this can serve as a good emotional outlet, make you feel lighter and give you mental clarity and closure about your parents’ death.

Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back.” Proverbs 29:11 When facing moments of frustration, we may find a strong urge to vent our anger. This is natural, but we must fight against this tendency. Anger is poison to our souls. It hurts others and broadens the negative feelings within us. We must hold back our anger and always strive for peace instead. We can practice discipline when controlling our reactionary emotions. We can find healthy outlets to release pent up anger like reading, writing, or exercising. Take a step back from the situation and try to see it from a bird’s eye view. Whichever is our outlet of choice, we can form a healthy response instead of giving in to negative emotions.

The enormity of his decision frightened him. He was a favorite caddy, and the thirty dollars he earned through the summer were not to be made elsewhere around the lake. But he had received a strong emotional shock, and his perturbation required a violent and immediate outlet.

Literature offered a safe circumscribed outlet for sadness.

The more you practice keeping composure and remaining calm, the more positive outlets you develop to help you divert your reactions away from harmful or negative aspects, the more you begin to control your emotions.

She was determined to keep her promise of 'no fandom' to her mother. Trouble was, fandom was more than a hobby, it was a support system. Without it, Liv had no one to talk to when she was lonely. She had nothing to look forward to after school, and no outlet for creativity. Liv found herself spiraling back into melancholy. She got up. She went to classes. She came home... And then did it all over again. Sleep became the escape that fandom had once been.

Mental uses Carnelian carries the vibration of creativity to help you give birth to new projects. This stone acts as a catalyst to put things in motion so that they can come to fruition. Use this stone to mentally integrate the true meaning of active courage. Carnelian is an ideal stone for improving visualization skills. Emotional uses Carnelian is a good tool to help you dive into your emotions either through art, music, writing, or any creative outlet. It reminds you to give yourself the time to create and the courage to take the action to make it so. This stone also helps you embrace the emotions and feelings of past challenges, accept them, and move on. A stone for action and moving forward in life, it is useful when you are up against an emotional block. Physical uses Carnelian is helpful for relieving the pain of arthritis as well as for supporting respiratory function, which makes it easier to breathe. A stone of fertility, it is helpful for manifesting ideas or for getting pregnant. Its orange vibration activates the part of you that needs a push or the motivation to move forward to take action on your projects, ideas, or

Some has been written about the reaction of our forces to the bombing of the “highway to death.” The criticism revolves around the lack of apparent remorse or guilt, and perhaps even bloodlust, at bombing the relatively easy targets. Everybody reacts to the stress of war and life and death decisions differently, and to narrow the image one would construct of an individual to his reaction immediately following the events of any battle is superficial and simplistic. Naval aviators are a strange mix of people—utterly homogeneous in certain respects, particularly to the casual observer, and radically different in their core and substance. Very few naval aviators show honest emotion easily; they’re not supposed to fracture the military bearing that has been instilled in them through years of training and detached experience under the stress of carrier aviation. Anger is the easiest emotion to display because it is the natural, instinctual outlet for stress and fear. But even expressions of anger might be as diverse in their reaction to a common event as physical violence or the mere raising of a voice. Most emotion comes out at the officers’ club, or on liberty in a foreign port, where the beer either softens or heightens aviators’ feelings to the edges of their flexibility, which often is not very far. Virtually all naval aviators are college graduates—some from state colleges, some from the Naval Academy, even a few Ivy Leaguers. This is their greatest obvious commonality—a college degree and mutual survival of the weeding-out process to get where they are in the navy. Many are religious, many are not, and the greatest of the values shared by the men is a trust in their comrades, a dedication to their country, and an absolute focus on their mission. It is exceedingly difficult most times for an outsider to register where a naval aviator is “coming from.” The uniform, the haircut, and the navy-speak contribute enormously to the building of a stereotype. So do the mannerisms of each individual; some express the control of emotion in reserved stoicism, others in an outburst of emotional release through inappropriate laughter or anger. Still others never express emotion at all. But the emotion is there, it has to be; despite years of training and desensitizing to hide the race of the heart and the sickening chill in the stomach, anyone who has landed on an aircraft carrier, never mind fought in a war, knows what fear and exhilarating intensity are.

Jasmine hurried along the Grand Canal, dodging a group of diehard revelers, glancing back over her shoulder for the hundredth time. She couldn't see Gabe Cannon anywhere. Her teenage fantasy man was hunting her brother. She sure hadn't seen that coming. Freaking surreal. He looked just as good as when she'd first met him at that airport and had fallen instantly in love over pizza and chips. One of those unavoidable pitfalls of life, really. He'd been more handsome than any of her pop idols, and her teenage emotions had been just begging for an outlet. She cringed in embarrassment when she thought of all the melodramatic drivel she'd written about him in her high school diary.

Anyone who does not get enough rest and relaxation to enjoy life, who drives him/herself constantly, who is never satisfied or is a perfectionist, who is under constant pressure (especially with few outlets for emotional release), who feels trapped or helpless, who feels overwhelmed by repeated or continuous difficulties, or who has experienced severe or chronic emotional or physical trauma or illness is probably already suffering from some degree of adrenal fatigue.

For you as a parent, finding the book that gives you and your child a mutual way of dealing with a life-event, a subliminal anxiety or the need to find an emotional outlet, is one of the best things you can do for and with your child.

Kaczynski’s dismissal of Relativist Philosophy in the Manifesto, however, also exposes the extent to which all of this anti-essentialist relativist posturing occurs against the backdrop of one absolute standard: the need to go through the Power Process. The grand irony is that relativism is only possible in the context of one non-relativized exception, the drive for power:     Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analysing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs . . . [T]heir attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power.

Exercise. Exercise has proven time and time again to be better at stimulating the mood hormones than psychotropic medications. Further, exercise increases the neuroplasticity of the brain, which keeps you functioning at full potential. Movement, no matter how you choose to move, is also a creative outlet for your emotions, providing a physical outlet of expression and release.

Moving your body, on the other hand, has been shown to lower inflammation, produce feel-good endorphins, and give your mind a physical outlet for any anxiety or stress you may be suffering. Studies also show that physical activity can cause the brain to grow new neurons and, over time, rewire neural pathways that help stabilize mood and emotions. There’s something else about exercise that often gets overlooked when we talk about physical activity and mental health. When you mix low activity levels with a high-sugar diet—a common combo for most people—the union is like kryptonite for our minds and mood, leading to poor sleep, low-grade panic attacks, and depression

I had an extremely slow-dawning insight about creation. That insight is that context largely determines what is written, painted, sculpted, sung, or performed. That doesn’t sound like much of an insight, but it’s actually the opposite of conventional wisdom, which maintains that creation emerges out of some interior emotion, from an upwelling of passion or feeling, and that the creative urge will brook no accommodation, that it simply must find an outlet to be heard, read, or seen.

She looked down when she laughed that time. Something about the shy aversion of her eyes and the sound of her laugh was making me...feel...something. But my brain kept confusing whatever overwhelming feeling this was with a desire to squish her, as if I could find an outlet for this annoying emotion by just taking her face in my hands and squeezing. I managed to resist.

When children do not find an emotional outlet, they suppress the feelings and accept the abuse.

First, finding a healthy outlet for uncomfortable feelings—discussing them, having a good cry, listening to sad or angry music, and so on—usually does the job, providing all the relief a teenager needs. Second, making ourselves available to talk with our teenagers about their ups and downs is one of the most enriching aspects of parenting, and it goes a long way toward strengthening our relationships with them. Third, demonstrating our loving interest in what’s weighing on our teens models the attentive compassion that they should come to hold as a standard for all of their close relationships. Fourth, trying to implement any of the strategies offered in this chapter almost certainly won’t work unless we have already given emotional expression a chance to work its magic.

As such, our goal cannot be to prevent or chase away adolescent distress but rather to help our teenagers regulate their emotions. This means, in part, ensuring that they find healthy outlets for the uncomfortable ones.

To recap, emotional regulation rests on a pair of complementary approaches: finding outlets for uncomfortable feelings and, when it’s needed, finding ways to rein them in.

She looked down when she laughed that time. Something about the shy aversion of her eyes and the sound of her laugh was making me...feel...something. But my brain kept confusing whatever overwhelming feeling this was with a desire to squish her, as if I could find an outlet for this annoying emotion by just taking her face in my hands and squeezing.

The rationalizing mind prefers to keep the true causes of emotion out of awareness and utilizes the mechanism of projection to do this. It blames events or other people for “causing” a feeling and views itself as the helpless innocent victim of external causes. “They made me angry.” “He got me upset.” “It scared me.” “World events are the cause of my anxiety.” Actually, it’s the exact opposite. The suppressed and repressed feelings seek an outlet and utilize the events as triggers and excuses to vent themselves. We are like pressure-cookers ready to release steam when the opportunity arises. Our triggers are set and ready to go off. In psychiatry, this mechanism is called displacement. It is because we are angry that events “make” us angry. If, through constant surrendering, we have let go of the pent-up store of anger, it is very difficult and, in fact, even impossible for anyone or any situation to “make” us angry.

The platforms, designed to accommodate and harvest infinite data, inspired an infinite scroll. They encouraged a cultural impulse to fill all spare time with someone else’s thoughts. The internet was a collective howl, an outlet for everyone to prove that they mattered. The full spectrum of human emotion infused social platforms. Grief, joy, anxiety, mundanity flowed. People were saying nothing, and saying it all the time.

there’s actually nothing wrong with experiencing negative thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and symptoms. I’d argue that it’s human to experience all of those at various times. It’s when those negative emotions get stuck—when they have no outlet—that your body can enter a state of imbalance that may contribute to dis-ease and prevent healing.

Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.

Lastly, I want to encourage others to share their stories. Share your story through whichever creative outlet you are most comfortable with. Don’t underestimate your story’s motivational capacity! To you, your story may feel like a compilation of failures, disappointments, and hardships, but to others it may be a source of inspiration, perseverance, bravery, and strength.

Worse yet, human nature was allowed no outlet in the motional life of the enslaved. There was no acceptable place for the range of human emotions. If you were angry, you had to swallow your rage. If you were afraid, you had to pretend as if you were calm. If your mother and brother had died a month apart, you had to go to work without tears, without a break, without comfort.

Fortunate, indeed, is the person who has discovered how to give sex emotion an outlet through some form of creative effort, for he has, by that discovery, lifted himself to the status of a genius.

I find posing for photos to be yet another expressive outlet. And I share a range of photos to express that in some moments I'm grateful and empowered and in some I've been hurt and struggling or angry. It is all part of me. That's alright. Whether you're on top of the world, dealing with frustration, sad, or feeling goofy... You are not alone and it's never wrong to experience and process your emotions.

If you think negatively, destructively, and viciously, these thoughts generate destructive emotions that must be expressed and must find an outlet. These emotions, being of a negative nature, are frequently expressed as ulcers, heart trouble, tension, and anxieties.

All cultures offer, through prescribed channels, some outlet for the emotional problems they create; they stipulate, in addition, what emotions may be expressed, by whom, in what quantity, and the circumstances of their expression.

Black America has watched this pattern of outrage management about Black suffering for years. We’ve seen police plant weapons on their victims, as they did in the case of Walter Scott (cover up). Media outlets tell us drugs were in someone’s system when the police murdered them, as they did with George Floyd (devalue). White people constantly try to reframe police brutality as a problem of “a few bad apples” instead of a systemic problem (reinterpret). When the grand jury refused to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, that became the end of the story for eager racism deniers, though the report also showed racial bias in the conduct of the Ferguson police department (use official channels). And there isn’t room for a full list of the times protesters of these injustices were met in the streets with flash-bang grenades and tanks (intimidate). Oppressors have perfected these tactics so well, they stop revolutions before they start, on a daily basis, without us ever noticing. Rank-and-file white people also try to stamp out Black rage wherever it emerges. They tell us Black anger is destructive and can’t be trusted. The truth is just the opposite. Black rage is trustworthy because it carries an analysis of present injustices. On a physiological level, anger is the body’s way of telling us that a boundary has been violated. It’s the natural emotional response humans have to being wronged, especially if that wrong is recurring and denied by the harmdoers. Therefore, Black rage is a healthy sign that we as a people recognize the crimes that have been, and continue to be, committed against us. Our anger is based in our personal experiences of anti-Black hostility in the white world and backed by our knowledge of our history.