Can cannabis help with anger explore science stress relief and mindful use in todays tense world.
Right now, the national mood feels tense. Everyday living costs are stubbornly high, political turmoil dominates headlines, and many people feel society has shifted toward self-interest rather than the greater good. Add constant notifications, long commutes, and financial anxiety, and it’s no surprise anger feels closer to the surface than calm. It can play out in a variety of ways – from Congressman Chris Garten posting beating up Santa (R-IN) to spiking high blood pressure. In moments like these, people look for healthy ways to decompress—and for some adults, cannabis has entered the conversation as a possible tool to help cool hot emotions.
So, can cannabis help with anger? The short answer: it can help some people feel calmer, but how and why matters.
Anger is often a secondary emotion. Beneath it sit stress, fear, exhaustion, and a sense of lost control. When prices rise faster than paychecks, when political debates feel relentless, and when empathy seems in short supply, the nervous system stays in a constant state of alert. The “always on” stress response primes the body for irritability and short tempers.
Many adults are not looking to “escape” reality—they’re looking for relief, perspective, and a way to slow their racing thoughts. This is where cannabis, used thoughtfully, may help.
Rep Garten (R-IN) posted a pic of his beating up Santa Claus
Cannabis interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system, which plays a role in mood regulation, stress response, and emotional balance. Certain cannabinoids and terpenes are associated with relaxation and reduced stress, which can indirectly soften anger.
1. It can reduce stress, the fuel behind anger. High stress often turns small annoyances into major blowups. Many people report cannabis helps lower baseline stress, making it easier to respond rather than react.
2. It encourages mental pause and perspective. Anger thrives on speed—fast thoughts, fast judgments, fast words. Cannabis can slow the mental momentum, giving users space to reflect before reacting.
3. It may relax the body, not just the mind. Tension in the shoulders, jaw, and chest often accompanies anger. Cannabis is known for its muscle-relaxing effects, which can help break the physical feedback loop keeping anger alive.
4. It can support better sleep. Poor sleep and anger are closely linked. When people are exhausted, emotional regulation drops. For some adults, cannabis supports more restful sleep, which can translate into a calmer mood the next day.
Not all cannabis experiences are calming. High doses of THC, especially for inexperienced users, can increase anxiety or irritability. Many people seeking emotional balance gravitate toward lower-THC products or strains known for soothing terpene profiles such as myrcene or linalool.
Microdosing—using just enough to feel relaxed without feeling impaired—has become a popular approach for those looking to manage mood without losing clarity or motivation.
To be clear: cannabis doesn’t solve the root causes of anger. It won’t lower grocery prices or heal political divisions. What it can do is help some adults create a calmer internal state, making it easier to communicate, reflect, and respond thoughtfully rather than explosively.
Used responsibly, cannabis may support anger management by helping people slow down, soften their reactions, and reconnect with a sense of balance. In a time when tempers are running high nationwide, a pause—however small—can make a meaningful difference.
Travis Kelce is finally speaking out about his heated exchanges with Andy Reid!
It has been a rough start to the season for the Kansas City Chiefs, as they have won only once so far, so emotions are high right now. And that was clear during their last game against the New York Giants on September 21. At one point, the tight end and the head coach shouting at each other on the sidelines. According to a lip reader, Andy possibly threatened to bench Travis before the athlete claimed he was suffering from an ankle injury — which is not good, obviously, if this is true.
Other reports suggested he is struggling with the “pressure” and “scrutiny” of his upcoming nuptials to Taylor Swift, along with “juggling” other commitments. Plus, Travis is worried about the pop star’s safety amid a terrifying security threat. Oof. It’s a lot on one’s shoulders. And as you can imagine, all of it is distracting him from his duties on the field and causing this outburst.
However, we also can’t forget that this game is not the only time the Happy Gilmore 2 actor lost his cool! He also got into Andy’s face and yelled at him during the Super Bowl 2024! Yikes!
Given Travis’ history with Andy, some viewers cannot help but think there is now some drama going on between them! Uh oh! Is the football player feuding with the coach? That is bound to make things tense and awkward in the locker room…
However, don’t worry, Chiefs fans! Travis made it clear to the Kansas City Star on Friday that he has nothing but “love” for Andy! Addressing their heated exchanges, he said:
“I love that guy, man. There’s nothing outside of this building that’s going to make me feel any different way. We know exactly each other’s intentions.”
Phew! He went on to rave about Andy’s coaching:
“I think what Coach Reid does best is he challenges guys to be at their best, and I love that about him. It definitely helped me take my game to another level that game.”
We guess they are just two guys who are extremely passionate about the game, and sometimes that causes them to butt heads. However, it is all love at the end of the day – we hope! For what it’s worth, Andy also wasn’t upset about the incident, saying:
“He’s a passionate guy and I love that part. I’ve been through a lot of things with him, that’s all part of it. I love that he loves to play the game, that’s what I love. And it’s an emotional game, so I’ll take it.”
Hopefully, their upcoming games turn out better — with a lot less screaming! The Chiefs will face the Baltimore Ravens at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, so we’ll see how it goes!
A group of healthcare workers in Santa Barbara were fired on Wednesday after a video apparently showing patients’ bodily fluids was posted on TikTok, according to their employer.
The now-deleted post, made by a former employee at Sansum Clinic — a nonprofit outpatient care facility owned by Sutter Health — showed eight workers mocking what appeared to be the bodily fluid of patients on exam tables with the on-screen caption, “Are patients allowed to leave you guys gifts?” and “Make sure you leave your healthcare workers sweet gifts like these!” In one image, the medical staff are seen pointing and smiling at a spot with their thumbs up. The caption reads, “Guess the substance!”
A spokesperson for Sacramento-based health system Sutter Health said that, although the original poster was not an employee at the time the video was posted, others who appeared in it had been terminated.
“This unacceptable behavior is an outright violation of our policies, shows a lack of respect for our patients and will not be tolerated,” the company said in a statement shared with The Times.
The video spread over the weekend on platforms including X, Instagram and Reddit, sparking an outpouring of anger among commenters along the way.
“No place for shaming the patient in medicine,” one user on Reddit wrote.
“My question is what is the culture of your clinic because why did this many employees feel comfortable participating in this?” another user inquired on Instagram.
According to an online statement from Sansum Clinic, officials were notified of the post by concerned patients and immediately conducted a review of the video.
“Within 24 hours of becoming aware of the posts, we placed the employees on administrative leave, and within another 24 hours, we terminated those involved,” the health system posted.
The video was deleted soon after it was posted once commenters questioned the participants’ ethics. But it was reposted by multiple other accounts and disseminated further through “stitches” of individuals reacting to the post on TikTok and other platforms.
A Sansum spokesperson said the clinic remained steadfastly committed to patient privacy and dignity.
“We expect all team members to live our patients-first mission and uphold the highest standards of compassion, professionalism and respect,” he said. “We are using this inappropriate incident to reinforce our comprehensive policies with all our team members across the organization.”
Modern culture has become dominated by sarcasm, irony, and carefully crafted personas. Sincerity and earnestness have become rare, but still powerful forces. Discover how embracing these qualities can transform personal relationships, enrich public discourse, and inspire acts of genuine heroism.
Sincerity is one of the most important yet under-appreciated traits in today’s world. It’s the simple ability to be open and honest about your thoughts, beliefs, and intentions, without needing to play games, try to manipulate, or retreat to humor or sarcasm when conversations get tough.
First and foremost, sincerity requires you to be honest with yourself and what really matters to you. It means you believe in something, and you are willing to speak and act on that conviction even if it makes you unpopular or unlikable. People will often see you as being genuine and authentic if you stand up for what you believe in, especially when it comes with social costs.
Philosopher Thomas Carlyle emphasized the importance of “sincerity” and identified it as one of the universal threads behind all types of heroes, including writers, political leaders, and religious figures. For Carlyle, heroes don’t just preach or philosophize; they embody their beliefs in every action, making them prime examples of what true conviction looks like. They morally refuse to run, hide, or cower in the face of opposition, even when their very lives are at stake.
Sincerity stands out sharply in our current environment, especially on the internet and social media where we are exposed to countless manufactured images and personas, driven by a general pattern of cultural narcissism and “fake it ’till you make it” philosophies. People believe as long as they can appear “happy” and “successful” on social media then it will become a reality in their actual lives. Lies, distortions, and deception are the modus operandi in today’s online world, you see it almost everywhere.
The scary truth for most people is that sincerity makes you vulnerable and open to criticism. It invites others to judge you for who you are and what you really believe in. Negative feedback comes with the territory, and it will hurt because it will feel like a direct attack on you (and maybe it is). The alternative is to not be yourself – then you’ll never be attacked for who you are. That sounds safe and comfortable, but it’s also a form of quiet surrender.
Hiding Behind Sarcasm
One common way people protect themselves from this vulnerability is by being sarcastic or ironic in how they present themselves and their views.
Sarcasm and irony can become convenient cop-outs when you are confronted with opposition or pushback from others. Instead of staking your ground and defending your beliefs, you can always fall back and tell people, “I was just joking,” or “I didn’t really mean that.”
Nowadays it’s hard to tell what anyone really believes or doesn’t believe, which adds an extra layer of chaos and confusion in what is already a toxic environment for healthy dialogue.
Sarcasm is a common defense mechanism in teens and young adults when confronted with a difficult or uncomfortable situation that they aren’t equipped to talk about. In the movie Inside Out 2 (which I wrote a recent article on here), the character Ennui – who represents disinterest and boredom – was a fun illustration of how sarcasm is used to deflect attention away from more serious situations or conversations that a person isn’t ready to tackle head-on.
This is not uncharacteristic of the modern discourse we see in politics and culture, which is – at its core – childish, dishonest, and insincere. We are taught to not be too serious or care too much about the truth, but to focus on cheap wins, sensationalist headlines, silly memes, gotcha moments, snappy slogans, juicy scandals, and mean-spirited insults, trolling, and harassment. We are focused not on what is true, but what makes us “look good” or “feel good.”
In theory, the goal of a healthy debate is to share different perspectives, exchange information, test out your ideas, provide facts and evidence to support your position, and come to some common ground or understanding of differences. None of this is happening in today’s intellectual environment.
Sarcasm is just one way we avoid and shutdown these honest and difficult conversations. It can be a roadblock to understanding in both personal relationships and broader social and political issues.
Of course sarcasm has its place as a vehicle for humor. It can be especially effective when you are responding to someone who is insulting you, or trolling you, or is acting in bad faith and isn’t interested in a sincere conversation from the start.
At the same time, we need to try to give people the benefit of the doubt and at least try to have good faith conversations whenever possible. Without sincerity, there is no real path forward – only more conflict and hostilities.
Sincerity as the Mark of Heroes
As mentioned before, the philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle identified “sincerity” as one of the universal threads behind all types of heroes, whether they be writers, philosophers, religious leaders, or political leaders.
In his work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History, Carlyle champions figures like Martin Luther, the religious reformer who famously nailed his “95 Theses” to the church door, fully aware that it could bring him condemnation and peril. Luther challenged the powerful Catholic Church, especially its practice of selling indulgences, making his public protest an act of great personal risk. This unwavering belief in his cause, despite threats from powerful institutions, is a prime example of sincerity in action.
Similarly, Carlyle held Oliver Cromwell, the military and political leader of the English Civil War, in high regard for his conviction and honesty. Cromwell was often criticized for his decisions, yet he remained steadfast in his mission to reshape England according to his moral and religious beliefs. Carlyle saw Cromwell’s sincerity as his defining characteristic, even if it made him deeply unpopular.
Another chapter is dedicated to the prophet Muhammad. For over a decade, Muhammad faced ridicule, persecution, and exile for preaching his monotheistic beliefs in a society dominated by polytheism. Despite immense personal hardship, including the loss of family and status, Muhammad never wavered or compromised his beliefs, showing an unshakable faith in the truth of his message. As Carlyle writes:
“A silent great soul; he was one of those who cannot but be in earnest; whom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While others walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could not screen himself in formulas; he was alone with his own soul and the reality of things. The great mystery of Existence, as I said, glared in upon him, with its terrors, with its splendors; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I!’; Such sincerity, as we named it, has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a voice direct from Nature’s own heart. Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else;—all else is wind in comparison.”
Regardless of how you feel about these historical figures, you can’t deny that they were sincere in their intentions and lived according to their values and convictions. These figures, according to Carlyle, demonstrate that heroes are people who not only believe in what they do but live and act upon that belief with wholehearted consistency, even in the face of tremendous personal and social costs.
Sincerity remains a rare force for truth and change, and we need it now more than ever.
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“Inside Out 2” introduces new emotions like Anxiety and Envy as Riley navigates the challenges of growing up and forming her sense of self. This heartfelt sequel naturally builds on the inner world of its predecessor, teaching important lessons in mental health for both children and adults.
The original “Inside Out” (2015) was a monumental Pixar film that humorously depicted the chaotic inner world of emotions that we all have to navigate.
In the first one, the young protagonist Riley had to learn that negative emotions like “Sadness” (a blue-colored character) aren’t something that have to be avoided at all costs, but are appropriate emotions to feel sometimes, and even a necessary function of a happy and healthy life. It was a powerful lesson in emotional intelligence that resonated with both children and adults alike.
The sequel “Inside Out 2” (2024) continues to build off of these themes in a fun, organic, and intuitive way. Riley is now thirteen and about to enter high school. She starts to experience a new range of emotions (especially “Anxiety” and “Envy”), which start to influence her newly forming “belief system” and a “sense of self.”
The creators of the Inside Out franchise have a team of psychologists that help them illustrate key concepts in an imaginative way, which makes this film both enjoyable and educational. This article will explore some of the new concepts in the film and how the mental world-building in the franchise continues to expand.
New Emotions
Inside Out 2 introduces a bunch of new emotions into Riley’s inner world. In addition to the original line-up (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust), they also include:
Anxiety (orange): The focus of the film. Anxiety is always thinking ahead and wanting what is best for Riley, but also overworks and overworries her. The main narrative of the film shows Riley wanting to become the best hockey player she can possibly be; anxiety tries to help her achieve this by motivating Riley to constantly push herself forward, wake up early to train more, and work harder. However, too much anxiety distracts her from other core values in life, such as kindness and friendship, and also hurts her ability to just have fun and enjoy the game of hockey. At the climax of the film, Anxiety works itself up into such a frenzy that it freezes and has a panic attack (this scene has resonated with a lot of people who have experienced similar attacks, including myself). Riley must learn that while anxiety can be a powerful motivator it also needs to be balanced with feelings of acceptance, relaxation, and joy.
Envy (cyan): This emotion is always admiring others, looking up to them, and wanting what they have. When Riley first meets her hockey idols, she becomes envious of how “cool” and “successful” they are, so she strives to become just like them by mimicking them and copying their behaviors, including at one point dying her hair the same way to be more like them. Like all emotions, envy and jealousy can be insightful emotions with the right perspective: they can show us what we want or value in life. However when our lives are completely run by these feelings, we end up trying to be something we’re not.
Embarrassment (pink): A big goofy emotion that looks away and covers his head in a hoodie whenever something shameful or embarrassing happens to Riley. It’s interesting to note that many of the new emotions added have a social component to them. This makes sense as Riley comes of age and begins to balance her self-perception with how she is perceived by others.
All of the emotions in Inside Out 2 (both old and new). One cool thing about each emotion is that it is naturally paired with a specific color. Sadness is blue, Anger is red, Joy is yellow, Disgust is green, and Anxiety is orange.
Ennui/Boredom (purple): A humorous emotion with a stereotypically snobby French accent that constantly pretends to not be interested in anything. They will often deflect serious or uncomfortable situations with sarcasm, irony, or feigned disinterest. This character cleverly shows how many people use sarcasm as a defense mechanism when they are too afraid to be honest or sincere about their true thoughts and feelings. It reflects a common attitude among teenagers and young adults where it’s perceived as “lame” to care too much about anything.
Nostalgia (beige): This emotion is a side character that pops up a couple times throughout the film. Each time the other emotions humorously tell “Nostalgia” that she is arriving too soon, and that Riley has to at least wait for her first date, first kiss, or graduation before she starts reminiscing on the past. Perhaps Nostalgia will be the main character in Inside Out 10, when Riley is much older and has already lived the bulk of her life.
The original creator Pete Docter conceived of between 5-27 emotions that could be added to the Inside Out world, so it’s likely newer emotions will continue to be introduced if the series keeps going. Check out different classifications of emotions here, the original five in the movie are based on Paul Ekman’s model (excluding “surprise”).
Belief System and Sense of Self
One of the most interesting new features added to the Inside Out world is the idea of a “belief system.”
In the first movie, they introduced the concept of a “core memory” as a highly emotionally charged event that is then stored in Riley’s brain. Now these core memories can be brought to the “belief system” and turned into a belief (or recurring thought pattern). For example, when Riley fails an important exam at school, that core memory may be turned into the belief, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not smart enough.”
Here’s how the belief system is visually represented, it looks similar to a bunch of neurons in a brain. Each ray of light represents one specific belief:
All of these beliefs come together to create Riley’s “sense of self.” This is depicted in the movie as a type of “electric tree,” with its roots representing each core belief.
At first the character Joy takes complete control over Riley’s “sense of self.” It only feeds positive memories and positive beliefs into her belief system, and tries to protect her from negative memories by throwing them into the “back of the mind” where they can be ignored forever.
When the emotion Anxiety takes over, only negative beliefs are fed into the sense of self, such as “I’m not good enough” or “I need to be better.” The “sense of self” changes color and shape to reflect these changes in how Riley sees herself.
After Riley suffers from a panic attack during a hockey game due to being completely controlled by Anxiety, the character Joy intervenes and gets Anxiety to “let go” of the controls.
In the outside world, Riley practices a grounding technique by making note of her five senses and taking deep breaths to bring herself back to the present moment. She then does the right thing by apologizing to her friends for being so mean and distant toward them.
Finally Riley “calls” Joy back to her and allows herself to have fun playing the rest of the hockey game with her friends.
By the end of the movie, Riley forms a completely new “sense of self” that accepts all of her thoughts and feelings, even when they can be conflicting or contradictory at times. Riley’s emotions come together and realize that she needs all of them.
No single emotion gets to determine who Riley is – they all contribute in helping Riley become the best version of herself.
Conclusion
Overall Inside Out 2 is a worthy sequel that builds off of its predecessor in an organic and intelligent way that is bound to resonate with both children and adults. Make sure to put it on your watchlist this year!
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Do you see your emotions as a source of strength or weakness? New research shows how maladaptive beliefs about feelings can lead to destructive patterns and poor self-regulation. Learn how to better navigate your emotional world by cultivating the right approach and mindset toward every feeling.
Two people can experience the same exact emotion in radically different ways depending on their mindset and perspective.
Ultimately, the beliefs you have about emotions are going to influence how you respond to them. This includes both helpful and unhelpful strategies you use to self-regulate your mood and feelings on a daily basis, which is one of the main pillars of emotional intelligence.
Psychology research has looked into what types of beliefs about emotions are associated with maladaptive strategies. One new study published in Current Psychology identified two types of beliefs that can lead to emotional distress and the development of mood disorders: “emotional undesirability” (the belief that emotions should be avoided) and “emotional uncontrollability” (the belief that there’s nothing you can do to change your emotions).
Both of these maladaptive beliefs lead to a passive approach to mental health. They amount to the idea, “All emotions should be avoided – and if they do happen there’s nothing I can do about it.” Naturally a person who holds these beliefs isn’t going to make much of an effort to listen to their emotions more closely or channel them in a more constructive way.
For example, if a person is overwhelmed with anger and they hold these beliefs, they will always rely on their “default response” however destructive it may be: yelling at someone, drinking alcohol, punching a wall, or storming out of the room. The person doesn’t believe they have a choice in how they respond to their anger, they only blame others for their feelings, so there are limited options whenever anger arises. They say to themselves, “When I’m angry, I act like this! And that’s that!”
When you remove any choice or responsibility for your mood and feelings (and how you act on them), you automatically limit your power. You end up becoming a slave to your emotions, rather than a master of them. That’s why these maladaptive beliefs can lead to serious emotional dysfunction and disorder over time, especially if we don’t learn the proper tools and skills for managing our emotions more effectively.
Now let’s learn more about specific destructive beliefs about emotions and how they can hurt our mental health and well-being. Do you believe any of them (or used to in the past)?
5 Destructive and Maladaptive Beliefs About Emotions
People hold many misconceptions about their emotions, but these are the most popular myths:
Emotions Are Weakness – One of the most common beliefs about emotions is that they are a weakness that should be avoided. Whether it’s love, sadness, or fear, we are told to keep our emotions to ourselves, and any expression of them makes us imperfect and vulnerable. This is a myth especially common among men who strive to be as stoic as possible. Instead of listening to emotions and seeing them as a source of strength and knowledge, we bottle them up and are told to just “think with your head” and “be rational.” While emotions can be misleading and we should question our feelings instead of following them blindly or impulsively, the truth is emotions can contain a lot of power and wisdom when we can listen and respond to them in the right way.
Emotions Should Always Be Positive – Another popular myth about emotions is that we should always “feel good” and never “feel bad.” However, even the most emotionally intelligent person is going to experience their fair share of positive and negative emotions, because it’s an inseparable part of human existence. Negative emotions are not only inevitable, they provide a necessary function that helps us navigate our world and live better lives. All emotions – including sadness, fear, anger, anxiety, and grief – serve a purpose and guide us. Without the experience of pain we would put ourselves in danger, such as keeping our hands in a fire until it is burnt. In the same way, negative emotions are uncomfortable but necessary signals we need to survive.
Emotions Are Fixed and Permanent – Emotions come and go naturally, but in the moment they can feel solid and permanent. If you watch your emotions closely, you’ll notice they are always changing in various dimensions (time, intensity, frequency, shape), and if you wait long enough one emotion usually takes the place of another. This is the lesson of impermanence – it’s best encapsulated by the mantra this too shall pass, and it describes how every experience (sensations, thoughts, feelings, memories, imaginations) will eventually dissipate over time. Once you learn this, you realize that you don’t always have to act on every emotion to move past it, sometimes you can just sit and wait. There’s a mindful gap between every “feeling” and “action,” and we can experience an emotion fully without needing to directly respond to it.
Emotions Are Uncontrollable – In the heat of the moment, emotions can seem uncontrollable. Once an emotion becomes too intense, it can often hijack our brains and cause us to act in ways we later regret. One key aspect of self-regulation is creating a plan for negative emotionsbefore they happen. First identify one emotion you’re stuck in a negative pattern with. Then when you are in a calm and peaceful state of mind, write and brainstorm new ways to respond to that negative emotion in that situation. Put it in the form of an “if, then” statement: “If I feel angry, then I will take ten deep breaths” or “If I feel sad, then I will write for 10 minutes in my journal.” You can change your natural response to intense negative emotions, but like all habits it takes time, practice, and patience.
Emotions Are Irrational – The last common error people make is believing that emotions are the opposite of thinking and that the two are completely separate. We falsely believe we need to choose between “thinking” and “emotions” in a given situation when often they are interconnected and work in tandem. Beliefs ↔ emotions is a two-way street. Thoughts can influence our emotions (such as an idea in your head that makes you feel good/bad), and emotions can influence our thoughts (such as a bad mood making you more pessimistic or cynical). Emotions are just another way of processing information from our environment. In fact our intuition and gut feelings are often described as super fast pattern recognition that happens below the surface of consciousness. In some situations, gut feelings can be a more intelligent guide for making decisions than our conscious logic and reasoning.
What’s your perspective on your emotions? How have your beliefs about emotions changed over time?
Personally, I once viewed emotions as mere background noise, something to be ignored or suppressed in pursuit of pure rationality and self-control. My journey into psychology and self-improvement changed my perspective. I began to discover that “emotions are powerful,” “emotions are a resource,” and “emotions are worth paying attention to.”
This paradigm shift was foundational in shaping my approach to life and one of my core motivations for starting this website.
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context: cat is put in a bad cause its trying its best to protect his human, some ******* throw him into a river, the anger he feels is so strong that it makes him worthy of a red ring, his human gets killed so he hunts down the ******* that did it and kills them all
Linda Graham, MFT, explores the use of gratitude as a buffer and offers tools to help practice gratitude even in the most difficult of times.
Gratitude works its magic – to buffer us from falling into swamps of grudge, trauma and suffering in the first place, or pulling ourselves out of those swamps once we’ve woken up to knowing that we’re not in our right mind or heart space anymore – by bringing us to the experiences of loving awareness and loving presence from which we can respond to confusion, despair, fear, hurt, threat, more wisely.
Gratitude is one of the most direct ways to find our way to a loving awareness of this Being-ness because it immediately brings us into the arc of presence – openness – connectedness with all there is that helped us become all of who we are – acceptance of all that is-ness, that leads to an inner peace and well-being that is the wellspring of love and wise action.
Gratitude practice taps us into the energy field of life itself, from which comes all joy, compassion, forgiveness, etc.
From this energy field of life itself, we can move from being well to faring well in the world.
1- Gratitude to soften grudge
If you’re like me, or my clients, or my friends, holidays may be a mixture of anticipated delight and dread. You may have to re-engage with a parent or sibling who could still be shamingly critical or derisive, or even just negative, with no awareness or accountability for the pain they are inflicting. Some gratitude practices that might be helpful:
Read your own signals of when it’s safe to connect and when it’s not. I.e., knowing from within when it’s safe to be open and when it’s best to have a good boundary. After years of practice, I can finally, finally catch the wave in my body that says “uh-oh, this doesn’t feel safe, I’m outta here,” that has me walking out the door and around the block before I’m even aware I’ve left the conversation. Focus on your heart, your presence, your attitude, your behavior.
Find something to appreciate, right now, about the person you feel like clobbering with a frying pan. That they held the door for you as you walked into the house even though they didn’t pay attention to anything you said. Or they’re being attentive to their 4 year old even though they have no bandwidth for anyone else. Or remembering that a year ago they surprised the heck out of you by getting your daughter the poodle puppy she had so yearned for.
Find something to appreciate, right now, about the connection, the dynamic between you and this person, which may simply be “I get to practice patience right now” or “I get to practice compassion right now” or “I am moving 20 minutes closer to sainthood right now.”
Find something to forgive right now. When you’re struggling to be tolerant rather than contentious with someone, imagine this person as a vulnerable one year old, or a greedy two year old, or a defiant three year old, or a full-of-life ten year old, or a confused sixteen year old, or a desperate to find a direction in life twenty year old. (Which may be who’s actually driving this person’s behavior in the current moment.) Allow your heart to open to the more vulnerable version of the person you are struggling with, seeing your grudge in this larger perspective, encompassing all of the person and letting the grudge soften.
Savor the gratitude for your own practice of softening the grudge and easing your heart.
2-Gratitude to heal trauma
I’m part of a clinical study group developing an integrative model for treating trauma; this past week my colleague Joanna spoke of “embracing the defensive structures,” meaning:
We all use our innate survival responses of fight-flight-freeze-collapse when our resources for coping through connection are overwhelmed or we perceive connections themselves to be unsafe. These survival responses are hard-wired into our body-brains in utero. They operate much faster than our adult conscious appraisals of yes-no, green light – red light could possibly operate. When one or all of those survival responses gets repeatedly encoded in our developing neural circuitry (my early-learned pattern of regulating the anxiety coming up in a conversation by walking out the door for fresh air still coming up, unknowingly, when I am perfectly safe in a conversation now) or when traumatizing events like betrayal or violence lock those survival response patterns into our body memory, our normal openness and expansiveness of resilience and well-being can be blocked by these contracted survival defenses.
Gratitude plays a key role in unpacking and re-wiring these trauma responses by de-pathologizing them. No shame-blame-weakness in normal responses to abnormal,
terrifying, or toxic circumstances. In fact, we can be grateful that these innate survival responses did allow us to survive, even if they constrict us or cause their own suffering later down the road. By becoming conscious…and compassionate…and accepting…and embracing of those mechanisms that kept us afloat, even though they sometimes threaten to sink us now, we soften our grudge toward ourselves, or toward the traumatizing events, and deepen into the place in our hearts and minds that can resolve and let go of the trauma and the defenses against the trauma. Embracing our defenses as they are, even while choosing to use other more adaptive coping strategies now, doesre-wire the brain, does change our conscious relationship to those habitual patterns now, does create conscious, alternative choices. (See Exercises to Practice below for examples of how to do this.)
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
– Carl Rogers
3-Gratitude to move through suffering with grace
Suffering is an inevitable part of the human condition and human conditioning. Gratitude helps us move through our suffering with more grace and peace of mind and heart:
Allowing us a respite from the suffering, even for a few moments. Gratitude drops us into a space where our survival patterns of responding to hurt, danger, life threat aren’t operating, at least for a few moments.
When my brother was in the hospital with life-threatening and painful blood clots, those moments he and I spent on the phone every day in gratitude practice gave him a much needed respite from the pain and fear, not because the gratitude was a distraction but because it moved him into a state of mind and heart where the pain and fear weren’t operating.
“Waking up” to the larger perspective and learning the lessons hidden within the suffering.
One of my favorite teaching stories of all time is the story of the Chinese Farmer and the Horse, from the Zen tradition.
A Chinese farmer has a horse; his neighbor comes over to visit and exclaims, Oh, how fortunate that you have a horse!” The Chinese farmer non-committally says, “We’ll see.” The next day the horse runs away. The neighbor comes over to offer his sympathy. “Oh, how unfortunate that you’ve lost your horse.” The Chinese farmer again says non-committally, “We’ll see.” The next day the horse returns to the farmer, bringing a new mare with him. The neighbor rushes over to congratulate the farmer. “Oh, how fortunate! Now you have two horses!” The Chinese farmer replies as before, “We’ll see.” The next day the farmer’s son is out riding the mare to break it in; the mare throws him and he breaks his leg. The neighbor comes over as before, “Oh, how unfortunate. Your son has broken his leg!” The Chinese farmer replies, “We’ll see.”
A month later the army comes through the area recruiting soldiers. They can’t accept the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. The neighbor again comes over to sympathize, “Oh, how fortunate! Your son doesn’t have to go into the army!” The Chinese farmer again replies, “We’ll see.”
The story continues on. We learn to keep an open mind about any particular event; we don’t always know how fortunate or
unfortunate any particular circumstance is. But the equanimity that comes from being grateful, at least accepting of every experience, every moment, no matter our initial view of it, brings us to the larger perspective that we often don’t know in the moment the opportunities hidden in what appears to be monolithic tragedy or trauma. We often say, as my friend Paula did after suddenly losing her job of seven years in an unforeseen downsizing of her company, ” I wouldn’t wish the pain and suffering of those days on anyone, and there’s no way I could have known at the time how things would turn out, and things don’t always turn out for the better, but losing that job was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never would have found my deeper dream of having my own photography studio if I had stayed there another 10 years out of being scared to leave.”
Maturing ourselves through the suffering itself. From three of my favorite wisdom teachers:
Gratitude in our darkest times is more than a matter of remembering our blessings so we can hold the hard stuff in a bigger perspective. With understanding, we see that often it is the suffering itself that deepens us, maturing our perspective on life, making us more compassionate and wise than we would have been without it. How many times have we been inspired by those who embody a wisdom that could only come from dealing with adversity? And how many valuable lessons have we ourselves learned because life has given us unwanted challenges? With a grateful heart, we’re not only willing to face our difficulties, we can realize while we’re going through them that they are a part of our ripening into wisdom and nobility. – James Baraz
The Buddhist teachings are fabulous at simply working with what’s happening as your path of awakening, rather than treating your life experiences as some kind of deviation from what is supposed to be happening. The more difficulties you have, in fact, the greater opportunity there is to let them transform you. The difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into the lousy habitual patterns you already have, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you, on the spot. – Pema Chodron
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. – Melodie Beattie
Gratitude is simply one of the most effective tools we have over the long haul to reliably soften grudge, resolve trauma and move through suffering with grace.
You have hepatitis C, a disease caused by a virus that’s contagious and attacks the liver. Maybe you know how you got it. Maybe you don’t.
Whatever the case, the virus could be just part of the problem. Now that the doctor has told you that you have hep C, get ready to battle a range of head-spinning emotions that often can be as difficult to deal with as the virus itself.
There are ways to calm your nerves and ease your mind.
What You’re Facing
Fear and anxiety: Most people with hepatitis C don’t have any symptoms. Even if you’ve had it for years, you may not have the fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other things that some folks with the virus have.
Still, doctors will tell you that hepatitis C is a serious disease that can cause lasting damage to the liver, including cancer and a scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). Hepatitis C is, in a word, scary.
“I think fear is probably the first thing: ‘What does it mean?’ ” says Lucinda K. Porter, RN, author of two books about her experience with hep C.
“If you don’t know anything about hepatitis C, and you go on the Internet — which a lot of people seem to go to before they go to their physicians — you might see a full variety of outcomes, including death. Or see that this is an infectious disease and get the fear you might infect someone else. That’s a huge fear.”
The fears keep coming:
Is it going to be debilitating?
Can you infect someone else?
Will you be able to work?
How are you going to pay for your treatment?
How are you going to take care of your family?
How are you going to pay the mortgage?
“Once you learn more, you find out that hep C doesn’t work like that,” says Porter, who works as a hepatitis C advocate, writing for hepmag.com and hcvadvocate.org. “If you find out about it in an early stage and get some good, solid information, you find out that those fears don’t usually get realized.”
Remember: In many cases, the medicines that your doctor prescribes can pretty much wipe the virus out of your body.
“There is nothing to be afraid of. No matter how you got the infection, now we have a group of different, good therapies that can get rid of this infection,” says Victor Machicao, MD, a gastroenterologist with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth-Houston.
“I usually tell [people] there’s a good chance that, you start taking the treatments, you’re going to start feeling better, and by the time that we complete the therapy, you’re going to feel almost like a new person.”
Embarrassment and shame: Hepatitis C gets spread through exposure to an infected person’s blood. That’s the only way. Often, that’s how intravenous drug users, sharing needles, spread the virus. Sometimes, it gets passed down through high-risk sex. Before 1992, when blood wasn’t screened for hepatitis C in the U.S., it often was passed along through transfusions and organ transplants, too.
Some of those activities — drug use and high-risk sex, especially — are what many people associate with hepatitis C. That thinking creates a stigma that makes people who have the disease not want to tell others about it.
“So many of [the people I treat] are those baby boomers who did have a brief period of experimentation with drug use. Or maybe they did use drugs for a year or two of their adolescence. But now, that’s like 30 years ago,” says Andrew Muir, MD, a hepatologist who is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, NC.
“Often, they’re not married to somebody that they knew back then … it’s embarrassing, then you’re worried about what that person is going to think of you, and then when you realize that there may be a chance that you’ve passed on the virus through sex. … All these things are spiraling around in their heads.”
Guilt: “There’s a lot of guilt, especially in someone who has a remote history of IV drug use, or got a tattoo at an unregulated parlor, or had a high-risk sexual encounter,” says Nancy Reau, MD, section chief of hepatology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
People feel guilty about the possibility that they’ve infected others unknowingly. They feel guilty about putting loved ones in a situation that is often financially and emotionally costly. Sometimes, it can be too much for a person to handle.
Regret: People with the disease often beat themselves up for not making better choices when they contracted the virus.
“At that point, I tell every single one of my [folks] that there’s not a single one of us that wouldn’t go back and change a decision that we’ve made,” Reau says. “To some extent, looking back isn’t going to help us. We have to look forward.”
Anger: “Anger is not an uncommon one. Anger is one of those emotions that make us feel like we’re empowered,” says Porter, who got hepatitis C in 1988 through a blood transfusion.
For some, it comes from the fact that they had nothing to do with what gave them the virus.
“I didn’t react with anger because in my case, that blood transfusion saved my life. But other people … can feel quite angry, and they feel quite victimized by that. I find [this] one is probably the hardest to address. Sometimes I just acknowledge that they feel angry.”
Depression: The virus, the symptoms that may accompany it, all the emotions — it can be difficult to handle.
Muir says a common scenario, in his experience, is a drug user who addresses the problem of addiction, goes in for treatment, and just as things start looking better, finds out they have hepatitis C.
“I find a lot of them are really down on themselves: ‘I’m a bad person, I did this, I’m being punished for it.’ We really need to try to change the way they feel about that,” Muir says.
“I was a mess. I felt dirty. I was hard on myself,” says Stella Armstrong, a Las Vegas office manager who got the virus through drug use. Armstrong is now virus-free and is a hepatitis C advocate and member of the National Patient Advisory Committee for the American Liver Foundation. “I had to seek counseling. I had to see a psychiatrist. I was taking depression and anxiety medicine.”
How to Get Help
Talk to your medical team. Meet with your doctor and anyone else you might need (a hepatologist or pharmacist, for example). Get a plan. Follow treatment.
“You start there. Always,” Porter says.
Don’t underestimate the power of feeling physically better. It’s good for your mind, too.
Once again, the virus can disappear in many of those who have hepatitis C.
“People are surprised. They ask you, ‘Doctor, did you mean ‘cure’?” Machicao says. “They come to the office and say, ‘Doctor, that means I don’t have the infection anymore?’ I tell them, ‘For practical purposes, you’re cured.’ They are in total disbelief. It is amazing.”
“The success of being cured of hepatitis C is really powerful,” says Muir.
If you feel depression or anxiety, the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that you talk to your primary doctor or go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. Depression is a real illness and, even in the most severe cases, it’s treatable with medication or other means.
Get educated. Find trusted sites online. Ask your doctor questions. Know what the virus is all about. Separate fact from fiction.
“Education is how we start breaking down the stereotypes. How we find out we don’t need to be afraid anymore,” Porter says. “It can release the chains of anger.”
Find some support. It can help to talk with other people who have been through what you have. Your doctor can point you toward online groups filled with people who are going through the same process. In some places, you can meet with people in person. Social services through government agencies or hospitals can help, too.
“When you start to see other people who have a history of drug use, that regret and shame starts to diminish. ‘OK. I’m not a bad person. I can deal with this,’ ” Porter says.
“I’ve always been open and have discussed my addiction with drugs. I think it’s the best thing. We only stay as sick as our secrets,” Armstrong says. “It was better for me to share my story. It’s still the same thing. It’s still hepatitis C, and we have to get through it.”
Lean on family, friends, clergy, whomever it takes. Whether it’s someone else who has been through hepatitis C, or a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or your best friend — even if it’s a complete stranger — sometimes you just need a shoulder or a sympathetic ear. Search them out. Use them.
“No matter how much positive you can hear about it, you still have to go home, you still have to be at a point by yourself, thinking these bad thoughts and you’re worried and you’re scared and you’re scared of the unknown,” Armstrong says. “Those are the times you have to call somebody and talk to them.”
Take care of yourself. Once you get your medical plan in place, once you have your support in line, once you’re educated and know what you’re facing, taking a little “me” time is in order.
“Having a chronic illness is hard,” Reau says. “Start by looking at the things you can change easily.”
Eat well. Exercise. Get your sleep. Some people like to meditate. Nap if you need to nap. Make sure you’re around people you like. Enjoy a good book or a movie. All these can help you deal with the stress and emotions of hepatitis C.
“Even at my lowest point and when I was feeling really sick, you just gotta keep moving. You have no other choice,” Armstrong says. “You have to keep moving forward and treating yourself well.”
You have hepatitis C, a disease caused by a virus that’s contagious and attacks the liver. Maybe you know how you got it. Maybe you don’t.
Whatever the case, the virus could be just part of the problem. Now that the doctor has told you that you have hep C, get ready to battle a range of head-spinning emotions that often can be as difficult to deal with as the virus itself.
There are ways to calm your nerves and ease your mind.
What You’re Facing
Fear and anxiety: Most people with hepatitis C don’t have any symptoms. Even if you’ve had it for years, you may not have the fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other things that some folks with the virus have.
Still, doctors will tell you that hepatitis C is a serious disease that can cause lasting damage to the liver, including cancer and a scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). Hepatitis C is, in a word, scary.
“I think fear is probably the first thing: ‘What does it mean?’ ” says Lucinda K. Porter, RN, author of two books about her experience with hep C.
“If you don’t know anything about hepatitis C, and you go on the Internet — which a lot of people seem to go to before they go to their physicians — you might see a full variety of outcomes, including death. Or see that this is an infectious disease and get the fear you might infect someone else. That’s a huge fear.”
The fears keep coming:
Is it going to be debilitating?
Can you infect someone else?
Will you be able to work?
How are you going to pay for your treatment?
How are you going to take care of your family?
How are you going to pay the mortgage?
“Once you learn more, you find out that hep C doesn’t work like that,” says Porter, who works as a hepatitis C advocate, writing for hepmag.com and hcvadvocate.org. “If you find out about it in an early stage and get some good, solid information, you find out that those fears don’t usually get realized.”
Remember: In many cases, the medicines that your doctor prescribes can pretty much wipe the virus out of your body.
“There is nothing to be afraid of. No matter how you got the infection, now we have a group of different, good therapies that can get rid of this infection,” says Victor Machicao, MD, a gastroenterologist with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth-Houston.
“I usually tell [people] there’s a good chance that, you start taking the treatments, you’re going to start feeling better, and by the time that we complete the therapy, you’re going to feel almost like a new person.”
Embarrassment and shame: Hepatitis C gets spread through exposure to an infected person’s blood. That’s the only way. Often, that’s how intravenous drug users, sharing needles, spread the virus. Sometimes, it gets passed down through high-risk sex. Before 1992, when blood wasn’t screened for hepatitis C in the U.S., it often was passed along through transfusions and organ transplants, too.
Some of those activities — drug use and high-risk sex, especially — are what many people associate with hepatitis C. That thinking creates a stigma that makes people who have the disease not want to tell others about it.
“So many of [the people I treat] are those baby boomers who did have a brief period of experimentation with drug use. Or maybe they did use drugs for a year or two of their adolescence. But now, that’s like 30 years ago,” says Andrew Muir, MD, a hepatologist who is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, NC.
“Often, they’re not married to somebody that they knew back then … it’s embarrassing, then you’re worried about what that person is going to think of you, and then when you realize that there may be a chance that you’ve passed on the virus through sex. … All these things are spiraling around in their heads.”
Guilt: “There’s a lot of guilt, especially in someone who has a remote history of IV drug use, or got a tattoo at an unregulated parlor, or had a high-risk sexual encounter,” says Nancy Reau, MD, section chief of hepatology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
People feel guilty about the possibility that they’ve infected others unknowingly. They feel guilty about putting loved ones in a situation that is often financially and emotionally costly. Sometimes, it can be too much for a person to handle.
Regret: People with the disease often beat themselves up for not making better choices when they contracted the virus.
“At that point, I tell every single one of my [folks] that there’s not a single one of us that wouldn’t go back and change a decision that we’ve made,” Reau says. “To some extent, looking back isn’t going to help us. We have to look forward.”
Anger: “Anger is not an uncommon one. Anger is one of those emotions that make us feel like we’re empowered,” says Porter, who got hepatitis C in 1988 through a blood transfusion.
For some, it comes from the fact that they had nothing to do with what gave them the virus.
“I didn’t react with anger because in my case, that blood transfusion saved my life. But other people … can feel quite angry, and they feel quite victimized by that. I find [this] one is probably the hardest to address. Sometimes I just acknowledge that they feel angry.”
Depression: The virus, the symptoms that may accompany it, all the emotions — it can be difficult to handle.
Muir says a common scenario, in his experience, is a drug user who addresses the problem of addiction, goes in for treatment, and just as things start looking better, finds out they have hepatitis C.
“I find a lot of them are really down on themselves: ‘I’m a bad person, I did this, I’m being punished for it.’ We really need to try to change the way they feel about that,” Muir says.
“I was a mess. I felt dirty. I was hard on myself,” says Stella Armstrong, a Las Vegas office manager who got the virus through drug use. Armstrong is now virus-free and is a hepatitis C advocate and member of the National Patient Advisory Committee for the American Liver Foundation. “I had to seek counseling. I had to see a psychiatrist. I was taking depression and anxiety medicine.”
How to Get Help
Talk to your medical team. Meet with your doctor and anyone else you might need (a hepatologist or pharmacist, for example). Get a plan. Follow treatment.
“You start there. Always,” Porter says.
Don’t underestimate the power of feeling physically better. It’s good for your mind, too.
Once again, the virus can disappear in many of those who have hepatitis C.
“People are surprised. They ask you, ‘Doctor, did you mean ‘cure’?” Machicao says. “They come to the office and say, ‘Doctor, that means I don’t have the infection anymore?’ I tell them, ‘For practical purposes, you’re cured.’ They are in total disbelief. It is amazing.”
“The success of being cured of hepatitis C is really powerful,” says Muir.
If you feel depression or anxiety, the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that you talk to your primary doctor or go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. Depression is a real illness and, even in the most severe cases, it’s treatable with medication or other means.
Get educated. Find trusted sites online. Ask your doctor questions. Know what the virus is all about. Separate fact from fiction.
“Education is how we start breaking down the stereotypes. How we find out we don’t need to be afraid anymore,” Porter says. “It can release the chains of anger.”
Find some support. It can help to talk with other people who have been through what you have. Your doctor can point you toward online groups filled with people who are going through the same process. In some places, you can meet with people in person. Social services through government agencies or hospitals can help, too.
“When you start to see other people who have a history of drug use, that regret and shame starts to diminish. ‘OK. I’m not a bad person. I can deal with this,’ ” Porter says.
“I’ve always been open and have discussed my addiction with drugs. I think it’s the best thing. We only stay as sick as our secrets,” Armstrong says. “It was better for me to share my story. It’s still the same thing. It’s still hepatitis C, and we have to get through it.”
Lean on family, friends, clergy, whomever it takes. Whether it’s someone else who has been through hepatitis C, or a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or your best friend — even if it’s a complete stranger — sometimes you just need a shoulder or a sympathetic ear. Search them out. Use them.
“No matter how much positive you can hear about it, you still have to go home, you still have to be at a point by yourself, thinking these bad thoughts and you’re worried and you’re scared and you’re scared of the unknown,” Armstrong says. “Those are the times you have to call somebody and talk to them.”
Take care of yourself. Once you get your medical plan in place, once you have your support in line, once you’re educated and know what you’re facing, taking a little “me” time is in order.
“Having a chronic illness is hard,” Reau says. “Start by looking at the things you can change easily.”
Eat well. Exercise. Get your sleep. Some people like to meditate. Nap if you need to nap. Make sure you’re around people you like. Enjoy a good book or a movie. All these can help you deal with the stress and emotions of hepatitis C.
“Even at my lowest point and when I was feeling really sick, you just gotta keep moving. You have no other choice,” Armstrong says. “You have to keep moving forward and treating yourself well.”
terrifying, or toxic circumstances. In fact, we can be grateful that these innate survival responses did allow us to survive, even if they constrict us or cause their own suffering later down the road. By becoming conscious…and compassionate…and accepting…and embracing of those mechanisms that kept us afloat, even though they sometimes threaten to sink us now, we soften our grudge toward ourselves, or toward the traumatizing events, and deepen into the place in our hearts and minds that 
