The process of writing about overwhelming emotions is a remarkably effective means of creating clarity and perspective in your life. This book begins by helping readers explore what their goals are for their writing experiments. Short projects help readers name their emotions, distancing them from overwhelming feelings so that they can react more constructively.

Experiencing emotions is a part of the richness of life. But sometimes emotions can get in the way of our health and happiness. Suppressing strong feelings like fear, anger, and resentment isn’t the answer—in fact, doing so can lead to a host of physical problems, from a weakened immune system to heart disease. On the other hand, overreacting in the heat of the moment can be detrimental to relationships. So, how can you ride even the strongest waves of emotion without causing harm to yourself or others? This workbook offers a breakthrough, eight-week program using emotion theory and mindfulness-based techniques to help you manage the overwhelming thoughts and feelings that cause you pain. You’ll learn to approach your emotions without judgment, understand their source, and foster forgiveness and kindness toward both yourself and others. Instead of trying to bury feelings or lashing out and hurting relationships, you'll learn how to cultivate emotional balance using this powerful program.

An integrative approach to healing anxiety, depression, and chronic stress through yoga and breathing exercises Emotional balance is within your reach—when you cultivate the intelligence of both your body and mind. Bo Forbes, a psychologist and yoga teacher, offers some of her most important teachings and practices, including: • Restorative yoga sequences designed to balance anxiety and lift depression • Breath and body-centered exercises to calm your mind and energize your body • Simple ways to understand your emotional patterns • 3 main obstacles to emotional well-being • 5 tools for building emotional balance Rooted in classical yoga yet supported by psychology and science, the techniques in this book will help you create progressive and lasting change.

The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 56 new entries! One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes: • Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for over 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions • A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them • Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent • Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues • And much more! The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.

The concept of ‘lean’ is something Ozan Kulcu has used intensively in his work as an engineer and he believes that it has enormous power to increase the efficiency. In ‘A Lean Mind’, Kulcu gives an approach of how the concept of ‘lean’ can transform the mind. When the mind becomes lean, it runs free of each brick attached to it, bricks ranging from harmful core beliefs to useless thoughts. The mind becomes ordered and clean, it runs more efficiently, and it enables us to reach our true potential - one that we never recognized before. The lean mind is a mind that is free of distraction. It is a mind that filters out the background noise. It is a mind where everything that matters is ordered nicely for us to reach anytime. It is also the mind where we know exactly what emotions and belief patterns we have, and we know exactly how to shift our mental state to use more of its potential. ‘A Lean Mind’ is full of ideas that enable this lean approach to unleash the true potential of the mind. It is a deep dive into our own minds, the universe, and life in general. 'A Lean Mind' focuses on: Embracing our position in the universe Seperating what actually matters from noise Recognizing our perception of life Understanding the mind process Digging deep into the emotional zones and emotions and how to shift the mental state Understanding mind-body feedback system Understanding perception in interactions Understanding the lean approach to manage the mind process Becoming aware of the mind and the body Embracing the presence of our soul Understanding the importance of balance in the universe and in the mind From Back Cover What is the difference between the sunrise of today and the sunrise of tomorrow? Why does the same sunrise with same shape, size, and warmth give us different feelings sometimes? What makes the differences each day? What we feel everytime we see the sunrise depends on what emotions are in the mind at that moment, not at the sunrise. And these emotions make the differences of the day. The emotional state of mind, linked to certain core beliefs, are the main raw materials of this manufacturing plant called 'the mind'. They produce thoughts night and day, and eventually lead to actions. Everything we experience in life is a product of this mind process. The mind makes the difference between the sunrise of today and sunrise of tomorrow. We are stuck with our minds for the rest of our lives. Therefore, a mind is worth managing. A lean mind has the power to transform a sunrise into limitless amount of possibilities. We just need to know how it works and how to improve the processes. 'A Lean Mind' is a deep dive into how our minds work, how to understand it better, and how to improve the processes to reach a balanced state of mind. As everything we experience is a product of the mind, this balanced state of mind will unleash the potential of life for us.

Following on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, Wired for Story, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story. It’s every novelist’s greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page one rewrite. The prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot). Story coach Lisa Cron has spent her career discovering why these methods don’t work and coming up with a powerful alternative, based on the science behind what our brains are wired to crave in every story we read (and it’s not what you think). In Story Genius Cron takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint—including fully realized scenes—that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft.

Most teens experience intense feelings, but many lack the skills needed to regulate their emotions in healthy ways. In this unique guided journal, best-selling author and teen expert Lisa Schab offers writing prompts and a creative space for teens to organize their thoughts, work through difficult experiences, balance their emotions, and break free from destructive rumination. This journal also includes powerful behavioral prompts to help teen readers put what they learn into action.

Emotional labor is not adequately talked about or addressed by writing program administrators. The Things We Carry makes this often-invisible labor visible, demonstrates a variety of practical strategies to navigate it reflectively, and opens a path for further research. Particularly timely, this collection considers how writing program administrators work when their schools or regions experience crisis situations. The book is broken into three sections: one emphasizing the WPA’s own work identity, one on fostering community in writing programs, and one on balancing the professional and personal. Chapters written by a diverse range of authors in different institutional and WPA contexts examine the roles of WPAs in traumatic events, such as mass shootings and natural disasters, as well as the emotional labor WPAs perform on a daily basis, such as working with students who have been sexually assaulted or endured racist, sexist, homophobic, and otherwise disenfranchising interactions on campus. The central thread in this collection focuses on “preserving” by acknowledging that emotions are neither good nor bad and that they must be continually reflected upon as WPAs consider what to do with emotional labor and how to respond. Ultimately, this book argues for more visibility of the emotional labor WPAs perform and for WPAs to care for themselves even as they care for others. The Things We Carry extends conversations about WPA emotional labor and offers concrete and useful strategies for administrators working in both a large range of traumatic events as well as daily situations that require tactical work to preserve their sense of self and balance. It will be invaluable to writing program administrators specifically and of interest to other types of administrators as well as scholars in rhetoric and composition who are interested in emotion more broadly.

Move past trauma, balance your emotions, and reconnect with your body’s innate wisdom in The Body Awareness Workbook for Trauma. There is a piercing epidemic of trauma in the world today. Every few days there are reports of another tragedy, of more lives lost to gun violence, loved ones and family homes lost to floods, hurricanes, or fires. Women have come to speak openly about the trauma of sexual assault, and we are finally talking openly about the trauma inflicted on people of color, on transgender people, and immigrants. But now that this trauma is out in the open, how do we heal? For years, we’ve understood the connection between trauma and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. But somatic psychology has recently shown that our bodies hold on to trauma, and trauma can manifest in physical symptoms, such as pain, hormone imbalance, sexual dysfunction, and addiction. In addition, we now know that developmental trauma—trauma that emerges when basic childhood needs are not met—can result in profound emotional stress and lead to serious diseases. Building on this knowledge, this cutting-edge guide offers simple skills for connecting and calming your body, balancing your emotions, and rewiring old patterns of reactivity for better self-regulation. The mind-body approach in this book is designed to guide you away from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma and toward posttraumatic growth. Using these exercises, you’ll learn how to reconnect and relate to your body—and yourself as a whole—in a new and healthy way. If you’re ready to move past your trauma and rediscover your body’s innate capacity for healing, growth, vitality, and joy, this unique guide will help light the way.

Readers connect to characters with depth, ones who have experienced life’s ups and downs. To deliver key players that are both realistic and compelling, writers must know them intimately—not only who they are in the present story, but also what made them that way. Of all the formative experiences in a character’s past, none are more destructive than emotional wounds. The aftershocks of trauma can change who they are, alter what they believe, and sabotage their ability to achieve meaningful goals, all of which will affect the trajectory of your story. Identifying the backstory wound is crucial to understanding how it will shape your character’s behavior, and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus can help. Inside, you’ll find: * A database of traumatic situations common to the human experience * An in-depth study on a wound’s impact, including the fears, lies, personality shifts, and dysfunctional behaviors that can arise from different painful events * An extensive analysis of character arc and how the wound and any resulting unmet needs fit into it * Techniques on how to show the past experience to readers in a way that is both engaging and revelatory while avoiding the pitfalls of info dumps and telling * A showcase of popular characters and how their traumatic experiences reshaped them, leading to very specific story goals * A Backstory Wound Profile tool that will enable you to document your characters’ negative past experiences and the aftereffects Root your characters in reality by giving them an authentic wound that causes difficulties and prompts them to strive for inner growth to overcome it. With its easy-to-read format and over 100 entries packed with information, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is a crash course in psychology for creating characters that feel incredibly real to readers.