Quotes & Sayings About Emotional Reactions

Fear and its accompanying emotional reactions have become part of the public mindset. Such reactions, while often legitimate, are also being exploited with increasing frequency for political ends. — Tariq Ramadan

When school is not a good fit for a boy, when his normal expressions of energy and action routinely meet with negative responses from teachers and classmates, he stews in feelings of failure - feelings of sadness, shame, and anger, which can be very hard to detect beneath that brash exterior. Unable to "talk out" the emotional pressure, boys typically act out through verbal or physical aggression that walls them off emotionally from others, straining or severing emotional connections to the people and circumstances they find painful. And the worse a boy behaves, the more he invites negative reactions from teachers and other adults. — Dan Kindlon

Once we remember that all that takes place during the first days of life on the emotional level shapes the patterns of all future reactions , we cannot but wonder why such a torture has been inflicted on the child. How could a being who has been aggressed in this way, while totally helpless, develop into a relaxed, loving, trusting person? Indeed, he will always never be able to trust anyone in life. He will always be on the defensive, unable to open up to others and to life. — Frederick Leboyer

Emotional baggage, which is carried over from the past, colors our perceptions. Likewise, past conclusions and beliefs, based on reasoning that may or may not have been accurate, also tint our perception of reality. Retaining our capacity for reason is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
Emotional reactions can be unreasonable, and reason can be flawed. It's difficult to have deep confidence in either one, especially when they're often at war with each other. But the universal mind exists in the instant, in a moment beyond time, and it sees the universe as it literally is. It's the universe perceiving itself. It is, moreover, something we can have absolute confidence in, and with that confidence, we can maintain a genuinely positive attitude. — H.E. Davey

I did not agree..to having my article censored ... The published report of the conference gives my name as a participant, but you will not find in it the paper I read ... Scientists as a group are no more, and no less, influenced by emotional and irrational reactions than other people are. — John Yudkin

I shot a quick look at Logan to see how he reacted to that news and was met by the golden eyes of a Cheetah, sitting calmly on his chair. I guess I would have played animal charades if I could have, too, but it was hard to gauge the emotional reactions of an African predator. Liz — April White

Attacks characterised by little more than malaise are likely to be regarded as mild viral illnesses. Attacks characterised by alteration of affect and consciousness - mild drowsiness or depression - may be taken for purely emotional reactions. Both — Oliver Sacks

You have not slept for many days together, Legna. Why do you assume you might have success today?
Legna turned around sharply, driving her gaze and attention out the window, trying to use the sprawling lawn as a slate with which to fill her mind. Mind Demon he was not, but she knew he was capable of seeing far enough into her emotional state by just monitoring her physiological reactions to his observations. Legna bit her lip hard, furious that she should feel like the child he always referred to her as in their conversations. Young one, indeed. How would he like it if she referred to him as a decrepit old buzzard? — Jacquelyn Frank

Delgado, monitoring the activity inside of their heads, saw that people's striata - that central dispatch - lit up with activity whenever participants played, regardless of the outcome. This kind of striatal activity, Delgado knew, was associated with emotional reactions - in particular, with feelings of expectation and excitement.9 As — Charles Duhigg

Our ancestors lived in groups of no more than a few hundred people, and those on the other side of a river or mountain range might as well have been living in a separate world. We developed ethical principles to help us to deal with problems within our community, not to help those outside it. The harms that it was considered wrong to cause were generally clear and well defined. We developed inhibitions against, and emotional responses to, such actions, and these instinctive or emotional reactions still form the basis for much of our moral thinking. — Peter Singer

..All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family - in particular, losses and cutoffs. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future. — Harriet Lerner

An example of perfection in nature is the cockroach. It was living six million years before us and it may outlast us by that long. The brain of a cockroach is a splendid little engine. It doesn't evolve and it doesn't need to. The human brain is a disaster from the point of view of perfection
great intellectual power combined with primitive emotional reactions. Human beings today are living with terrible risks of their own creation
nuclear weapons, the exploitation of natural resources, the great disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Our brains will probably bring us to destruction, but we also have the possibility of growth, evolution. I prefer being a human. We shouldn't always look for perfection, in nature or our lives. — Rita Levi-Montalcini

No one is responsible for your emotional reactions except you. Others can say and do anything they like but what happens inside you is only the result of what you are thinking and feeling. — Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

Depression as Denial of the Self Depression consists of a denial of one's own emotional reactions. This denial begins in the service of an absolutely essential adaptation during childhood and indicates a very early injury. There are many children who have not been free, right from the beginning, to experience the very simplest of feelings, such as discontent, anger, rage, pain, even hunger - and, of course, enjoyment of their own bodies. — Alice Miller

Anxiety is a complex emotional response that's similar to fear. Both arise from similar brain processes and cause similar physiological and behavioral reactions; both originate in portions of the brain designed to help all animals deal with danger. Fear and anxiety differ, however, in that fear is typically associated with a clear, present, and identifiable threat, whereas anxiety occurs in the absence of immediate peril. — Catherine M. Pittman

Music doesn't have to have lyrics; it doesn't have to be a particular type of music - it has the ability to bring out really strong and hopefully good emotional reactions in people. — Tom Scholz

observations suggest that the survivor as ANP typically engages in tasks of daily life such as reproduction, attachment, caretaking, and other social action tendencies, and avoidance of traumatic memories, which support a focus on daily life issues. In contrast, the survivor as EP primarily displays evolutionary defensive and emotional reactions to the (perceived) threat on which he or she seems to be fixated. Third, survivors should be very susceptible to classical conditioning, because, as we discuss below, EP and ANP strongly respond to unconditioned and conditioned threat cues. — Onno Van Der Hart

There is only one way, really, to get into a state of living, and that's live There is no substitute for an all-out, over-the-ramparts, howling charge against life. That's living. Living does not consist of sitting in a temple in the shadows and getting rheumatism from the cold stones. Living is hot, it's fast, it's often brutal It has a terrific gamut of emotional reactions. If you are really willing to live, you first have to be willing to do anything that consists of living. Weird. But it's one of those awfully true things that you wonder why one has to say it. And yet it has to be said. — L. Ron Hubbard

Children have very sharp powers of observation - probably sharper than adults - yet at the same time their emotional reactions are murky and much more primitive. — Donna Tartt

I couldn't trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity. — Rachel Reiland

We age not by years but by events and our emotional reactions to them. — Maxwell Maltz

I don't think we should take the emotional reactions of a few people as more representative than those of the millions of people who took to the street in a non-violent way against dictators. — Tariq Ramadan

Nature, as man has always known it, he knows no more. Since he has learned to esteem signs above symbols, to suppress his emotional reactions in favor of practical ones and make use of nature instead of holding so much of it sacred, he has altered the face, if not the heart, of reality. — Susanne Katherina Langer

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice. — Pema Chodron

Henceforth the crisis of urbanism is all the more concretely a social and political one, even though today no force born of traditional politics is any longer capable of dealing with it. Medico-sociological banalities on the 'pathology of housing projects,' the emotional isolation of people who must live in them, or the development of certain extreme reactions of rejection, chiefly among youth, simply betray the fact that modern capitalism, the bureaucratic society of consumption, is here and there beginning to shape its own setting. This society, with its new towns, is building the terrain that accurately represents it, combining the conditions most suitable for its proper functioning, while at the same time translating in space, in the clear language of organization of everyday life, its fundamental principle of alienation and constraint. It is likewise here that the new aspects of its crisis will be manifested with the greatest clarity. — Tom McDonough

Managing emotions is about living your truth rather than suffering a series of reactions.
You are a powerful creator and more than your emotions.Emotions are a good guiding system to let you know what is going on inside; but they are not the rulers of your world. Appreciate your emotional range which is part of the wonderful human experience, but keep your inner guidance system in place. Follow your path. Choose your destination. — Sheri Kaye Hoff

The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers to the producers and, through the latter to the whole social system. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood ... Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior. — Herbert Marcuse

We energetically attract what we haven't worked out in ourselves. When vampires evoke intensely judgmental reactions from us, it could be they are mirroring aspects of our personalities we don't like or completely understand. — Judith Orloff

I may have no emotional skin and come undone at the smallest interpersonal upset, but I'd make a great bullfighter or firefighter - anything that gets my adrenaline going and focuses me on a physical target. The motorcycle is all of that and more. When I'm on the bike, it feels like a door opens in my chest and the world rushes in, pure, fresh, and sparkling with clarity. It forces me to approach fear with total awareness and to pull reason mind into the moment of intense reactions. — Kiera Van Gelder

The myth of Oedipus . . . arouses powerful intellectual and emotional reactions in the adult-so much so, that it may provide a cathartic experience, as Aristotle taught all tragedy does. [A reader] may wonder why he is so deeply moved; and in responding to what he observes as his emotional reaction, ruminating about the mythical events and what these mean to him, a person may come to clarify his thoughts and feelings. With this, certain inner tensions which are the consequence of events long past may be relieved; previously unconscious material can then enter one's awareness and become accessible for conscious working through. This can happen if the observer is deeply moved emotionally by the myth, and at the sametime strongly motivated intellectually to understand it. — Bruno Bettelheim

You can never predict what little things in the way somebody looks or talks or acts will set off peculiar emotional reactions in other people. — Andy Warhol

Even a trashy movie can make you cry. There were deep emotional reactions that ducked the censure of the higher reasoning processes and forced us to enact, however vestigially, our roles - me, the indignant secret lover revealed; Clarissa the woman cruelly betrayed. — Ian McEwan

I just know from experience that reading a funny poem aloud, especially at the beginning of a public reading, can have a certain effect. Somehow narrowing the spectrum of possible emotional reactions. So while I like it when people laugh at my poems, and I definitely enjoy being funny in them, I don't really think that's the most important thing that's going on, at least not to me. — Matthew Zapruder

It occurs to me that as different as we are in our behavior and decisions, our most basic, knee-jerk emotional reactions to really big things are often remarkably similar. And it is in these moments that I am most grateful for my sister. — Emily Giffin

According to Hoge and colleagues (2007), the key to reducing stigma is to present mental health care as a routine aspect of health care, similar to getting a check up or an X-ray. Soldiers need to understand that stress reactions-difficulty sleeping, reliving incidents in your mind, and emotional detachment-are common and expected after combat... The soldier should be told that wherever they go, they should remember that what they're feeling is "normal and it's nothing to be ashamed of. — Joan Beder

Emotional reactions are pure after-all they can be neither manufactured nor changed. — Anthony E. Zuiker

An abusive man who is adept in the language of feelings can make his partner feel crazy by turning each argument into a therapy session in which he puts her reactions under a microscope and assigns himself the role of "helping" her. He may, for example, "explain" to her the emotional issues she needs to work through, or analyze her reasons for "mistakenly" believing that he is mistreating her. — Lundy Bancroft

Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family - in particular, losses and cutoffs. — Harriet Lerner

Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions
rationalizations
justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory. — Daniel Goleman

What data did you notice about the week, what stood out for you? What were your emotional reactions to the week? What made you happy? Where were you challenged? Where were you frustrated? What were your insights? What did you learn? What one or two things will you do based on this week? — Anonymous

Nobody can control their emotional reactions, we can only control our actions, and my current action was to slap my jealousy in the face and shove her in a vat of shut the fuck up. — Abigail Barnette

Your body's reaction to fear is the same whether you are faced with a physical threat or an emotional one. — Rhonda Britten

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. — Pema Chodron

From time to time the by-products of using your inner energy worker will result in your experiencing odd sensations, seeming illnesses, unusual pimples or rashes, and unexpected emotional responses. Remember - these physical and emotional reactions are the by-products of the work you are doing. Release your anxiety over their occurrence and remind yourself they will be short-lived, do not reflect an aging or ill body, but are rather normal responses of a reflective energetic being. — Elaine Seiler

When you get emotional, slow your thoughts down, and listen attentively (write it down). That way, you'll be able to hear what you are thinking. You do this becoming very still and very quiet, and recording your thoughts. These high-speed thoughts and internal reactions always precede your feelings and emotions. Trust me, you did tell yourself something if you now feel anger, mad, anxious, frustrated, sad or depressed. From now on, whenever you get upset, listen ever so carefully, to what you are telling yourself. — Phillip C. McGraw

I was getting better at controlling my emotional reactions. When feelings overwhelmed me, I learned to thwart the burning temptation to act self-destructively and to sit with the feelings instead. — Rachel Reiland

Learning to "just say no" to emotional reactions isn't repression. Saying no means not engaging the frustration, anger, judgment, or blame. Without engagement, you won't have anything to repress. — Doc Childre

If you do not have an alert and curious interest in character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are unable to distinguish between honest emotional reactions and sentimental approaches to life, you will never write a competent short story. — Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

Music isn't just a bunch of notes strung together, sweetheart. It's life. It's memory. Songs trigger specific and often predictable emotional reactions. Music's an expression of emotion, desires. — J.D. Robb

Feel whatever arises fully, and then let go of any identification with what you're feeling. You are at choice. You don't have to go through another moment of suffering. Break free from the societal constructs that say, 'Life is meant to be a challenge.' This is not true. You have the capacity to become the observer of your emotional reactions and check in with your heart each time, to respond from love and compassion. This is the key to becoming liberated from the bonds of emotional suffering. — Dashama Konah Gordon

YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.
One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn't rise and your blood shouldn't boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you - as will happen to any abused woman from time to time - he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy. — Lundy Bancroft