Blogpost 7: Swearing Affects your Feelings

Have you just suddenly bumped your head on a wall? Did it hurt you? Did you shout because of the pain? How about swearing? I know it is disgrace for others to hear us saying bad words, and first person who’ll get mad, is our parents. They’ll scold you and tell you that it is bad, that you shouldn’t said that.

But honestly, every time I swore whenever I get hurt or distract, it makes me feel better. I don’t know why, I tried to stop it because I know it’s bad, but does swearing really makes us feel better?

From this one article I red entitled, “Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief” by Frederik Joelving in scientificamerican.com. 

 This article said that saying bad words is good for you, it may serve an important function in relieving pain. They discussed about a study of Richard Stephens, a psychologist of Keele University in England where they asked college student to immerse their hands in cold water. And according to their results, the 67 volunteer students had less pain and endured about 40 seconds longer. But how come? They said that our brain and emotion is involved with this. The more we swore, the lesser the pain we feel. As Frederik Joelving explained, “How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half. One such structure is the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-or-flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain. Indeed, the students' heart rates rose when they swore, a fact the researchers say suggests that the amygdala was activated.”

Sometimes, we don’t intend to say bad words, it just suddenly comes out especially when we got hurt, because it is one of our reactions, besides from reacting physically. Same thing with the animals, when you try to do something that will hurt them, they’ll suddenly react and make you hurt too, like biting. We may control this and avoid swearing but as the article said, the pain wouldn’t be lessened. Although, we all know that saying bad words is very not mannerly.

One article entitled, “Is Swearing Bad Manners?” by Trent Armstrong in quickanddirtytips.com. Where he indicates that swearing is bad. Especially in public, it could have a bad effect for children who heard you swearing, even in other people, younger or older than you, even with someone who are at your age could lose your respect and admiration with them.  Actually not only in public, there are no place that suites to swear. Before you say offensive words, think about what people would think about you, what impact would it be with us? With others who hears us. This article actually gives tips of avoiding swearing, it includes some alternative words that people could use instead of swear words. At least it would harm anyone else anymore. As Trent Armstrong said in this article, “if you use profanity to make someone feel bad, you are completely missing the point of manners in the first place. Manners are about putting someone before yourself and making him or her feel important. Swearing at or near someone will usually have the opposite effect.”

For me, I know that profanity or saying bad words are bad. You could offend someone, affects your personality and impression from others. But sometimes we are doing this in some reason, maybe we swear at someone intentionally because it’s in our purpose to offend them, we use bad words as a power. But be careful, children that hear you swearing could adopt by them, they’re too young to be part of this bad habits, but younger, older, or as teenager, there’s nothing difference from that, you’re still saying bad words, and what is bad is bad. 

Blogpost 6: Falling in Love with Yourself

Of course we all could fall in love with someone who’s very attractive, who’s we think is cool, who’s perfect with all of their sides. But is it possible that that someone we are talking about who’s attractive and cool is you can only see in yourself? Well, according with my researches, yes it is possible, these people who are very confident with their self, had a strong sense of entitlement, very arrogant, self-esteem and lacks of empathy.

These people who only cares and believes in their selves, they very appreciate their selves or what they said that falling in love with oneself is what we call narcissists.

One article that I’ve red entitled “How to Spot Narcissist” by Samuel Lopez De Victoria, a psychotherapist. From psychcentral.com. He said that narcissism basically means that a person is totally absorbed in self. Narcissists are the people who had an emotional trauma from their childhood of separation or attachment from their past. And they got stuck there. From his observation with his narcissist patients, he found that their emotional age and maturity corresponds to the age they experienced their major trauma. And this trauma is very harmful that could kill the people by strong emotions. So that they don’t trust anybody else except their selves, thought that everybody would hurt them and avoiding that from what happen from their past could be happen again. In this article, he described the different personalities of narcissists that he encountered. Some extreme narcissists had an ability to fake their selves, you can see this people that they are happy, thoughtful, caring, they will pretend to be a person that everyone wants but in inside, they are not exactly as you are expecting. Some narcissists are playful, they said that these people are funny and you want to be with them all the time, they had a strong ability of distraction. And other narcissist, are the people who will be your friend as long as you are useful for them. Some are just being insecure. These people had a very high appreciation with their self. From the study of Samuel Lopez De Victoria with his narcissist patients, he said that “In my work with extreme narcissist patients I have found that their emotional age and maturity corresponds to the age they experienced their major trauma. This trauma was devastating to the point it almost killed that person emotionally. The pain never was totally gone and the bleeding was continuous. In order to survive, this child had to construct a protective barrier that insulates him/her from the external world of people. He generalized that all people are harmful and cannot be trusted.”

Maybe that is why narcissists fall in love with their selves because of these attitudes. As what we all know that we are attracted with someone we know who’s good at everything but narcissists are the people who only sees good things about their self. But is that hard to move on from the past you encountered and let yourself stuck there forever? Would you not to trust everyone anymore, and just believe only with yourself? I bet that your life would be boring. That is why we call it past because it’s over and only us could change that past and never let that happen again.

In the other article I’ve red about signs of narcissism entitled, “Are You a Narcissist?” by Susan Heitler, a Denver clinical psychologist in the site psychologytoday.com. where she explained the senses if you are narcissist. 

She said that these people who always want to talk about their self, changes the topic, who thinks that they’re always right than you. How about you? Are you that type of person? You might be a narcissist. You would notice that in a small discussion, instead listening from others idea, you only believe that all of your opinions are right. The topic you want is always about you, from what you feel, your achievements, whatever you want and you don’t mind what is with others. You don’t follow rules. You don’t want to be criticized; you get easily mad at everyone who criticizes you. And you don’t want o be blame, even it’s your fault, you will not admit it and never apologize, you’ll find someone to blame with. All in all, it’s all about you, and you, only you, always you. As what Susan Heitler said“Similarly, if your friend is a narcissist, the fact that you are tired would slide by him/her. Talking together now would be the only option.  'It's all about me' would prevail.”

It is creepy that I’m seeing some of my friends from these signs in this article, they are very arrogant, had a high self-esteem, self-centeredness. But what I also learned from these articles I red, they said that narcissists just needs admiration. They need a help to move on from their past that made them stuck to be like that forever. It is not bad to trust someone again, never let yourself hang from the past, because it already happened, it is only up to you to change and make new beginnings.

Blogpost 5: Mutuality of Feelings

As you are in love with someone, you trust him/her, interested in all about him/her, accepts everything on him/her. But does that someone feels the same way with you too? Does he love you back? Do both of you have mutual feelings? How would you know?

Some people say that you just have to trust them, besides you can see it with how they interact with you. But what if they’re just lying? They’re just acting and pretending? And how will you be sure? In this blog, I will share what I’ve learned from different articles that has psychological thoughts and scientific explained about mutuality of feelings.

One article entitled, “When Love is Kind: Mutuality in Relationships” by Tina B. Tessina, a licensed psychotherapist in her own site tinatessina.com said that cooperation in your love partner is important, that is what I understand in her article. You must both know that both of you not only to love and to trust each other, but also benefit and support. But how? If both of you are appreciated of being loved, a commitment can thrive, but don’t just tell that you love him/her tell them also if you feel that you are being loved. Your trust shows that you respect each other, and it’ll grow sooner but both of you must equally trust each other.  Make an agreement that both of you can keep it. Another thing is the benefit, what will you get about your relationship? Both of you must know what do you really want from each. And of course the support, we all need something that we want to accomplish, and a support that we give or get is a good sign of relationship. “Mutual love, however, means you can feel secure that you both love and are loved equally, and are approximately equal in your energy for staying together” said by Tina Tessina.

I agree about her concept, cooperation is important to know if the feelings are mutual, and communication is the best way. Talk about it with your partner or even with someone you just like, make know if both of you feels the same way. If its yes, then that’s nice, there’s a possibility of relationship that you can work on.

But again, what if one you were just lying and pretending? Isn’t that selfish and unfair? From one article I've red entitled, “Why do People Fall in Love?” by Bambi Turner one of the contributor of Discovery Channel in their site curiosity.discovery.com They have a video clip where they had a study about two guys, one is married and other were just a stranger. Both of their brains were scanned, examined and compared it while both of them were looking at the girl’s picture (who’s married with the married guy) and the results were there were found lots of difference in their working brain, which says that the married guy is deeply in love with his partner unlike with just a stranger guy. Actually the video was just answering about how people fall in love, they made that study because they want to explain that love is different from lust where the actual answer of Bambi Turner from the question of why do people fall in love is she said that “We fall in love and mate so that we'll eventually reproduce, and our species will continue to survive. Some people believe that love is about much more than sex and reproduction. “

It is amazing that there is a way to find out if both of you loves each other, because with this method it is a hundred sure that it is real because it goes under scanning, examine, and really studied by professional scientist, there’s no way out to lie when science start to discuss.  But do we all have to go through an examination before to make sure if our feelings really mutual? Do we have to spend large money to know if it’s real?

Well another article I’ve red where psychology can see signs about mutuality of feelings, this article entitled, “Are the Feelings Mutual?” by Cauwna Bowman in examiner.com where she describe if someone you are currently dating has the same feelings as yours. Like in texting, if you’re just the one who keeps texting or anything that tries to make conversation and he/she were just occasionally responses with it, well then he/she is no more interested in you, but if you noticed that every time you are with him/her and everything seems fine and great, well Cauwna Bowman said that he/she were just interested in sex, since they just show an interest in physical level, and not the whole you. She said that “More important than any other sign, is your gut. It isn’t really hard to know if someone is into you or not. Unless you’re two of the shyest people on Earth, there has to be a noticeable spark somewhere. When feelings are mutual, there is a level of reciprocity that cannot be ignored. When they aren’t, cue the music and exit stage left. Life is too short to continue to play the guessing game.”

Even not undergoing with an examination, signs could help you to know about your mutuality of feelings, on how they act, and how they interact with you.  Does he exert effort as you do? Makes you special as you are? Even introducing with your friends, does both of you knows the friends of each other? If not, well then the feelings are not mutual. Bu doesn’t mean that it’s over. Get up for sure that there will be someone whose better that could love you as you love them, might be even more.

Finding out the mutuality of feelings in love might be the hardest thing to know, unlike knowing the mutuality of other feelings, such as the anger. We easily determine that the two or more persons had same bad feelings with each other when they start to fight.

 One article entitled, “Factors why People Fight” by Christina Maynard aka Tina V in tina-v.hubpages.com where she explained the main factors of why people fight. The one is compatibility, where the both of you doesn’t compatible or match together, it leads into a misunderstanding. You don’t understand each other, then of course it’ll turn into a fight. The second one is the dishonesty, again, we are talking about trust here again. because once a trust got wounded, it might be healed soon but it leaves a scar. You may forgive that person as if he/she ask an apology, but you won’t forget what have he/she done. This issue will always appear every time you are having an agreement with them again, and with the other side who wants you to forget that and tries to explain but you don’t want to hear more explanation will now lead into a fight. And another reason is the pride, everyone hates when the one has a high pride, who is very confident with their selves and you don’t also want to be the one will risk a pride so that is why fighting will be over and over again. Another are the fear, insecurities, and self-centeredness, once you had a past experience which cause you a trauma and you don’t want to happen that again, you will have your own belief about everything that is also different from what others believe. And an argument could probably start here. Tina said “There are a lot of things that people fight about. As a Human Resource practitioner, I have experienced handling different office and personal conflicts. Oh well, conflicts that sometimes started from a petty and simple conversation. While some were giving opinions that eventually end up into an argument”

Both of you don’t understand each other, you don’t agree with ones idea, you both know that you’re not compatible with each other, you lie together and both of you afraid to swallow the pride, if that’s the case your feelings are mutual. But how would you end it up? Of course it will always be with a nice conversation, talk to each other without disagreeing or defending something, put the pride away together and both of you will be fine.

Blogpost 4: The Music in our Feelings

Have you fell in love with just a song? Or felt so energetic and excited because of a beat, or how about frightened with just a creepy sound? Even we don’t see things around us, just because of sound and music we could imagine a lot of things and probably feel it.

But why? How come just a sound of tune, beat or whatever we hear could affect our emotion, our mood, our feelings?

One article I’ve red entitled “How Music Affects and Benefits Your Brain” by Belle Beth Cooper, a psychologist in lifehacker.com In this article it is said that there are two kinds of emotions related to music: perceived emotions and felt emotions. People sometimes enjoy sad music because they understand it, they appreciate the message behind it but they don’t actually feel it unlike with some people who instead enjoys the music they feel more depressed because they perceive it, the song might be relatable with their life and that is where our emotions getting stronger. Belle said that “Music affects many different areas of the brain. We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn't just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music.”

As I observe with people who are just normally happy with their life and they just suddenly listen sad music, they would just enjoy it, even me, I may feel a little sad emotions but unlike with some moments when I experienced bad things, sad songs o music feels like they understand me, like they are the one who speaks the words that you can’t say and you feel more sadder could even make you cry because the music relates to you. 

Another article entitled, “Psychological Reasons We Love Music” by Jeremy Dean a psychologist and the author of PsyBlog in spring.org.uk They had a survey with 300 young people and asked them what are their reasons in listening music, and their answers are that to learn about others and the world. Of course mostly with the songs emphasizes a story through its lyrics which people appreciates where they start to have feelings with the song. Another answer was because it of their personal identity.

For example, people who listen rock and metallic music probably that person is a rock, punk or has a noisy personality. Another answer they got from the survey said about interpersonal relationships. We all could fall in love just because of a song, as we listen to it, we feel like it was composed and meant for us, the singer sings for us and the lovely melody makes our heart feel warm and soft. Which makes us fall in love, the lyrics tells us romantic words which that is why there are guys who uses love songs to make a girl fall with them too. And another answer was a negative mood management and diversion, it is said that whatever mood we had, music could deal with us, makes us feel like we are not alone and sometimes music could change your mood, from being sad just listen a high beating music, it could turn you energetic and happy, could make you dance and may forget the reason why you were sad. And music is really effective in removing boredom. And lastly from the surveys’ answer, said about positive mood management, music relaxes us, entertain us and makes our mood even better. Jeremy Dean, the author said that “Modern technology means it’s never been easier to hear exactly the music we want, whenever we want it. But whatever technology we use, the reasons we listen to music are universal.” As he introduce before he explained the answers they got from the survey.

And I agree and I was related with the answers, because those are also my reasons why am I listening music. I want a music that deals with whatever I am feeling right now, and sometimes I need a music that kills boredom, depression and stress. And sometimes, I just want to listen a song just to understand their message. 

Music is one of the amazing things that makes us feel something, could change our emotions and inspires us. Sometimes, every time I’m alone and just listening music, as I feel it, I could even produce images in my head, sometimes, a music video and I say music is also one of the amazing things that could makes us imagine of something that we could not do in real life. So just sit there, relax, put your earphones on, play your playlist on your mp3 or phone, then enjoy and feel the music!  

Blogpost 3: Expression: You can't Hide what you Feel Inside

Of course, every time we feel something there has to be a reaction/s inside of us. It might be our facial expression, actions, body reaction like heart beats faster than usual. And we can’t hide these things specially when we have these strong feelings such as being in love that makes your head floats around and you’ll be like smiling with everything even there’s no reason, in short makes you look crazy; being angry or mad that your eyebrows getting closer to each one thinking of you want to smash someone’s face; or getting sad or lonely that you can’t stop the tears that will just suddenly flow.

And because of these expressions, we can easily determined the person’s mood or whatever the feel. Same thing that they know what we feel inside with our expressions.

One article I’ve red entitled, “Reading Facial Expressions of Emotion” by David Matsumoto a professor of psychology and Hyi Sung Hwang a research scientist in www.apa.org where they discovered two expressions of people, the universality of facial expressions of emotion and the existence of microexpressions. The universality of facial expressions are the expressions of what people feels can easily recognize such as happiness, loneliness, anger, surprise etc. Typically last between 0.5 to 4 seconds to determine. While the microexpression they said that it will occur when you are alone or when you’re with your family or close friends who are easily determine what you feel. They said that: “Emotions are an incredibly important aspect of human life and basic research on emotions of the past few decades has produced several discoveries that have led to important real world applications.” 

There are some expressions that can obviously recognize, and some expressions that we are not that sure to tell. Your family or your close friends who are almost know everything about you can easily determine what you really feel unlike anyone else who you doesn’t really know like strangers wouldn’t easy to tell what you feel.

Another article entitled, “Understanding Body Language” by Kendra Cherry in psychology.about.com Besides of facial expression, other of our body parts also includes with what we feel inside. In this article, they explained the expression of emotion through mouth, eyes, gestures, arms, legs, posture and even personal space. They said that the eyes are capable of revealing a great deal about what a person if feeling or thinking. Covering our mouth specially when we are coughing or yawning are naturally a polite discipline not only for us, but there are some point that indicates that the person covers their mouth to hide their frown or disapproval. Our gestures, arms, legs and posture could also determine if we are nervous, excited, happy or whatever, like standing straight means we are paying attention, happy or active, while the shoulders down shows that we have less interest or tired, body shaking indicates that we might be nervous or excited. And the personal space, it can also express what we feel with our surrounding, the closer you are in the person the more comfortable you are with them, and of course you don’t want to sit or stand beside the person you don’t really know. Kendra Cherry said that “body language is thought to account for between 50 to 70 percent of all communication. Understanding body language is important, but it is also essential to remember to note other cues such as context and to look at signals as a group rather than focusing on a single action.”

These expressions are automatically being expressed with what we feel because our brain thought of it already with the situation. We can’t be like you already saw a mad tiger approaching you and you’ll just stand there and smile. No, of course you’ll start to feel nervous and scared, then your brain will thought of it so you’ll be having the expression of big eyes, shaky body, panicking to run, and might also scream. Expressing our feelings is important, because even without words, we can already tell to everyone what we really feel inside. Even if we make fake smiles although you are lonely inside, it will still show in you that you’re just pretending. And these expressions are also important to know, to be familiarize, and to recognize, so you would know what are happening with your surroundings and or with you family and friends. Actors also make a study with people’s expression so that they can act the role of their character. Expressing our feelings is amazing.

Blogpost 2: "Love is a Huge Feeling"

Whenever you’re in love with someone, of course its feels so wonderful, you’re happy, excited, active, inspired, it seems everything is so perfect. Even a cockroach jumps over your face, a spaceship lands on your lawn, or even you’ve been swallowed by a dinosaur (just kidding) but the fact is whatever happens doesn’t matter for you as long as you are floating in area of love. Isn’t that love is so powerful? But yet, just a little conflict with that thing you called love, it could ruin all of these wonderful feelings. Your perfect beautiful aura could turn into the most disaster, cruel, awful feeling ever, might be more painful than being swallowed by a dinosaur.   

As I said from the title: Love is a huge Feeling. Because for me, whenever you’re in or out of love, you can almost feel all of the kinds of feelings, you can be happy, yet you’ll feel sad and upset, you can be excited about everything, then yet you’ll feel afraid then you can be wonderful and inspired, then yet you’ll feel loser and miserable, and more.

One article that I've red entitled, "The Surprising Health Effects of Love" by Laura Schwecherl in greatist.com All of what our brain thought of a good and positive things could also be good in our heart literally. They have one study about the difference of people who are with their love and people who are with someone else. and the result were the couples has lower blood pressure than with people who are with ordinary people because they have different feelings for each other to be more familiar and comfortable. She said that "Love isn’t all about the butterflies. There are chemical processes in the brain that affect how we feel. When we’re with a significant other, the body releases hormones, like oxytocin and dopamine, that signal feelings of trust, pleasure, and reward." 

Maybe even me, I'll be more comfortable to with someone that I love than with someone who's just ordinary for me. Which that means our brain evaluated these good things that leads us to feel great and also leads our heart to feel good which is good to our heart.

But as I said earlier, falling in love is wonderful but could also be horrible. From the other article entitled, “Why Does Love Hurt When It Goes Bad?” by Jessica Dawson in lovepanky.com Said that the most common emotions that get associated with love when it’s going bad are fear, anger, helplessness, loneliness and jealousy. Which are the usual things we feel when we’re broken-hearted. And even a bad relationship can cause very stressful, getting easily tired of everything, loses your focus on other parts of your life, looking for more ways to feel worst or miserable by hurting yourself, in emotionally: you tend to remember the bad things repeatedly instead of moving on, and hurting yourself physically, maybe that’s why there are these people that we called “emo” who attempts suicide by slicing a wound in their wrist using blades. Jessica Dawson said that “Love can hurt a lot emotionally. But almost always, love blends with other emotions that add to the painful sensation; it can hurt just as much as physical pain.”

For me, it is natural to be hurt because of love, maybe it is really part of our life to learn more in our life, to be more prepared for the next story of our love life. Committing suicide is the dumbest thing that people do to solve their problems, besides from money, love is one of the reason why. But it doesn’t helped them at all. Maybe if they just worked hard to earn money. And about being broken-hearted, there is always a one reason to solve it. It’s by moving on. Everyone knows that it’s always an option but they just don’t want to try, instead they choose to let their self drowning in pain. And maybe it’s another reason why there are people who are having obsessions.

And too much love can kill you. From the article I’ve red entitled, “Falling in Love Drives you mad” by Psychiatrist Donatella Marazziti, of the University of Pisa, in news.bbc.co.uk The sayings “love can drive you crazy” is quite literal, it is wonderful to be in love and to be loved, but too much love is not that wonderful anymore. Everything that becomes too much is bad. This article said that obsession can affect your brain which can also affect people’s mood that could even also affect the whole you. Isn’t that creepy that there’s someone who’s obsessed with you that he/she will kidnap you and will force you to marry him/her even you don’t like that person? I think it’s not impossible to happen since I’ve seeing movies that has that scene. Donatella Marazitti said that,“Falling madly in love may really make you mentally ill and this mental illness called obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that sufferers experience nagging, anxious thoughts and feel compelled to repeat tasks such as washing their hands and tidying up. In 1990, Dr Marazziti found OCD was linked to lower levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which affects people's moods.”

Love is a huge feeling, it’s the strongest one, the most powerful, may be the most wonderful but could also be the most dangerous. Falling in love is the most amazing thing that we could ever felt, especially when that person whom that we love is having the same feelings for us. If we they broke our heart, let’s get up, make up your mind and move on, look for someone who’s better might be the right person than before. But remember that love is also dangerous, can kill you with depression, or can literally drive you crazy. Let’s spread the love, share it with someone who deserves it but always spare a love for yourself too.