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Reconnecting with the Heart: Making sense of our feelings
Reconnecting with the Heart offers a new theoretical and practical approach to understanding and managing feelings.
We categorise feelings as either negative or positive, which means that we censor the expression of some while insisting on others. Learning to understand the whole range of emotions – what they are, where they come from, why we have them – helps us learn when and how to communicate them effectively. Feelings are not only mental events, but occur in our bodies as well. Reconnecting with the Heart helps the reader to become more conscious of the mind-body link, both in terms of how to recognise emotions and also in their connection to various physical symptoms.
Although we are accustomed to blaming others for causing our feelings, the reality is that our responses have a lot to do with our perceptions. Once we stop blaming others, we can learn how to communicate clearly, even in the most difficult situations. Specific suggestions and exercises enable the reader to use this as a workbook for individual and personal exploration. The book also demonstrates how to be less uncomfortable or anxious when someone bursts into tears or is angry: we can learn to be less anxious and more present in our relationships, even when strong emotions are existent.
This book is intended as an initial guide to our feelings, charting the currents and movements of the heart, and makes it clear that emotion is part of everyday life and need not be seen as a problem. The theoretical input is balanced by many illustrations from Anne’s working experience, which allow the reader to relate the theory to their own life experiences. Reconnecting with the Heart will help anyone who struggles to make sense of their feelings within the increasingly impersonal context of everyday life.
Featured in The Bookseller, February 2015 Non-Fiction picks, Personal Development & Self-Help.
We categorise feelings as either negative or positive, which means that we censor the expression of some while insisting on others. Learning to understand the whole range of emotions – what they are, where they come from, why we have them – helps us learn when and how to communicate them effectively. Feelings are not only mental events, but occur in our bodies as well. Reconnecting with the Heart helps the reader to become more conscious of the mind-body link, both in terms of how to recognise emotions and also in their connection to various physical symptoms.
Although we are accustomed to blaming others for causing our feelings, the reality is that our responses have a lot to do with our perceptions. Once we stop blaming others, we can learn how to communicate clearly, even in the most difficult situations. Specific suggestions and exercises enable the reader to use this as a workbook for individual and personal exploration. The book also demonstrates how to be less uncomfortable or anxious when someone bursts into tears or is angry: we can learn to be less anxious and more present in our relationships, even when strong emotions are existent.
This book is intended as an initial guide to our feelings, charting the currents and movements of the heart, and makes it clear that emotion is part of everyday life and need not be seen as a problem. The theoretical input is balanced by many illustrations from Anne’s working experience, which allow the reader to relate the theory to their own life experiences. Reconnecting with the Heart will help anyone who struggles to make sense of their feelings within the increasingly impersonal context of everyday life.
Featured in The Bookseller, February 2015 Non-Fiction picks, Personal Development & Self-Help.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 3, 2014
5 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Anne Dickson
44 books12 followers I am a psychologist by profession and have for over three decades been working as a trainer and educator. To those who already know of my work through reading one of my books or attending a workshop or lecture, a warm welcome too.
My commitment and passion have always been to equality, honesty and nonaggression: through both the facilitation of classes, workshops and ongoing courses in an extraordinarily diverse range of contexts and cultures and also through my books, I have attempted to teach and encourage others who are similarly interested in upholding these same values.
The key to what I do - and what I have always done - is authentic communication as the basis of sincere relationship whether that is with our nearest and dearest, with colleagues, with friends or with those we hardly know. Taking responsibility for what we want (or don't want) and for how we express ourselves requires sensitivity to the requirements of love for oneself and others. How do we balance these needs? How do we learn to set limits and say 'no' in unclear relationships? Are we happy with the quality of our relationships? Which people do we really want around us? How can we handle conflict and tension in ways that respect different viewpoints and needs instead of solely aiming for a win/lose outcome? How do we break out of old habits of fear and conditioning and learn to find our real inner voice?
My personal and professional commitment though goes far beyond the limits of self-development for the sake of self-development. Equality, honesty and nonaggression stand in stark contrast to prevailing cultural norms of individualism, competition, dishonesty and aggression. Setting up this website is an attempt to reach out and establish contact with others who also find it hard to maintain these values in today's world: who are keen to promote equality and compassion and an alternative to those models of power we see all around us which continue to do untold harm at every level of existence.
My commitment and passion have always been to equality, honesty and nonaggression: through both the facilitation of classes, workshops and ongoing courses in an extraordinarily diverse range of contexts and cultures and also through my books, I have attempted to teach and encourage others who are similarly interested in upholding these same values.
The key to what I do - and what I have always done - is authentic communication as the basis of sincere relationship whether that is with our nearest and dearest, with colleagues, with friends or with those we hardly know. Taking responsibility for what we want (or don't want) and for how we express ourselves requires sensitivity to the requirements of love for oneself and others. How do we balance these needs? How do we learn to set limits and say 'no' in unclear relationships? Are we happy with the quality of our relationships? Which people do we really want around us? How can we handle conflict and tension in ways that respect different viewpoints and needs instead of solely aiming for a win/lose outcome? How do we break out of old habits of fear and conditioning and learn to find our real inner voice?
My personal and professional commitment though goes far beyond the limits of self-development for the sake of self-development. Equality, honesty and nonaggression stand in stark contrast to prevailing cultural norms of individualism, competition, dishonesty and aggression. Setting up this website is an attempt to reach out and establish contact with others who also find it hard to maintain these values in today's world: who are keen to promote equality and compassion and an alternative to those models of power we see all around us which continue to do untold harm at every level of existence.
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May 26, 2018
I was disappointed with this book after reading A Woman in your Own Right. Compared with that book, Reconnecting with the Heart feels more like a meandering text with less concreteness and direction. But upon further reflection, I realised that I did learn a lot of useful knowledge from the book and so amended my rating from three to five stars.
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