S2, Ep 5 Best Friend Therapy: Feelings - Why do we have feelings? What should we do with them? Is anxiety a masking emotion?

Welcome to Best Friend Therapy, where we chat about what's on our minds, to get deeper in our minds, and this week we're bringing you a Feelings 101 - everything you ever needed to know about what we feel, why we feel, and how feelings can be our best guides when it comes to meeting our needs.

Sadness, anger, fear, joy, jealousy, envy, guilt or shame. Pick your poison. There's a feeling for every situation and an action required for every feeling. This week we join the dots to help you know what action you need to take, to feel more authentic and empowered in life.

Emma explains the 'core feelings' and the needs they signal, and Elizabeth tries to disarm her with the cuteness of a baby deer.

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This week we reference some previous episodes of Best Friend Therapy: Games, Competition, Imposter Syndrome from Season 1, and Jealousy from Season 2.

"Good Reasons for Bad Feelings" is by Randolph M. Nesse: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Reasons-Bad-Feelings-Evolutionary/dp/0241291089

Accessible and informative summaries of Richard Erskine's work on 'Racket Feelings', Jackie Schiff's work on 'Reparenting' and Eric Berne's 'Parent-Adult-Child' model can all be found in a fantastic book called "TA Today" by Ian Stewart and Vann Joines: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Today-New-Introduction-Transactional-Analysis/dp/1870244028

And thank you Merriam-Webster for confirming the true etymology of the 'fawn' response: Middle English speakers adapted an Old English word meaning "to rejoice" to create the verb faunen, which shifted in spelling over time to become fawn. That Old English word, in turn, derives from fagan, meaning "glad." Fagan is also an ancestor of the English adjective fain, whose earliest (now obsolete) meaning is "happy" or "pleased." This fawn is not, however, related to the noun fawn, referring to a young deer. For that we can thank the Latin noun fetus, meaning "offspring." Sorry Liz.

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy