COMMUNAUTÉ

I'm super excited about the upcoming Power of Emotions weekend coming up in a few days. I'm busy putting the finishing touches to my slide shows and trying to get my emotional ducks in a row. I think it will all come together for Saturday! It promises to be a really rich exploration of our emotions. But have not fear (!) it won't be a cry-fest or encounter group. What's exciting is having new ways of understanding affect and emotion and how it unspools in our day-to-day life. Don't be afraid of emotions! They're the powerhouse of a life well-lived. As site members you can still access the Early Bird discount (£50) if you use the code Emote50 at the checkout. Hope to see you on Saturday.

We were exploring the importance of 'emotional concepts' this morning. Emotions depend on a conceptual framework in the brain to have meaning. This is why it's so useful to have a richer vocabulary regarding our feelings. For example, the widespread experience of waking up in an inexplicably bad mood. It would be easy to pathologise this and see it as a personal failing or a terrible injustice. But when we know there is a word for it, then our emotional experience is validated and given meaning: MATUTOLYPEA (pronounced: mah-tu-toh-leh-PEE-a) “Dejection of the Dawn” Waking up in misery or a bad temper. From the Roman goddess of the dawn, Mater Matuta, and the Greek word for dejection, lype,