what i feel essay

Essays About Emotions: Top 6 Examples and Prompts

We all experience a vast range of emotions; read on to see our top examples of essays about emotions, and thought-provoking writing prompts.

Human beings use their emotions as an internal compass. They guide us through tough challenges and help create memorable moments that build relationships and communities. They give us strength that’s incomparable to intellect. They are powerful enough to drive our survival, bring down invincible-seeming tyrants, and even shape the future.

If you want to express your emotions through writing, creating an essay is a perfect way to materialize your thoughts and feelings. Read on for the best essay examples and help with your next essay about emotions.

1. Managing Emotions by Charlotte Nelson

2. how to deal with your emotions effectively by jayaram v, 3. music affects mood by delores goodwin, 4. emotions, stress, and ways to cope with them by anonymous on ivypanda, 5. essay on emotions: definition, characteristics, and importance by reshma s, 6. the most powerful emotion in marketing may surprise you by oliver yonchev, 9 writing prompts on essays about emotions to write about, 1. what are positive and negative emotions, 2. how to control and manage emotions for emotional people, 3. why it can benefit you to hide your emotions, 4. the power of emotional connection between siblings, 5. emotions make music, and music drives emotions, 6. psychopathic individuals and their emotions, 7. emotions expressed in art, 8. dance: physical expression of emotion, 9. lessons to learn from highly emotional scenes on screen.

“Emotions. They not just leave an impact on the organizations but on the organizational structure as well, and it is vital for leaders in the organization to deal with it.”

Nelson’s essay focuses on how emotions can be harmful if not managed properly. She also differentiates moods from emotions and the proper and improper emotional management methods.

“They are essential for your survival and serve a definite purpose in your life by giving you advance warning signals and alerting you to different situations.”  

Our feelings are important, and this essay points out that negative emotions aren’t always a bad thing. The important thing is we learn how to cope with them appropriately.

“So we just listen and close our eyes, and it is our song for three minutes because the singers understand.”

Goodwin’s essay explores how we feel various moods or emotions from listening to different genres of music. For example, she writes about how rock masks pain and releases daily tensions, how classical music encourages babies’ development, etc.

“Emotions play a unique role in the experiences and health outcomes of all people. A proper understanding of how to cope with emotions and stress can empower more individuals to record positive health outcomes.”

This essay incorporates stress into the topic of emotions and how to manage it. It’s no surprise that people can feel stress as a strong emotion. The essay explores the various methods of managing the two things and promoting health.

“Emotions can be understood as some sort of feelings or affective experiences which are characterized by some physiological changes that generally lead them to perform some of the other types of behavioral acts.”

Reshma uses a scientific approach to define emotion, the types of emotions, and how it works. The essay provides the characteristics of emotions, like being feeling being the core of emotion. It also included the importance of emotions and theories around them.

“The emotional part of the brain processes information five times more quickly than the rational part, which is why tapping into people’s emotions is so powerful.”

Instead of discussing emotions only, Yonchev uses his essay to write about the emotions used in marketing tactics. He focuses on how brands use powerful emotions like happiness and fear in their marketing strategies. A great example is Coca-Cola’s iconic use of marketing happiness, giving the brand a positive emotional connection to consumers.

You’ve read various essays about emotions. Now, it’s your turn to write about them. Here are essay ideas and prompts to help you find a specific track to write about.

Work out the definition of positive and negative emotions. Use this essay to provide examples of both types of emotions. For example, joy is a positive emotion, while irritation is negative. Read about emotions to back up your writing.

Depending on the scenario, many people are very open with their emotions and are quite emotional. The workplace is an example of a place where it’s better to put your emotions aside. Write an essay if you want to explore the best ways to handle your emotions during stressful moments.

You need to know when to hide your emotions, like in a poker game. Even if you don’t play poker, controlling or hiding your emotions provides some advantages. Keeping emotional reactions to yourself can help you remain professional in certain situations. Emotional reactions can also overwhelm you and keep you from thinking of a solution on the fly.

Close-knit families have powerful emotional connections to one another. Siblings have an incredibly unique relationship. You can think back to your experiences with your siblings and discuss how your relationship has driven you to be more emotionally open or distant from them.

Create a narrative essay to share your best memory with your siblings.

There’s a reason so many songs revolve around the “love at first sight” idea. A powerful emotion is something like giddiness from meeting someone for the first time and feeling love-struck by their behavior. Grief, anger, and betrayal are emotions that drive artists to create emotionally charged songs.

Some people have a misbelief that psychopaths don’t have emotions. If you’re diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) , the true definition of a psychopath in psychiatry, this is a perfect essay prompt. You can also use this if you’re studying psychology or have a keen interest in psychopathic behaviors or people around you.

Like music, art also has a deep link to emotions. People who see art have subjective reactions to it. If you’ve been given a piece of art to react to, consider writing an essay to express how you perceive and understand the piece, whether it’s a 2D abstract painting or a 3D wire sculpture.

A widely appreciated branch of art is dance. Contemporary dance is a popular way of expressing emotion today, but other types of dance are also great options. Whether classical ballroom, group hip hop, or ballet, your choice will depend on the type of dance you enjoy watching or doing. If you’re more physical or prefer watching dance, you may enjoy writing about emotional expression through dance instead of writing about art.

Do you have a favorite scene from a film or TV show? Use this essay topic to discuss your favorite scene and explain why you loved the emotional reactions of its characters. You can also compare them to a more realistic reaction.

Write a descriptive essay to describe your favorite scene before discussing the emotions involved.  

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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How to Write With Emotion and Make Your Readers Feel

by The Magic Violinist | 35 comments

As writers, no matter what our goals are, there is something we should all strive to do: make our readers feel. Whether that feeling be hope, happiness, fear, or any number of other emotions, it can be achieved through masterful writing . That's how to write with emotion and make readers feel.

How to Write With Emotion

That is easier said than done, though, right? How can we turn our words into something so real, it gives the reader a punch to the gut or brings a smile to their face?

There are endless possibilities, but the seven easiest and most effective ways are:

• Write about what scares you.
• Write about what excites you.
• Write about what disgusts you.
• Write about what saddens you.
• Write about what fuels you.
• Write about what angers you.
• Write about what fills you with love.

Simple as that. When we write about something honest and real, our readers will feel what we’ve felt, so long as we conveyed that emotion in the most truthful way we know how. You don’t even have to be a non-fiction writer to use these techniques. Your fictional character can experience the same emotions in different ways.

Actors pull from their realities all the time to portray their characters accurately. Do the same thing in your writing.

3 Keys to Capture Emotion in Writing

There are a few additional tips you can keep in mind to help you with this.

1. Intense emotions come through the most.

In other words, the stronger the better. A little disappointment will not be felt as much as rage or grief. Amusement is not the same as glee or absolute joy. The most important things make us feel the most.

2. Don’t pour it on too thick.

While it’s true that deep emotions are felt the most by readers, you don’t want to go overboard. If your character constantly swings from despair to falling madly in love to shock, it will get old really fast. A little goes a long way. Give your characters a break to just be normal for a while so when a bombshell does hit, it hits hard.

3. Write a journal.

On the spot, it might be difficult to come up with memories or feelings to write about. Every emotion is most powerful in the moment. If you’re able to, anytime something intense happens that causes you to feel an extreme emotion, write it down as soon as possible . What triggered the sensation and how did it affect you? You can draw on those journal entries later.

One Final Thought: Keep It Real

Readers will be able to tell when you’re forcing something onto them. Don’t try to make a character’s reaction to an event bigger than it has to be. Nine times out of ten, the simplest way is the best way.

All in all, if you want readers to respond to your writing, remember to be simple, be honest, and be emotional.

What causes you to be moved by writing? Do you have other tips for how to write with emotion?  Let us know in the comments .

Write for fifteen minutes about someone who feels intensely. It can be in the form of a journal entry or it can be a character going through these emotions. Draw on memories to help you along the way.

When you’re finished, share your work in the comments , if you’d like. Don’t forget to give your fellow writers some love, too.

The Magic Violinist

The Magic Violinist is a young author who writes mostly fantasy stories. She loves to play with her dog and spend time with her family. Oh, and she's homeschooled. You can visit her blog at themagicviolinist.blogspot.com . You can also follow The Magic Violinist on Twitter (@Magic_Violinist).

35 Comments

Fabulous article, Magic Violinist. Good ideas here.

A great article! I could use this advice.

I write in French. I am at the end of my novel. In the old small car of her husband a woman of sixty years is heading to the place where was born the man she was in love with when she was eghteen. The husband was driving. As I said before, i write in French and the difficulty I am facing is the emotion I have to inject in my text to affect the reader.

Madani, above I mentioned buying THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION. C’est fantastique! In the scene you mention above, this book will give you exercises to help you express what each character is thinking and feeling and hiding. Par example, son mari de 60 ans, c’est the même que le beau? Si non, ce livre vous donne des exercises pour vous aider d’explorer des émotions de la femme au sujet de chaque homme.

Je vous remercie beaucoup pour l’information. J’espère en tirer profit. I started reading the book you mentioned ( The emotional craft of fiction). I am at page ten. I think it’s exactly what I want.

Fantastique!

True Story (All names changed to protect real people involved) It was a little before five o’clock on a Friday afternoon in June, one of those humid southern days when the vivid yellow sun was high in the cloudless blue sky when the summer from hell officially kicked off. I was finishing off my second full week at my first full time job almost a month removed from graduating from a local community college with an Associates Degree in Office Administration. My thumb was swollen and irritated from fourteen days straight of flipping through hundreds perhaps thousands of pages within files in the records department where I was stationed. I just met up with my contact to receive my first paycheck when things took an unexpected turn.

I’d been in contact with Mike Wakefield since early May, and still to this today we keep in touch once in a blue moon. I found it strange when I pushed through the fancy entrance door that rotated and Mike stood there with an uncertain look on his face. That wasn’t a good sign especially on a Friday afternoon. To a certain degree almost a year later, I understand, although, at least let the contracts run out before you decide to make a rash decision like this.

I had big plans for the weekend, after getting my first real corporate level job paycheck. I was also hoping to pay down some of my bills a little further, finally making strides. Anybody who’s worked in a minimum wage job while in school knows you cannot pay off anything major on a job with unstable hours.

“Will!” Mike finally said to me when I stepped outside feeling a light breeze, “It’s not going to be a good weekend in your home.”

I had been laid off. What do I do? How am I going to pay these bills? I have no experience except two weeks. I quit the old job with an intention of returning if I had too, worst case scenario. I was promised this, until the hiring manager I had it good with had gotten transferred. I was devastated.

Avoid too much explaining and redundancy (cloudless blue sky…) If you keep it honest and simple, the readers will be interested what had happened.

William this is not moving in any way. Your approach is off. Rewrite this in the now, either present tense, or if that’s too much, then the immediate past. But you need to scene-ify (TM) this don’t tell us about the experience, LIVE it. Then we’ll live it with you. Make stakes that are lost with this job loss not just not paying ahead on bills.

Excellent, I appreciate it. Recommended. Thank you very nuch.

For those serious about mining the depths of emotion, buy Donald Maass’s new book THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION. It is incredible. 206 pages of explanation and exercises.

Thanks for the heads up, Nancy.

Thanks for this reference, Nancy. I’m looking forward to receiving the copy I just ordered.

I stare at the wedding invitation that we have mutually agreed upon. It’s an ice-blue colored, embossed with rich, ivory letters of English Roundhand that pirouette across the marbled parchment like her steps when she performed the Swan Lake few weeks ago.

The card crackled like a dancer’s crinoline beneath my fingers as I lifted it up from a box. I touched a raised character, ran my fingertips lightly along a line, as the blind read braille. The ascenders and descenders formed graceful swirls as it rose up to meet my searching touch.

Feel this words, Kay. I said to myself. Yes, you can feel these words, do you ?

Half-believing, half-dreaming. I studied the words read in that formal lexicon peculiar to occassions that mark the steppingstones of life:

Elaine Marie Gainsborough And Kay Anderson Reinheardt

Invite you to share in their joy As they celebrate the solemnization of their marriage vows

At six P.M. on November the fifth

At the mansion of Reinheardt, Southend View, Beverly Hills, California.

I grazed the words again with my fingertips before I set it aside. The framed sky across me offering a beautiful view of golden light burst slowly engulfed by columns of white clouds. Forgive me, Sue. I whispered as soft breeze managed to reach my cheeks.

If only you said those words years ago, if only you told me before Elaine gave her all to me … Forgive me for I’m not able to sacrificed one, innocent soul just to feed my own desire.

I reached my phone and dive onto the picture album. I stared at the pictures of me and a dark-haired woman sharing hugs, smiles and kissess for a moment before I marked them all and the screen asking me if I want to delete them.

I choose to pressed the ‘yes’ button with a small, fragile hope that time will eventually erase those pictures from my mind as easy as my Iphone does.

Hi, Hindra, I like the overall descriptive elements of the piece. May I suggest editing some of the small grammar and verb tense anomalies to improve the flow?

HI, I love your beginning, and i am already even by the end of the first paragraph wondering what happened to bring you to the place that you are at that momment. Well done.

The morning rays slipped in from my bedrooms window. A cool breeze I could feel from the outside world was calming my mind and nerves from a nightmare before. I recalled the nightmare that happened last night and tried to understand it. I jumped in surprise as the door opened suddenly by my stepmom. “Hey, you lazy kid !! Get up and get yourself clean !!” she shouted at me who was whining. I could sense her anger rising as she stomped her way to me. She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me to the bathroom downstairs. “You smell like a garbage, you can’t take care of yourself don’t you !? “ she shouted at me. I felt sore all of my body. In the bathroom door, she swung me inside like I’m nothing. “I’ll gave you 10 minutes to get yourself clean. I have something to do with you.” She said with evil grin on her face. I jumped in surprise after she slammed the door shut.

I froze in fear hearing her words. I held my knees tight on my chest and started to whimper slowly. I had to wash myself clean before she would do anything worse to me than this. I took off my dirty clothes and hang on the hanger.

(Its difficult when your first language isn’t English, sorry for my bad English.)

Hi, Maulana, No need to apologise. Few of us have the talent to write in a second language, so you should be proud of your ability and determination. The story-line and descriptions are there as a framework, and I’m sure your eagerness to write will lead you to expand your expertise. It takes courage to share your work, so congratulations.

What do you think about my story ?

Hi, Maulana, I’m not an expert, so please ignore any of my comments if you want to. As I said, the framework is already there, so the reader can get an idea of what it’s about. It might help if you give names to the characters. This lets the reader identify with them and build mental pictures. And physical descriptions don’t need too much detail unless they are vital to the story–for instance: a 3-eyed snake, or someone with a wooden leg. The original article is about using emotion to make your readers feel what the character feels. My suggestion would be to avoid using the words like ‘feel, see, touch, hear, and taste’ Some quick examples: ‘The fresh morning breeze came through the open window. Her arm tingled as the tiny hairs stood up. She shivered.’. Or: ‘As she ran, the sharp stones dug into her bare feet and left a trail of blood’. Final suggestion which might help with the grammar and verb tense is to copy your story in your native language then paste it into the left-hand text box in Google Translator. (There might be a word limit.). At the top of the right hand box, choose the language to translate into (for example, English), and Google will translate it. Select all the text in the right hand box and copy it. Then paste it into a word processor so you can check it. You can also do that the other way round if you want. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it might be useful. Hope it helps, and good luck with your writing.

Ok, Thanks ^-^

Maulina, I suggest writing in your native language. If you can draw attention there, you could hire a translator as I recently did. My debut novel is being translated into Salvadoran Spanish (not a huge difference from Spanish in other countries, but enough to give it the ring of authenticity). I have read published books by non-native writers & they were very convoluted even for me who taught ESL for 20 years. A great story will eventually get translated into other languages! My best to you! Sherrie

Hi, Magic Violinist and accompanying ensemble, Here’s a short extract from a Writing Skills course I completed 3 years ago. ** Cathy crouched one-legged twixt the windowsill and ladder. The moment her outstretched fingers touched the ladder’s cold metal upright, Cathy made her choice. She grasped the nearest rung with one hand while keeping a firm grip on the window frame with the other. Transferring her weight onto the hand holding the ladder, she extended her leg a few more inches. Fear gripped her innards as her sense of balance threatened to desert her. A scream formed deep inside her tightened gut. It strained to burst forth, but was stifled when her searching foot found safety on a ladder rung. Cathy paused to regain control. The ladder vibrated in sympathy with the pulsating throb of the muffled bass drum that had replaced her heart. Her body trembled and she almost wet herself. With both hands and both feet on the ladder, Cathy stabilised her position. Calmness returned. She started her descent. Rung by rung, she neared the ground, her confidence rising. Finally, she stood at the foot of the ladder. She’d done it. She was on her way to realising her dream, and no one could stop her now. Cathy took a step backward and turned to walk toward the park where her friends were waiting for her. “Cathy! What do you think you’re up to?” The forceful tone of the voice penetrated her nervous system like acupuncture needles, temporarily paralysing her movements. “D-d-dad?”…. **

I just wanted to tell you that I love these kind of posts on this blog. You do not hear from me much, but I follow this blog without fail. Keep up the great work!

OK, here goes….

Quiet, very very quiet…. A deep still has taken hold of me. My mind is refusing to form words. All I can do is to let my eyes absorb, like dried out sponges, the scene of beauty before me. I let it soak my soul, bringing refreshment and nourishment to the driest corners. The landscape around me is almost a quiet as my soul. As far as I can see, this way and that way, the wide open spaces whispers my name. The wind is calm now. Everything around me speaks of a peacefulness that is truly uncommon. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, as if to save the picture on the memory banks of my mind.

When the last time we went silvertion Colorado was amazing in 70, you would have walk across the shopping center and have beautiful afternoon then in Waco on hot evening where you can enjoy sunshine because it really too hot and you determined to go to Colorado some time soon and have amazing last time there before we go back into Texas. So please come check out silvertion Colorado is one best place, that for me made me happy and the times we been up there. So please come check silvertion Colorado out and hope you enjoyed it like we did

One day it was windy and feel nice in silvertion Colorado so when took a walk through the shopping center and had amazing and happy time. When were happy to be away from hot Texas. So when went to brown bear reasturant to eat and go to emporium store that had all stuff there. Silvertion Colorado is like our second home to escape from a hot weather in Waco Texas. So please come check out silvertion Colorado because it a beautiful place and you will be amazed how you like it.

I’ve felt this way before. It takes up all the space it can get. The constant sadness is almost too overwhelming, but I can’t help but feel this way. Not after what he did to me. The wind numbs my already cold skin. I can’t feel anything, and I wonder if this is what it’s like to be dead. I wonder if this is just the reality we’re not seeing. Or don’t want to see. All these happy, smiling kids around me. Kids my age, kids in my school. They can’t see it. Blind and oblivious to it. I have no one, not even the trees. As much as I admire them, they say I’m too selfish, too arrogant. And they left it at that which I suppose is okay. But it just hurts to be left alone now. It’s all I can do though. Since I have myself and the little people who like to live in my head, I have company. Not good company, but it’s better than silence. They bully me, the little people do. There’s thing I can do about it. I can’t see them, so I can’t run away and hide. I can’t feel them, so I can’t push them away. All I can do is hear them say nasty, dark, and cruel things to me repeatedly. When they come like running water though, I go outside. It’s the only thing I can do to make them stop. My parents know that. It’s usually at night, so the stars are out and bright, like glowing balls of hope to me. They talk, and say it’s going to be alright. But they don’t say a word when the clouds cover them. It’s like they secretly think I’m a freak like the rest of them. I don’t like say hate, but to be brutally honest, I hate that. And sometimes I hate being me.

‘The life of the party’ was what everyone who knew Mina said. ‘Her life is almost over, so if you want to see her, come now.’ is what my niece said on my voice mail the other day. I played it several times while the years flashed through my mind. I thought I was finished with her the first time and the last time I bailed her out of jail. I though I was done when she chose drugs over family. I vowed to never speak to her after after I received a letter from a department store informing me I owed a 500.00 dollar shoplifting fee. When she found out she had cancer she came and apologized for using my name, explaining she had not wanted to go to jail again. She cried and asked for my forgiveness. I gave it, of course I did, she was my baby sister and while I told myself I loved her, I knew I did not like her. Three years later as I listened to the voicemail and fought the urge to pretend I never heard it I knew I had to see her one more time.

Well done! This would be a great story! Either about Mina. Or about her sister, the narrator. Or both. The 1st sentence should end with “about her.” I’d love to know more. Keep writing! Sherrie

Once again he found himself in the same predicament as always full of self disappointment, one of his many feelings that had lately become all too familiar. His head hung low, draped heavily with self-disgust, as he held in his hands what remained of his last paycheck. “You want it or not man, …” muttered his dealer with impatience in his tone, “ … I dont have all day”. Momentarily struck by hesitation, he remained quiet for a few seconds before regretfully succumbing to his addiction, and handed the stranger exactly 47$. Hastily, he snatched the bag and shoved it into his pocket.

Although his house was only one block away, literally a 30 second trip, to him it felt like a walk of shameful guilt that would last a lifetime. Growing disheartened from self-disgust, his eyes remained locked on the floor beneath him and hidden from prying stares as he dragged himself down the sidewalk and into his house.

He stopped for a second as he walked into his bedroom and couldn’t help but to notice the heavy stench of stale cigarette smoke, old dirty laundry, and depression. Overwhelmed by everything always being in a complete mess: his room, his thoughts, and his life; he suddenly grew anxious and distraught and felt broken inside. Pathetic. Junkie. Worthless. That’s what he thought of himself.

What once worked as a coping mechanism for him, crystal meth, had now worsened his condition and tripled his problems, frustrations, and anxieties. Flustered by a sudden urge to breakdown, to cry, and to scream at the top of his lungs in hopes that he’d flood out the never ending bark of his guilt-stricken his conscience. Just another feeling that had lately become all too familiar.

I went down in the lift to the ground floor. As the doors opened, I saw the sign ‘Ryder Ward’. I walked down the corridor, wishing these damn butterflies would stop fluttering. I had no reason to be nervous after all I was 30 minutes early. I handed my appointment letter to a nurse and went to sit in one of the chairs in the corridor. I observed the nurse speaking to another nurse, and tensed. My gut was telling me there was something wrong, the butterflies had stopped but now I was trying to control my saliva. It was building up in my mouth – I was nauseous and I had no idea why. My heart beat faster and my hands started to sweat. They were clammy – ‘please don’t come and want to shake hands.’ I couldn’t calm my heartbeat and suddenly my eyes filled up. I couldn’t blink otherwise they would spill over. That would be embarrassing because I wouldn’t be able to explain. I’m starting to panic now – what do I do? My heart won’t slow down, I can’t blink, I can’t speak – my throat is dry, and now I’m hot – I want to take my clothes off to cool down. ‘Shit, the nurse is coming over, okay, calm down you stupid bitch. Don’t tell me to calm down. Okay, sorry, you’ve done this loads of times – you can do it. No I can’t! I know I can’t! I just do. You know what? Fuck it, I need to blink and if she thinks I’m weird so fucking what. Everybody thinks I’m weird anyway.’ I open my handbag to find a tissue and blow my nose loudly and wipe my wet cheeks.

The nurse stopped in front of me and introduced herself and asked if I wanted a drink. Grateful, I asked for water. She left, I let out a long sigh. I hadn’t even realised I was holding my breath. Okay I can breathe a bit now, my heart slowed down. The butterflies came back but were not fluttering in a frenzy, that’s okay, that’s normal. Thank God. My hands are still clammy and hot as am I. My eyes are still full – I can’t control them, and I still don’t know why. ‘Oh my god, here’s the nurse – okay stop crying, she’s got your water. Take a sip and feel it go down your tube. You’ll be fine.’ I mopped my cheeks and took the proffered plastic cup with care. I don’t want to squeeze it or let it slip through my hands. I took a sip, felt it going down, calming the butterflies and concentrated on my breathing. Nodding my thanks to the nurse, she left me alone again. That’s good – I don’t want to talk, not yet anyway.

The man’s eyes were tired; gone were the days where there was some kind of hope. Now he was clinging to remnants.

“I love you, Emaline,” and the words were pure and true. But no purity, and no truth, would ever bring a response. “I have always loved you.”

The words were clearly rehearsed: they carried the weight of having been said far too many times. And yet the words lost none of the love and none of the meaning.

“And I would die for you, Emaline -” and here the man paused, cleared his throat – “and I would endure this a thousand times if I just knew you here, Emaline. All I need to do is know.”

“If you would come back.” Another clearing of his throat. “If you would just come back. Emaline.”

And then again there was no response, and it was the end of the speech, and there was nothing left to say. The man stayed silent for a few minutes. He stared out at the hills he had danced on, and the heavens he had wept for, and the river he had drank from, and all the places Emaline was not. He wondered how he could end it. Jump in the river and let the rocks take him – many had died that way. Or perhaps a shot to the head. Or perhaps light himself on fire, a fitting end: if he was not to go to hell, he would die in hell, because he did not find her.

But instead he spoke.

“It’s been twenty five years and seventy two days and trust me I counted them all. I -” The man paused, closed his eyes, and breathed through his nose. “In my head, I know you’re gone. I can’t help but wish, though, and I can’t help but think…”

The man looked up at the sky. At the sun which shone too brightly and the clouds which hid too well, at the sky heaven’s supposed to be in but it was never really there, was it? Because he’s looked – and at the stars too – and he’s looked. And never has he found, and never will he find, a trace of Emaline, who is dead, who must be dead, who died a long time ago when the tears hadn’t dried out.

“Emaline.”

“As long as it takes, until I come or you come.”

Clears his throat.

Long gone are the tears.

“I will wait for you.”

— I am an aspiring author who happens to be a twelve year old girl. Please send critique. This is far from my best work and it’s super cliché but in the time limit I couldn’t think of anything else.

May post something better after. —

The tears come unbidden, every time I read this passage. I wrote it and still it moves me. I think that’s a good thing, but no reader has shared their response with me.

“Tasha, he picked your name before you were even born and he talked to you all the time. He was with me in the hospital when you were born and your eyes got so wide when you came out and heard his voice. It was like you had been listening all that time and was so glad to see him.”

My tears are for never having experienced anything like this myself, either while being born or while giving birth. In writing The Birth of Hope, I was able to create a reality where things worked out in spite of the many obstacles the characters faced.

I did experience something like this when I received the gift of being present at my granddaughter’s birth. I remember seeing her eyes widen when she heard her father’s voice – before the cord was cut – she turned and looked at her father (my son) with a kind of deep recognition that was so beautiful. The tears then were tears of joy.

“You saw the star explode, right?” I heard this statement from the horizon of my shoulder, as I stared into the sky.

The Universe is no longer absent and neither is my heart. Who’d think that an extra terrestrial species would conquer our own moon … in a single night. My heart pounded to the odd, flashing lights that protruded from the moon’s surface. My jaw loosened to awe of such a spectacular moment in human history. As if time froze for solid five minutes, I couldn’t stop staring at the future fate of humanity.

“We are not alone in the Universe. After centuries of debate, humanity is nothing but a parasite!” My voice trembled.

“They said it themselves on the news.” My uncle dropped his gun into the sand and sipped from his whisky. “Mars was destroyed more than two hours ago. Whoever they are, they are staring down at us from the moon’s surface, laughing over the fact that they’ve obliterated a planet from our familiar solar system.” the rough edged words crept over my shivering shoulder.

Two a.m. on a Tuesday morning and humanity has fallen into turmoil. The human heart of each woman, man and child has fallen to it’s darkest counterpart. I thought about my uncle’s presence and how much he’s willing to lay his life for my protection. This is the start to a story of survival, mystery and death; something that i’m responsible for admitting.

“Let’s go, I don’t feel safe here.” I whispered gently, staring at the once familiar moon. “Take me home.” I begged, a cloud of heated oxygen dropping from the cave of my mouth.

~ Thank-you for reading

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Happiness Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on happiness.

Happiness is something which we can’t describe in words it can only be felt from someone’s expression of a smile. Likewise, happiness is a signal or identification of good and prosperous life. Happiness is very simple to feel and difficult to describe. Moreover, happiness comes from within and no one can steal your happiness.

Can Money Buy You Happiness?

Every day we see and meet people who look happy from the outside but deep down they are broken and are sad from the inside. For many people, money is the main cause of happiness or grief. But this is not right. Money can buy you food, luxurious house, healthy lifestyle servants, and many more facilities but money can’t buy you happiness.

And if money can buy happiness then the rich would be the happiest person on the earth. But, we see a contrary image of the rich as they are sad, fearful, anxious, stressed, and suffering from various problems.

In addition, they have money still they lack in social life with their family especially their wives and this is the main cause of divorce among them.

Also, due to money, they feel insecurity that everyone is after their money so to safeguard their money and them they hire security. While the condition of the poor is just the opposite. They do not have money but they are happy with and stress-free from these problems.

In addition, they take care of their wife and children and their divorce rate is also very low.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Happiness Comes from Within

As we now know that we can’t buy happiness with money and there is no other shortcut to happiness. It is something that you feel from within.

In addition, true happiness comes from within yourself. Happiness is basically a state of mind.

Moreover, it can only be achieved by being positive and avoiding any negative thought in mind. And if we look at the bright side of ourselves only then we can be happy.

Happiness in a Relationship

People nowadays are not satisfied with their relationship because of their differences and much other reason. But for being happy in a relationship we have to understand that there are some rules or mutual understanding that keeps a relationship healthy and happy.

Firstly, take care of yourself then your partner because if you yourself are not happy then how can you make your partner happy.

Secondly, for a happy and healthy relationship give you partner some time and space. In addition, try to understand their feeling and comfort level because if you don’t understand these things then you won’t be able to properly understand your partner.

Most importantly, take initiative and plan to go out with your partner and family. Besides, if they have plans then go with them.

To conclude, we can say that happiness can only be achieved by having positive thinking and enjoying life. Also, for being happy and keeping the people around us happy we have to develop a healthy relationship with them. Additionally, we also have to give them the proper time.

FAQs about Happiness

Q.1 What is True Happiness? A.1 True happiness means the satisfaction that you find worthy. The long-lasting true happiness comes from life experience, a feeling of purpose, and a positive relationship.

Q.2 Who is happier the rich or the poor and who is more wealthy rich or poor? A.2 The poor are happier then the rich but if we talk about wealth the rich are more wealthy then the poor. Besides, wealth brings insecurity, anxiety and many other problems.

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3 Expert-Backed Ways to Convey Your Emotions through Writing

Last Updated: January 12, 2024 References

• Processing Your Emotions
• Creative Formating
• Describing Your Emotions

This article was co-authored by Nicole Moshfegh, PsyD . Dr. Nicole Moshfegh is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Author based in Los Angeles, California. Dr. Moshfegh specializes in multicultural competence and treating patients with mood and anxiety disorders and insomnia. She holds a BA in Psychology and Social Behavior from The University of California, Irvine (UCI), and an MA and Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) from Pepperdine University. Dr. Moshfegh completed her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Additionally, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, National Register of Health Service Psychologists, Los Angeles County Psychological Association, and Collaborative Family Healthcare Association. Dr. Moshfegh is also the best-selling author of "The Book of Sleep: 75 Strategies to Relieve Insomnia". There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 83,509 times.

Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words when you're talking about your feelings out loud. Writing them down is a great alternative! You could start keeping a journal, which has many benefits including stress relief. Creative writing is also a great emotional outlet, and you can express your feelings in a poem or song. If you want to express your feelings to someone else, try crafting a thoughtfully worded letter. These methods are all helpful, so choose the one that feels right and get started!

Things You Should Know

• Don’t worry about how it sounds; write about how you feel. You don’t have to follow any writing conventions—just let it all out in whatever way feels best to you. [1] X Research source
• Write about how you wish the situation could've gone. What would you have done differently if you had the chance to do it all over again?
• Make time to write every day. The more you sit down to express your emotions, the easier and more natural it will become!

Journaling to Process Your Emotions

• Don't worry about errors. Turn off the spell check feature if it's distracting you.

• For example, maybe you want to write about a fight you just had with your best friend. You can note what you talked about and then explain that the fight left you feeling like you weren't being valued. Both of you walked away without resolution. In your new version, write what you wish you had said differently. Maybe you could write that you convinced your friend to listen to you and you came to an understanding.

• You could select a quote such as this one from Dr. Joyce Brothers: "A strong positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success." [6] X Research source You could then write about how you've been feeling less confident lately and how that's been impacting your performance at work.
• After processing these feelings, you could use that as a springboard to write about ways that you can improve your self-image .

• What are some of the reasons I love Riley so much?
• Why do presentations make me nervous?
• How come I feel so much better after yoga?

• You could write, “Helen felt really frustrated today at work. She felt like it wasn't fair when her boss ignored her contributions at the meeting.”

• You don't have to devote large amounts of time to writing. Even 5 minutes a day help!
• Don't force yourself to write. If you really aren't feeling up to it, don't write that day. No one's judging you.

• Keeping an electronic journal is also a great choice. Try using a program such as Google docs that will save your work automatically. You can also access it from any device.

• Don't feel like you have to share your writing with anyone. It's totally fine to keep it private.

• A comfy chair in a corner of your home might feel right to you. You could also head to a nearby park for some fresh air while you write.

Using Other Creative Formats to Express Your Feelings

• Maybe you're going through a tough breakup. Write a story about someone else who is dealing with that.

• For example, maybe you've had an argument with an old friend. Come up with a character that is going through the same thing. You could create a dialogue of your character talking to their “fictional” friend.
• Don't be afraid to have a little fun with this! Maybe you've always wanted to travel the world. Let your character do that while experiencing “their” emotions.

• For example, your character could say something like, "Hey, it really bothers me when you're always late. It makes me feel like you don't value me. What gives?"

• Choose 1 emotion to focus on and shape your poem around that. For example, you could create a poem about feeling lonely.
• You can create multiple poems as you work through your feelings.

• Maybe you are newly in love. You can write verses about your first date, that fluttery feeling in your stomach, and feeling excited. Your chorus could be about not being able to wait to see that special someone again.

Describing Your Feelings to Someone Else

• Maybe you want to let your partner know that you would like to spend more time together. You might write down things like, “date-nights, no cell phones after 9 p.m., nightly dinner.”
• You might want to explain to your boss why you feel you deserve a raise. Your notes might include, “needing a new challenge, want to feel valued.”

• Instead of writing, “I must inform you that your recent behavior is causing me undue stress,” just say, “I've been feeling really upset about our last conversation.”

• For example, you could write to your partner, “I feel like you interrupt me whenever I try to talk to you about our relationship.”
• If you're writing to your boss, you could say, “I feel like I deserve the opportunity to take on more responsibility.”
• The body of the letter can be as long or as short as you like. Even a paragraph or 2 can help you get your point across.

• For example, write, “I feel like I have earned a raise.” “I feel like I have earned a raise!” might seem aggressive.
• Also try to avoid using a lot of bold font or italics. These can also make your reader feel defensive.

• If this is a very personal letter, try putting it away for a day. You can come back to it the next day and look at it with fresh eyes.
• You might feel better after writing and decide you don't need to send the letter. In that case, don't worry about editing!

Expert Q&A

• If you are angry, try writing a letter to the person who hurt you. You don't have to send it in order to feel better! Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Don't worry about making your writing perfect. It's fine to just write however you want. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/healtharticle.7-benefits-of-keeping-a-journal
• ↑ Nicole Moshfegh, PsyD. Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Expert Interview. 5 August 2021.
• ↑ https://puckermob.com/moblog/how-to-express-your-feelings-on-paper/
• ↑ https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a23178/dr-joyce-brothers-best-advice-quotes/
• ↑ https://blogs.psychcentral.com/everyday-creativity/2016/09/5-ways-to-process-your-emotions-through-writing/
• ↑ https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1
• ↑ https://www.tunedly.com/blogpost?blog=WritingSongLyricsSimplified
• ↑ https://www.themindfulword.org/2015/journal-dialogue-journaling-technique/
• ↑ https://writingcooperative.com/this-is-why-you-should-write-poetry-b588d091209f
• ↑ http://wordful.com/how-to-write-a-powerful-letter/
• ↑ https://thewritepractice.com/express-yourself/
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201305/how-express-feelings-and-how-not

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Writing Anxiety

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses the situational nature of writer’s block and other writing anxiety and suggests things you can try to feel more confident and optimistic about yourself as a writer.

What are writing anxiety and writer’s block?

“Writing anxiety” and “writer’s block” are informal terms for a wide variety of apprehensive and pessimistic feelings about writing. These feelings may not be pervasive in a person’s writing life. For example, you might feel perfectly fine writing a biology lab report but apprehensive about writing a paper on a novel. You may confidently tackle a paper about the sociology of gender but delete and start over twenty times when composing an email to a cute classmate to suggest a coffee date. In other words, writing anxiety and writers’ block are situational (Hjortshoj 7). These terms do NOT describe psychological attributes. People aren’t born anxious writers; rather, they become anxious or blocked through negative or difficult experiences with writing.

When do these negative feelings arise?

Although there is a great deal of variation among individuals, there are also some common experiences that writers in general find stressful.

For example, you may struggle when you are:

• adjusting to a new form of writing—for example, first year college writing, papers in a new field of study, or longer forms than you are used to (a long research paper, a senior thesis, a master’s thesis, a dissertation) (Hjortshoj 56-76).
• writing for a reader or readers who have been overly critical or demanding in the past.
• remembering negative criticism received in the past—even if the reader who criticized your work won’t be reading your writing this time.
• working with limited time or with a lot of unstructured time.
• responding to an assignment that seems unrelated to academic or life goals.
• dealing with troubling events outside of school.

What are some strategies for handling these feelings?

Get support.

Choose a writing buddy, someone you trust to encourage you in your writing life. Your writing buddy might be a friend or family member, a classmate, a teacher, a colleague, or a Writing Center tutor. Talk to your writing buddy about your ideas, your writing process, your worries, and your successes. Share pieces of your writing. Make checking in with your writing buddy a regular part of your schedule. When you share pieces of writing with your buddy, use our handout on asking for feedback .

In his book Understanding Writing Blocks, Keith Hjortshoj describes how isolation can harm writers, particularly students who are working on long projects not connected with coursework (134-135). He suggests that in addition to connecting with supportive individuals, such students can benefit from forming or joining a writing group, which functions in much the same way as a writing buddy. A group can provide readers, deadlines, support, praise, and constructive criticism. For help starting one, see our handout about writing groups .

Identify your strengths

Often, writers who are experiencing block or anxiety have a worse opinion of their own writing than anyone else! Make a list of the things you do well. You might ask a friend or colleague to help you generate such a list. Here are some possibilities to get you started:

• I explain things well to people.
• I get people’s interest.
• I have strong opinions.
• I listen well.
• I am critical of what I read.
• I see connections.

Choose at least one strength as your starting point. Instead of saying “I can’t write,” say “I am a writer who can …”

Recognize that writing is a complex process

Writing is an attempt to fix meaning on the page, but you know, and your readers know, that there is always more to be said on a topic. The best writers can do is to contribute what they know and feel about a topic at a particular point in time.

Writers often seek “flow,” which usually entails some sort of breakthrough followed by a beautifully coherent outpouring of knowledge. Flow is both a possibility—most people experience it at some point in their writing lives—and a myth. Inevitably, if you write over a long period of time and for many different situations, you will encounter obstacles. As Hjortshoj explains, obstacles are particularly common during times of transition—transitions to new writing roles or to new kinds of writing.

Think of yourself as an apprentice.

If block or apprehension is new for you, take time to understand the situations you are writing in. In particular, try to figure out what has changed in your writing life. Here are some possibilities:

• You are writing in a new format.
• You are writing longer papers than before.
• You are writing for new audiences.
• You are writing about new subject matter.
• You are turning in writing from different stages of the writing process—for example, planning stages or early drafts.

It makes sense to have trouble when dealing with a situation for the first time. It’s also likely that when you confront these new situations, you will learn and grow. Writing in new situations can be rewarding. Not every format or audience will be right for you, but you won’t know which ones might be right until you try them. Think of new writing situations as apprenticeships. When you’re doing a new kind of writing, learn as much as you can about it, gain as many skills in that area as you can, and when you finish the apprenticeship, decide which of the skills you learned will serve you well later on. You might be surprised.

Below are some suggestions for how to learn about new kinds of writing:

• Ask a lot of questions of people who are more experienced with this kind of writing. Here are some of the questions you might ask: What’s the purpose of this kind of writing? Who’s the audience? What are the most important elements to include? What’s not as important? How do you get started? How do you know when what you’ve written is good enough? How did you learn to write this way?
• Ask a lot of questions of the person who assigned you a piece of writing. If you have a paper, the best place to start is with the written assignment itself. For help with this, see our handout on understanding assignments .
• Look for examples of this kind of writing. (You can ask your instructor for a recommended example). Look, especially, for variation. There are often many different ways to write within a particular form. Look for ways that feel familiar to you, approaches that you like. You might want to look for published models or, if this seems too intimidating, look at your classmates’ writing. In either case, ask yourself questions about what these writers are doing, and take notes. How does the writer begin and end? In what order does the writer tell things? How and when does the writer convey her or his main point? How does the writer bring in other people’s ideas? What is the writer’s purpose? How is that purpose achieved?
• Read our handouts about how to write in specific fields or how to handle specific writing assignments.
• Listen critically to your readers. Before you dismiss or wholeheartedly accept what they say, try to understand them. If a reader has given you written comments, ask yourself questions to figure out the reader’s experience of your paper: What is this reader looking for? What am I doing that satisfies this reader? In what ways is this reader still unsatisfied? If you can’t answer these questions from the reader’s comments, then talk to the reader, or ask someone else to help you interpret the comments.
• Most importantly, don’t try to do everything at once. Start with reasonable expectations. You can’t write like an expert your first time out. Nobody does! Use the criticism you get.

Once you understand what readers want, you are in a better position to decide what to do with their criticisms. There are two extreme possibilities—dismissing the criticisms and accepting them all—but there is also a lot of middle ground. Figure out which criticisms are consistent with your own purposes, and do the hard work of engaging with them. Again, don’t expect an overnight turn-around; recognize that changing writing habits is a process and that papers are steps in the process.

Chances are that at some point in your writing life you will encounter readers who seem to dislike, disagree with, or miss the point of your work. Figuring out what to do with criticism from such readers is an important part of a writer’s growth.

Try new tactics when you get stuck

Often, writing blocks occur at particular stages of the writing process. The writing process is cyclical and variable. For different writers, the process may include reading, brainstorming, drafting, getting feedback, revising, and editing. These stages do not always happen in this order, and once a writer has been through a particular stage, chances are she or he hasn’t seen the last of that stage. For example, brainstorming may occur all along the way.

Figure out what your writing process looks like and whether there’s a particular stage where you tend to get stuck. Perhaps you love researching and taking notes on what you read, and you have a hard time moving from that work to getting started on your own first draft. Or once you have a draft, it seems set in stone and even though readers are asking you questions and making suggestions, you don’t know how to go back in and change it. Or just the opposite may be true; you revise and revise and don’t want to let the paper go.

Wherever you have trouble, take a longer look at what you do and what you might try. Sometimes what you do is working for you; it’s just a slow and difficult process. Other times, what you do may not be working; these are the times when you can look around for other approaches to try:

• Talk to your writing buddy and to other colleagues about what they do at the particular stage that gets you stuck.
• Read about possible new approaches in our handouts on brainstorming and revising .
• Try thinking of yourself as an apprentice to a stage of the writing process and give different strategies a shot.
• Cut your paper into pieces and tape them to the wall, use eight different colors of highlighters, draw a picture of your paper, read your paper out loud in the voice of your favorite movie star….

Okay, we’re kind of kidding with some of those last few suggestions, but there is no limit to what you can try (for some fun writing strategies, check out our online animated demos ). When it comes to conquering a block, give yourself permission to fall flat on your face. Trying and failing will you help you arrive at the thing that works for you.

Celebrate your successes

Start storing up positive experiences with writing. Whatever obstacles you’ve faced, celebrate the occasions when you overcome them. This could be something as simple as getting started, sharing your work with someone besides a teacher, revising a paper for the first time, trying out a new brainstorming strategy, or turning in a paper that has been particularly challenging for you. You define what a success is for you. Keep a log or journal of your writing successes and breakthroughs, how you did it, how you felt. This log can serve as a boost later in your writing life when you face new challenges.

Wait a minute, didn’t we already say that? Yes. It’s worth repeating. Most people find relief for various kinds of anxieties by getting support from others. Sometimes the best person to help you through a spell of worry is someone who’s done that for you before—a family member, a friend, a mentor. Maybe you don’t even need to talk with this person about writing; maybe you just need to be reminded to believe in yourself, that you can do it.

If you don’t know anyone on campus yet whom you have this kind of relationship with, reach out to someone who seems like they could be a good listener and supportive. There are a number of professional resources for you on campus, people you can talk through your ideas or your worries with. A great place to start is the UNC Writing Center. If you know you have a problem with writing anxiety, make an appointment well before the paper is due. You can come to the Writing Center with a draft or even before you’ve started writing. You can also approach your instructor with questions about your writing assignment. If you’re an undergraduate, your academic advisor and your residence hall advisor are other possible resources. Counselors at Counseling and Wellness Services are also available to talk with you about anxieties and concerns that extend beyond writing.

Apprehension about writing is a common condition on college campuses. Because writing is the most common means of sharing our knowledge, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we write. This handout has given some suggestions for how to relieve that pressure. Talk with others; realize we’re all learning; take an occasional risk; turn to the people who believe in you. Counter negative experiences by actively creating positive ones.

Even after you have tried all of these strategies and read every Writing Center handout, invariably you will still have negative experiences in your writing life. When you get a paper back with a bad grade on it or when you get a rejection letter from a journal, fend off the negative aspects of that experience. Try not to let them sink in; try not to let your disappointment fester. Instead, jump right back in to some area of the writing process: choose one suggestion the evaluator has made and work on it, or read and discuss the paper with a friend or colleague, or do some writing or revising—on this or any paper—as quickly as possible.

Failures of various kinds are an inevitable part of the writing process. Without them, it would be difficult if not impossible to grow as a writer. Learning often occurs in the wake of a startling event, something that stirs you up, something that makes you wonder. Use your failures to keep moving.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Hjortshoj, Keith. 2001. Understanding Writing Blocks . New York: Oxford University Press.

This is a particularly excellent resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Hjortshoj writes about his experiences working with university students experiencing block. He explains the transitional nature of most writing blocks and the importance of finding support from others when working on long projects.

Rose, Mike. 1985. When a Writer Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing-Process Problems . New York: Guilford.

This collection of empirical studies is written primarily for writing teachers, researchers, and tutors. Studies focus on writers of various ages, including young children, high school students, and college students.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How It Feels to Be Colored Me, by Zora Neale Hurston

"I remember the very day that I became colored"

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Zora Neal Hurston was a widely-acclaimed Black author of the early 1900s.

"A genius of the South, novelist, folklorist, anthropologist"—those are the words that Alice Walker had inscribed on the tombstone of Zora Neale Hurston. In this personal essay (first published in The World Tomorrow , May 1928), the acclaimed author of Their Eyes Were Watching God explores her own sense of identity through a series of memorable examples and striking metaphors . As Sharon L. Jones has observed, "Hurston's essay challenges the reader to consider race and ethnicity as fluid, evolving, and dynamic rather than static and unchanging"

- Critical Companion to Zora Neale Hurston , 2009

How It Feels to Be Colored Me

by Zora Neale Hurston

1 I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

2 I remember the very day that I became colored. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando. The native whites rode dusty horses, the Northern tourists chugged down the sandy village road in automobiles. The town knew the Southerners and never stopped cane chewing when they passed. But the Northerners were something else again. They were peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid. The more venturesome would come out on the porch to watch them go past and got just as much pleasure out of the tourists as the tourists got out of the village.

3 The front porch might seem a daring place for the rest of the town, but it was a gallery seat for me. My favorite place was atop the gatepost. Proscenium box for a born first-nighter. Not only did I enjoy the show, but I didn't mind the actors knowing that I liked it. I usually spoke to them in passing. I'd wave at them and when they returned my salute, I would say something like this: "Howdy-do-well-I-thank-you-where-you-goin'?" Usually, automobile or the horse paused at this, and after a queer exchange of compliments, I would probably "go a piece of the way" with them, as we say in farthest Florida. If one of my family happened to come to the front in time to see me, of course, negotiations would be rudely broken off. But even so, it is clear that I was the first "welcome-to-our-state" Floridian, and I hope the Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice.

4 During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there. They liked to hear me "speak pieces" and sing and wanted to see me dance the parse-me-la, and gave me generously of their small silver for doing these things, which seemed strange to me for I wanted to do them so much that I needed bribing to stop, only they didn't know it. The colored people gave no dimes. They deplored any joyful tendencies in me, but I was their Zora nevertheless. I belonged to them, to the nearby hotels, to the county—everybody's Zora.

5 But changes came in the family when I was thirteen, and I was sent to school in Jacksonville. I left Eatonville, the town of the oleanders, a Zora. When I disembarked from the riverboat at Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County anymore, I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown—warranted not to rub nor run.

6 But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more of less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

7 Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!" and the generation before said "Go!" I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it. No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think—to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.

8 The position of my white neighbor is much more difficult. No brown specter pulls up a chair beside me when I sit down to eat. No dark ghost thrusts its leg against mine in bed. The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting.

9 I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.

10 For instance at Barnard. "Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again.

11 Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me. For instance, when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiters. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in circumlocutions , but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks through to the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen—follow them exultingly. I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something—give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly.

12 "Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips.

13 Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored.

14 At certain times I have no race, I am me. When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue, Harlem City, feeling as snooty as the lions in front of the Forty-Second Street Library, for instance. So far as my feelings are concerned, Peggy Hopkins Joyce on the Boule Mich with her gorgeous raiment, stately carriage, knees knocking together in a most aristocratic manner, has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.

15 I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries. My country, right or wrong.

16 Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

17 But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless. A first-water diamond, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant. In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held—so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place—who knows?

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Identifying Your Feelings

How to discover and make sense of what you feel..

Posted January 19, 2018 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

The cornerstone of psychological health is communication. That's why we refer to psychotherapy as the "talking cure," or the process by which a person reveals themselves to an empathic professional. So, how does this happen?

It’s a two-stage process — opening up to oneself and then learning how to speak about those feelings to another. However, given how effectively our defense mechanisms work to hide emotions from consciousness, it’s often a challenge to know what one feels.

In fact, we often don’t. We seldom take our emotional temperature, and simply assume that what we feel is only what we’re consciously aware of: I’m in a good/bad mood today; work’s stressing me; I’m not angry, I just don’t feel like talking; I don’t really feel anything. We’re satisfied with that answer and accept it as something we just have to live with. It’s our karma.

But we don’t have to just live with it. There are tools that we can learn to help us identify what feelings are cooking beneath the surface that have more to do with our current state of affairs than we’d imagine.

You’ve heard me speak often of the significance of therapy in decoding what’s going on with us unconsciously. But what about the millions of people who will never have that experience, or will never enter therapy—because they can’t afford it, don’t believe in it, prefer to figure things out themselves, or see it as a symptom of weakness?

For the moment, let's assume that we can all benefit from soul searching, and that we’re all part of that group that may never pursue therapy. How can we discover and make sense of what we feel? And how can we determine how our feelings dictate our behavior?

Start by taking your emotional temperature.

Ask yourself:

• What feelings am I aware of having? (There are often many.)
• What is the most prominent? (Try to describe it to yourself. Also, don’t be afraid to push yourself past answers like "fine" or "okay." Continue by asking what "fine" means. We often resist even our own probing.)
• When did I become aware of this feeling?

I recommend having a notebook to record your questions and answers. Don’t rush through it. Describe each feeling thoroughly, and be sure to include pleasurable ones. It’s important to know what enhances your life; these are vital in providing some measure of balance when life is difficult.

These questions will lead to others and likely take you to different places—perhaps ones you haven’t traveled before. You may surprise yourself with details or memories that haven’t been available before.

Identify your stressors.

• What might be triggering this feeling?
• What’s happening (or not happening) in my daily life? (It helps to deconstruct one’s day, week, month. Pay particular attention to events, thoughts, or dreams that you have no control of and perhaps have decided ‘not to pay attention to’ because you cannot change them. This is a common pitfall. The fact that we have no control itself brings an emotional reaction.)

Perhaps your answer is, "I don’t even know how I feel." One direction to take in that situation is to examine your behavior and daily life. This can help to tease out feelings not recognized initially. So, ask:

• How is my home life?
• Am I getting along with my partner? My children? My parents and siblings?
• How am I doing at work? Am I enjoying my work? Am I getting along with my co-workers? My boss? What are they telling me about me and their feelings about me? Can I see validity in what they’re saying?

Look for patterns that may be forming. Explore them. What do they tell you?

Notice if you start judging what you feel.

"I don’t have any reason to feel bad ( anxious , depressed )," you may say. Wait for an outcome before assuming the worst. We tend to chastise ourselves (as if feelings follow reason!). The reality is that life events generate feelings. They simply are. Though we may decide which feelings to attend to, we don’t decide to feel or not feel. It’s our project to identify them and give them room to breathe.

This is particularly important when it comes to the threat of illness: for instance, your doctor notices that you or a loved one has an unidentified mass on one of your organs, your blood work is erratic, etc. While there are certainly many people for whom the logic of “why assume the worst?” actually works, I suspect there are more people for whom it doesn’t work. They can’t help but be frightened. Efforts on their part to dismiss the anxious or depressed feelings are fruitless. Threat looms large and gets in the way of other events/realities/pleasures in the person’s life.

Telling that person that they "shouldn’t be thinking of the negatives" is fruitless, and in fact, potentially dangerous. The person ends up believing that their inability to dismiss the fear is a failure and a sign of weakness. (And that’s a really bad position to be in when one is trying to do something to help oneself.)

Speak about your feelings, and let go of the fear.

The fact is that the more that we admit our terrors to ourselves and our loved ones, the more likely they are to diminish in size. And it makes sense. The more stifled a feeling, the greater its intensity. Feelings function like a pressure cooker: Pressure increases without release. Then, once released, the intensity is reduced. The corollary is the fact that feelings that are denied or dismissed do NOT diminish in size or disappear, but are intensified. Think of knee pain. It gets louder and more insistent the longer we neglect it.

Finally, by way of reassurance, it’s important to note that people are often afraid to face a feeling because of what it will lead to. They needn’t be. Confronting a feeling is a very different thing than our response to it. These are two very separate realities. Contrary to what we may imagine, facing one’s anger does not mean that we will act out on it and do something destructive. Except in cases of severe pathology or drug-altered states, our response to a feeling remains in our control.

Joan Cusack Handler, Ph.D., is a poet, memoirist, and psychologist. Her widely published poems have won five Pushcart nominations.

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Feelings and Emotions: The Essay, Part One

Part One: A plumber’s version

© Al Turtle 2000 Print this Paper in PDF

So many time I have found it useful to have learned about emotions.  I was not taught any of this when I was kid, and I went through so many experiences in life completely confused when it came to understanding, managing, and living with feelings.  I was also at a complete disadvantage when someone would flash their knowledge of feelings.  Like so  many, I learned to be respectful when someone shifted, saying, “I think you are being unfair. No, I feel you are being unfair.”

When I entered graduate school in counseling, my advisor asked my what a “feeling” was.   Whatever I said to him I do not recall, but he told me that I needed to get into the counseling program quick, to fix my woeful ignorance.

My Masters paper was written upon Anger: A Resource Paper for Teachers.  I had come a long way in a year. That paper, like my early training in Counseling, was a major turning point in my life.  It marked the path that lead to this set of Essays, which I think of as a plumber’s version of emotions – i.e. a description of emotions that even an uncomplicated guy could learn from.

And so, if you are confused about the role of emotions in your life, here we go with all the answers.

Thoughts vs Emotions

Before I launch into the guts of the matter, let me settle an important point.  Feelings are feelings and feelings are not thoughts.   People use the word “feeling” when they are speaking of thoughts often.  I think they learn this along the way, but also I think that many people are somewhat intimidated by the word “feeling” and thus people who use it are often treated as more believable.  Whatever, let me set the record straight right up front.

As I move along, you may get the impression that feelings are a bit more real than thought.  I believe that.  Feelings are very real.  They happen.  They exist even when people say they are not there.  People can misunderstand feeling, mis-label them, but the underlying feelings are still present. Feelings are very objective.  Researchers know what babies are feeling in the womb.  I can measure the contents of  your blood stream and thus measure and describe some of  your feelings.

I can not do that about your thoughts.  Thoughts or thought processes seem to be much more vague.  I can think one thing all morning and think the opposite all afternoon.  I can fully believe that which I fully disbelieve in 10 minutes.  I think of thoughts a little the way I think of data in a computer.  Words, words, words.

But feelings seem very solid.  I believe it is silly to trust thoughts and be hesitant about feelings.  Still that seems to be what our culture teaches.

Feel that.. vs Think that..

One thing I want to encourage you to do right now.  Stop saying. “I feel that….” or “I feel like….”   Those are some of the more misleading statements in the English language.  Use the word “feel” for a feeling and use the word “think” for a thought.

“I feel that you are cheating me.” Is a nice sentence, but critically defective.  The feeling is left out of it.  The sentence should read “I feel angry when I think you are cheating me.”  Now the “feeling” has been put back in.  And notice that the feeling, that was left out, is pretty important.

Learn to use “thought words” and separate them from “feeling words”.  I have found this to significantly clear up a great amount of confusion.

Thought words: think, believe, recall, imagine, guess, have a hunch.  Most thought words are followed by “that”.  “I believe that you are….”

I think that if you hear the word “feel” followed by “that”, we are not into talking about “feelings.”

Words and Symbols

That counseling profession taught me that all psychology was based on this wheel.   So here it is.

The sentence was taught me as, “Words and Symbols evoke Feelings, which evoke Thought Processes, which are full of Words and Symbols.”

I think of words as symbols.  They have spelling and use letters and when spoken, have sounds.  Other symbols may not have letters, may have only sounds, or just gestures.  Objects can be a symbol.

Studying General Semantics years ago, I learned that “words” do not have meaning.  People have meaning and people use words to try to communicate the meaning they have.  A dictionary, I recall, was a history book of the meanings that people have used a word for.   I learned to never argue about the meaning of a word, but to ask the user what they meant by it.  Who knows if they have the same meaning I have for a certain word?

The same is true of all symbols.  They mean different things to different people.  There is no right meaning for a word or a symbol. I suggest you get used to this idea.

Still all these words or symbols evoke feelings.  Yes, the feelings come first, before the thoughts.  I guess this is pretty basic to the way our brains work – fast.  If I show you a symbol of danger, your body starts to respond to that danger before the good old cortex decides what to do.  (See my Chapter on Safety, The Lizard.)  Apparently you body does not wait to think.  It moves.

My favorite word for this “evoking” is the word TRIGGER.  I use it a lot.  For me it means a “little thing” that kicks off something that may be a lot bigger.   Also it suggests a connection but not a causal connection.  I like that.  A symbol may trigger an emotion one time and may not the next time.

Emotions, Feelings, Affect

While I will define these words more fully later, here is my short description.  A feeling is an event in a person’s body that can be strong or weak or in-between.

I use the word Feeling and Emotion in the same way.  I think we have enough trouble getting the idea without splitting hairs over the difference between them.

Affect is a word often used in the medical world to refer to signs of the feelings a person is experiencing.  A nurse might make a note that a patient’s affect was agitated, which seems be the same as “the patient displayed behavior that indicates he feels agitated.”  Most people won’t run into the word “affect.”

Now, these events in the body have an effect on the brain.  Often the event is chemical and the chemicals (hormones, etc.) cause all sorts of shifts in the brain.  Still the important idea is that the events, the feelings, trigger thought processes – chains of thoughts.

Differing events trigger differing thought processes.  When a person is angry, some parts of the cortex are shut down and others are awakened.  When a person is scared, other parts are affected.   I think it is fascinating to watch people when their emotions are strong and to witness how different are the memories available to them in one state of emotions from another.

Thought Processes

I think of thought processes as strings of symbols like sentences.  They start, have a middle and come to an end.  Paragraphs are to me a little like a single thought process.  If I am trying to make a point, I will start, say some more and then finally reach an end.

I don’t think of thought processes as having any sort of reality to them per se.  I can think of a green elephant, but that doesn’t make a green elephant appear.  I can think that you are a crook, but that doesn’t make you a crook.

However, thought processes are full of symbols and words.  That’s the way our cortexes work and store things.  And those wonderful words and symbols may trigger new emotions.

And round we go, day in day out, all through our lives.  Fascinating and simple.

My profession told me that all kinds of therapy work on one or more parts of this wheel.

Giving people medicine attempts to interfere with the emotions that are triggered by the words and symbols.

Psycho Education or teaching, and that is what I am doing here, tries to change the thought processes that are kicked off by the emotions.  It also attempts to change the words and symbols those thought processes contain.

Behavior Modification often seeks to change the link between a word or a symbol and the emotions that are evoked.

Again, pretty simple, but fascinating.

Simplest of all emotions: Attraction

This paper will lead you to some interesting places and so let me start with something fun.  The simplest of all emotions is the emotion of attraction.   There are lots of words for this emotion but what I want you to do is experience it, now.

Think of the foods in your refrigerator and think of whether they “attract” you or “repel” you.  Just observe yourself and this one dimension of attraction. Now think of attraction as a measurable scale.

Plus 10 to minus 10

Absolute, powerful attraction, is a plus 10.  “Who cares”, or a neutral feeling is a zero.   Absolute and powerful feelings of getting away from it are minus 10.

Try this on a menu in a restaurant.  I bet you can “score” everything.

Now look around and everything and everyone in your life.  See the scores!  We often gather a lot of high plus score objects to us and put a lot of high negative things in the garbage.

This is a feeling.   Ask yourself, “Do feelings stay the same?”  Nope.  Is there any “right” or “wrong” about these scores?  Nope.  Does anyone have the same scores you have?  Nope.

Welcome to the world of feelings!  They are part of you, unique to you, and cannot be wrong!  They just are.

And so here I go with the best definition for feelings or emotions that I can come up with.  After I give you this definition I will give three examples that illustrate all parts of the definition.  Then I will describe the four prime emotions.

Remember that these are my definitions, not the “official” definitions.

An emotion has five distinct qualities: facticity, amount, consciousness, label and value.

An event in the body

An emotion is an event in your body. It actually happens.  It is measurable.  A person does not even need to be conscious to have emotions.  An emotion is not a figment of the imagination.

Since it is an event, an emotion exists in time.  They start, and the end.

It is possible to identify what babies feel even before they are born.  (The primary emotion they feel is pleasure, by the way.)

Chemical in nature: Intensity

Most emotions are chemicals.  All emotions act as if they were chemical.  The point here is that emotions do not click on and off.  And emotion starts, grows bigger and bigger and then may decrease until finally it ends.

Emotions always have an “amount” or intensity to them.  The question is never are you angry or not angry – yes or no.  The question is how angry are you.  How angry are you now?  And now?

As I mentioned in the simple emotion of attraction, I find it useful to put a number on the level of an emotion.  Zero means none.  I think of five as maximum.  And so to accurately speak of emotions one can say, “I was scared at a 5 level for a bit, but it decreased a while ago to about 3.  Now I am just a bit nervous, perhaps a 1.”

A decrease in intensity is often called a release or is spoke of as relief.  Remember this for later.

There is a component of awareness that comes with emotions.  One can be completely unaware of an emotion ripping through the body.  Or one can be unaware until an emotion reaches a certain level of intensity.  Or some even can bring an emotion to your awareness.

Some people are almost completely unaware of their own emotions.  Some are exquisitely sensitive.

One confusion about emotions is the difference between the emotion as an event, and the emotion as an experience.  It is possible for an emotion to begin at one time and to start affecting your behavior while you are still not aware of it.  At some point you become aware of the emotion and at that point your subjective awareness begins.  That awareness may continue until the level of that emotion is quite a bit lower.  Then the event may continue for a bit after you are no longer aware. If I ask you about your experience and I measure your emotional experience, reports may be quite different.

Another very difficult problem is that I can be having an emotion, I can be displaying signs of that emotion, others can observe these signs, and I can be completely unaware. Others may be much more aware of my feelings than I am.  In many ways I am an open book about some of my emotions.  I can try to keep them hidden, but feelings can be hard to hide.

When we speak about emotions, really we are reporting on them.  We are labeling what we are feeling.  And we can mislabel feelings quite easily.  When my professor asked me to describe an emotion and when I could not, he handed me a large list of words people have used for emotions.  I found this quite useful and include this list at the end of this chapter.

Social Value

Finally, emotions have value in our culture.  Some emotions are desirable at certain times and undesirable at others.  Some emotions are considered “bad” emotions.

For instance, I was taught that all emotions just “get in the way.”  In contrast I have learned that life is greatly more enjoyable when I treasure the emotions that move in me and others.

Before I go to work sharing my thoughts about the “big” emotions, I would like to give you some examples that I hope will illustrate all the parts of the definition.

Many would not thing of hunger as an emotion, but I think it is an excellent starting place.  Hunger is an event in your body.  It comes and goes.  It gets stronger and weaker.  Its chemistry relates to blood sugar levels in your body.

Note how awareness is involved.  Aren’t there times when you have worked for a while and then suddenly become aware of how hungry you are?  Truly, you’ve been hungry for some time, but just haven’t noticed.  “Wow! Am I famished! I could eat a horse.”  This is the exclamation of a person who has been distracted from the slow growing feeling of hunger.

Heck, I can remain hungry for some time during dinner. And I may still be eating while my hunger goes away.

Most people do not have any trouble reporting on their hunger.

But look at the issue of social value.  Ask yourself, what is the value of being hungry one hour before dinner time?  I’ve found it is a good time to not snack even though my stomach is growling. Then “dinner is served” and hunger is suddenly of high value.  “Aren’t you hungry, dear?  What’s the matter?”

This is a similar emotion in that it happens, grows larger and grows smaller (chemical).  The question is not “Are you thirsty?” but “How thirsty are you?”  I think thirst has something to do with inter-cellular water levels (event).

Again, a person can get thirsty without noticing it.  Think of how taverns take advantage of awareness.  They show customers pictures of water running, of salty products and even put popcorn on the tables, all to bring you awareness of your levels of thirst.  If you were only slightly thirsty when you arrived, the scene will not raise the level of your thirst, but will raise your awareness of it.

Most people are clear about their reporting of thirst, and speak clearly.

And again the social value of being thirsty is pretty simple. In most situations I think being thirsty is socially acceptable.

But do take notice that a person may say they are “thirsty for a cold beer,” when that is not exactly the emotion of thirst, but a matter of a desire for a particular taste or temperature. The label “thirsty” is being used differently.

Now let’s get into some fun.  Alertness I think of as the feeling of being awake or sleepy.  The more alert you are, the wider your eyes are and the more you tend to want to move.  The less alert you are, the more you yawn, look sleepy and tend to move less.

Alertness has to do with the reticular activating system in our brain.  It happens.  (Event)

The feeling of alertness goes up and down during the day and all night.  It becomes more or less intense (chemical).  Most adults have about a 90 minute cycle: alert at some point and then much slower about 45 minutes later.  Dreams take place in the alert part of our sleep periods.

A person can be sleepy and yawning while they think they are wide awake.  Here is an emotion that is quite visible to others, and yet may be out of our awareness.

Here is a story I tell my clients.  Imagine an 8-year old boy.  It is about 7:30 in the evening.  He is yawning.  A parent says to him, “Are you sleepy?”  The boy jerks, widens his eyes and says, :”Nope, definitely not!”  Here is a report about an emotion that is obviously out of sync with the “actual” emotion.  He is sleepy, but says he is not.  People can lie about their emotions quite easily.  What is going on here?  Well, the boy is actually answering a different question that the one being asked.  He is answering the question, “Do you want to be sent to bed?”  His answer is now obviously valid, where before it was confusing.

My point is that reports of emotions can be and are normally widely different from the emotion being felt or being observed.

And what of the social value of alertness?  During a school class or at church yawning is frowned on.  On Christmas Eve being wide awake is a handicap.

Need to pee

Not often thought of as an emotion, still it has all the characteristics.  The need does happen in your body (event). It involves chemical changes in the tissues of and surrounding your bladder. It grows more and more intense over time.

One can need to pee for quite some time before one becomes aware of it.  As an older man, I am quite aware of this phenomenon in the early morning.  Sometimes awareness can seem to increase the intensity.

But now I want to introduce another point about reporting.  Let’s say a friend is picking me up for a drive.  He asks if I need to use the bathroom.  I say, “No.”  He says that there will be not place to stop for about 2 hours, and now I change my report.  I say, “Yes.”  The report of an emotion can change based on a change in the situation while there is no change in the subjective feeling.

The social value of this “emotion” is also fascinating.  I think of how one person saying, “I need to visit the facilities,” can trigger many people getting up and going there together.  And, I recall once in military boot camp a sailor who was not allowed to go to the “head” as a kind of training incident – he was shamed.

Summary of Emotions: Part 1

Let us see where we have gotten so far.

• Emotions are not thoughts, beliefs or ideas
• Emotions are triggered within a person, never caused by the external world.
• Different emotions lead to different thoughts
• Emotions actually happen and have intensity that varies.
• Emotions and the reports of them can be quite different.
• Emotions occur whether we are aware of them or not.
• Other people can sometimes see our emotions, which we unaware of.
• Society has all sorts of rules around emotions.
• My boundary rules: All emotions are valid. and No one can make you feel anything.

Next Part on Feelings and Emotions

Feelings and Emotions: The Essay, Part One — 9 Comments

Curious in reference to emotions vs thoughts in the context that all emotions are not only reflective of past experiences (memories) but also the present state of mind also encompassing any current environmental factors.These must be considered relevant in relation to an action occurring. As we react to a situation, symbols – verbal and visual – are we not relying on the core basic thought pattern that is most paramount for all species – Survival ? Therefore I wonder if the topic regarding the chicken and the egg need to be discussed. I wish to say this is the first article of yours I have read and intend to follow up with additional research of your past articles. Thank you for the insight.. Enjoy the Day – with PMA Benny

Dear Al Turtle,

I refer to your essay about Emotion vs Thoughts.

I love your writing style! You make it so easy for a new comer to grasp the concept in the most simple way. I would like to read more of your essays…where can i look them up?

Thanks for the compliments. Most of my writings are in two places. This website http://www.alturtle.com has a couple of hundred articles. I have written quite alot more on http://www.marriageadvoceates.com in a section called Turtle’s Whiteboard . Enjoy.

i love the article

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Understanding others’ feelings: what is empathy and why do we need it?

Senior Lecturer in Social Neuroscience, Monash University

Disclosure statement

Pascal Molenberghs receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award: DE130100120) and Heart Foundation (Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship: 1000458).

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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This is the introductory essay in our series on understanding others’ feelings. In it we will examine empathy, including what it is, whether our doctors need more of it, and when too much may not be a good thing.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network . There are three ways of looking at empathy.

First there is affective empathy. This is the ability to share the emotions of others. People who score high on affective empathy are those who, for example, show a strong visceral reaction when watching a scary movie.

They feel scared or feel others’ pain strongly within themselves when seeing others scared or in pain.

Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand the emotions of others. A good example is the psychologist who understands the emotions of the client in a rational way, but does not necessarily share the emotions of the client in a visceral sense.

Finally, there’s emotional regulation. This refers to the ability to regulate one’s emotions. For example, surgeons need to control their emotions when operating on a patient.

Another way to understand empathy is to distinguish it from other related constructs. For example, empathy involves self-awareness , as well as distinction between the self and the other. In that sense it is different from mimicry, or imitation.

Many animals might show signs of mimicry or emotional contagion to another animal in pain. But without some level of self-awareness, and distinction between the self and the other, it is not empathy in a strict sense. Empathy is also different from sympathy, which involves feeling concern for the suffering of another person and a desire to help.

That said, empathy is not a unique human experience. It has been observed in many non-human primates and even rats .

People often say psychopaths lack empathy but this is not always the case. In fact, psychopathy is enabled by good cognitive empathic abilities - you need to understand what your victim is feeling when you are torturing them. What psychopaths typically lack is sympathy. They know the other person is suffering but they just don’t care.

Research has also shown those with psychopathic traits are often very good at regulating their emotions .

Why do we need it?

Empathy is important because it helps us understand how others are feeling so we can respond appropriately to the situation. It is typically associated with social behaviour and there is lots of research showing that greater empathy leads to more helping behaviour.

However, this is not always the case. Empathy can also inhibit social actions, or even lead to amoral behaviour . For example, someone who sees a car accident and is overwhelmed by emotions witnessing the victim in severe pain might be less likely to help that person.

Similarly, strong empathetic feelings for members of our own family or our own social or racial group might lead to hate or aggression towards those we perceive as a threat. Think about a mother or father protecting their baby or a nationalist protecting their country.

People who are good at reading others’ emotions, such as manipulators, fortune-tellers or psychics, might also use their excellent empathetic skills for their own benefit by deceiving others.

Interestingly, people with higher psychopathic traits typically show more utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas such as the footbridge problem. In this thought experiment, people have to decide whether to push a person off a bridge to stop a train about to kill five others laying on the track.

The psychopath would more often than not choose to push the person off the bridge. This is following the utilitarian philosophy that holds saving the life of five people by killing one person is a good thing. So one could argue those with psychopathic tendencies are more moral than normal people – who probably wouldn’t push the person off the bridge – as they are less influenced by emotions when making moral decisions.

How is empathy measured?

Empathy is often measured with self-report questionnaires such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) or Questionnaire for Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE).

These typically ask people to indicate how much they agree with statements that measure different types of empathy.

The QCAE, for instance, has statements such as, “It affects me very much when one of my friends is upset”, which is a measure of affective empathy.

Cognitive empathy is determined by the QCAE by putting value on a statement such as, “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.”

Using the QCAE, we recently found people who score higher on affective empathy have more grey matter, which is a collection of different types of nerve cells, in an area of the brain called the anterior insula.

This area is often involved in regulating positive and negative emotions by integrating environmental stimulants – such as seeing a car accident - with visceral and automatic bodily sensations.

We also found people who score higher on cognitive empathy had more grey matter in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.

This area is typically activated during more cognitive processes, such as Theory of Mind, which is the ability to attribute mental beliefs to yourself and another person. It also involves understanding that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives different from one’s own.

Can empathy be selective?

Research shows we typically feel more empathy for members of our own group , such as those from our ethnic group. For example, one study scanned the brains of Chinese and Caucasian participants while they watched videos of members of their own ethnic group in pain. They also observed people from a different ethnic group in pain.

The researchers found that a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is often active when we see others in pain, was less active when participants saw members of ethnic groups different from their own in pain.

Other studies have found brain areas involved in empathy are less active when watching people in pain who act unfairly . We even see activation in brain areas involved in subjective pleasure , such as the ventral striatum, when watching a rival sport team fail.

Yet, we do not always feel less empathy for those who aren’t members of our own group. In our recent study , students had to give monetary rewards or painful electrical shocks to students from the same or a different university. We scanned their brain responses when this happened.

Brain areas involved in rewarding others were more active when people rewarded members of their own group, but areas involved in harming others were equally active for both groups.

These results correspond to observations in daily life. We generally feel happier if our own group members win something, but we’re unlikely to harm others just because they belong to a different group, culture or race. In general, ingroup bias is more about ingroup love rather than outgroup hate.

Yet in some situations, it could be helpful to feel less empathy for a particular group of people. For example, in war it might be beneficial to feel less empathy for people you are trying to kill, especially if they are also trying to harm you.

To investigate, we conducted another brain imaging study . We asked people to watch videos from a violent video game in which a person was shooting innocent civilians (unjustified violence) or enemy soldiers (justified violence).

While watching the videos, people had to pretend they were killing real people. We found the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, typically active when people harm others, was active when people shot innocent civilians. The more guilt participants felt about shooting civilians, the greater the response in this region.

However, the same area was not activated when people shot the soldier that was trying to kill them.

The results provide insight into how people regulate their emotions. They also show the brain mechanisms typically implicated when harming others become less active when the violence against a particular group is seen as justified.

This might provide future insights into how people become desensitised to violence or why some people feel more or less guilty about harming others.

Our empathetic brain has evolved to be highly adaptive to different types of situations. Having empathy is very useful as it often helps to understand others so we can help or deceive them, but sometimes we need to be able to switch off our empathetic feelings to protect our own lives, and those of others.

Tomorrow’s article will look at whether art can cultivate empathy.

• Theory of mind
• Emotional contagion
• Understanding others' feelings

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How to Focus on Writing an Essay (Ultimate Guide)

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: February 19, 2022  - Last updated: March 25, 2022

Categories Education , Self Improvement , Writing

One of the main problems students face when writing an essay is a lack of concentration. There is nothing worse than a lack of concentration during a school exam – it can be equally difficult to write an essay when you are already behind and feeling the pressure. Before you start academic writing, whether for school or for college, it is important to find a way to focus on the task at hand. The following tips will help any student focus in order to write a good essay.

Why We Lose Focus

Believe it or not, our minds are programmed by evolution to lose focus because it is a mechanism essential for survival. After processing something we have paid attention to, our brain notices things that are either dangerous or desirable.

In our hunter-gatherer days, when we saw a wild animal, our brain focused on that dangerous animal. When something tasty grew in the forest, our brain focused on that tasty plant.

In the modern world, our brains still try to do their job when we try to write a school paper. But instead of focusing on wild animals, they focus on social media sites, Facebook, and anything else that is considered desirable.

As a result, we pay a high price: It takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes or more before we can focus again. Distractions are poison for long periods of concentrated work.

Nor are all distractions external. The opposite is true. About 40 percent of all distractions are internal thought processes. We can get lost in a sea of thoughts that take up all of our attention, which can cause us to stop paying attention to what we should be doing.

This makes it all the more important to find ways to focus on writing the essay, as this helps to keep our thoughts in the right place. And to make sure we write the essays the right way!

7 Ways to Focus While Writing Essays

Essays are an essential writing skill for all students – whether at the level of a college essay or in school. There are a number of things that help us stay focused.

The most important thing is not to wait until the moment before writing to decide what you actually want to say. When writing an essay, you should have a good idea of what you want to say, how you want to say it, and how you want to support your thesis.

If you follow a specific outline when writing your essay, you are much less likely to suffer from writer’s block. You will also be better able to present your arguments clearly and engage in good writing practices, that will serve you well whether you need to tackle an essay or even a research paper.

1. Understand the Esssay Process

It will help you to have a clear idea of the whole process of essay (and non-fiction) writing.

The process is:

• Research : sift through existing arguments and background information relevant to the essay prompt.
• Ideas : Formulate your own arguments and ideas about the essay topic. The main idea will go in your thesis statement, and usually will appear in the Introduction of your essay.
• Outline : create an outline of your main arguments to guide your writing, including citations and references.
• Writing : Write your essay with as much clarity as possible. From the essay introduction all the way down to your final conclusion.
• Revising : Review and edit your essay, getting each body paragraph to flow well and progress your overall argument.

Anyone who has ever written an essay can probably recite these steps in their sleep. But it’s not enough to memorize the process.

2. Avoid Research Recursion Syndrome

Cal Newton, in his book How to Become a Straight-A Student , describes a phenomenon that can lead to endlessly searching for research sources, either out of fear of not having enough – or out of a desire to constantly improve one’s work.

When you do not complete the research process, you embark on a search for sources that consume too much time and energy, which is detrimental to the rest of the essay writing process.

The best way to avoid getting into endless research loops is to be clear about how much research is actually required for the various points you make in your essay.

For critical points, you may need two or more citations; for less important ones, only one source.

Take a broad research approach first: find a readable general source on the topic first, perhaps use an AI summary tool to get an overview (see the “Tools” section later in this article), and search the bibliography for interesting specific sources to consult.

You can use the Internet to your advantage, but you should avoid citing it unless absolutely necessary. For academic papers, you are usually better served by citing academic books and papers that are referenced and perhaps even peer-reviewed. Google Scholar is a tool you can use to help find these sources.

3. Be Clear About the Topic of the Essay

Nothing undermines your efforts to focus on the topic more than writing a bunch of stuff only to find that you do not quite address the essay question!

The first thing you should do is take the time to digest FULLY the essay question or topic. What exactly does it mean? What angle is best suited to answer the question? Do you already have initial ideas about how to bring the topic to life? Think about all of this – and jot it down in bullet points – before you start researching, outlining, and writing.

For a complex sentence, it can be helpful to break down the sections in parentheses – and then represent them visually, e.g., as a drawing, mind map, Venn diagram, doodle… The point is that you have used an active technique to take the sentence apart and see how one part relates to the other. A kind of theme analysis.

It’s also important to keep your focus on the topic while researching and writing.

It’s amazing how quickly you can lose sight of the topic if you do not make sure it’s always at the forefront of your mind while writing.

The best way to keep the prompt in front of you is to keep it in front of you! I personally use a notebook, but you can also use a PostIt on your screen, a whiteboard, or other ways to have a simple statement and maybe 3-5 bullet points that you really want to address.

4. Be Clear About the Type of Essay You Want to Write

There are a number of different terms associated with an academic essay, and it’s a good idea to know them in order to write the best response.

• Expository Essay : requires the student to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea and set forth an argument.
• Descriptive Essay : requires the student to describe something, in order to develop the student’s written accounts of particular experiences.
• Narrative Essay : requires the student to tell a story – whether anecdotal, personal, or experiential. Often requires creative writing.
• Timed Essay : require a writing sample within a limited time period.
• Persuasive Essay : requires the student to attempt to get the reader to agree with his or her point of view.
• Argumentative Essay : requires the student to establish a position on the essay topic.

5. Use Essay Structure to Help You Focus

Some back and forth examinations of arguments are useful in academic papers to show that you know the different sides of an argument. However, you usually choose one side or the other and support it with evidence and arguments.

If you structure your essay clearly and have a clear line of argument, you will work better overall and be able to concentrate more easily. This is where a clear and detailed outline and perhaps the use of mind mapping (as I do) can help.

As an example, take a look at the mind map and outline I created before writing this article.

The rough ideas were brainstormed before I did more detailed research and recorded the subtopics. The subtopics, by the way, are not strictly in the order I wrote them – but my first draft follows the order of the main topics as I laid them out in the mind map.

The trick to developing a good, clear structure is to first capture the main line in an essay outline, and then start fleshing out that outline.

6. Include Source Material Directly in Your Outline

Make sure you can easily move blocks around to get a clearer overall line through your essay.

A clear outline will also help you get your essay to the right length: Know how many words you need for each section, so you can make sure you do not write one section too much and another too little. This way, you’ll have a balanced essay that covers the different points well.

Think of quotes and citations as blocks that you can insert into the structure of your essay – set aside a source and incorporate it when it makes sense to you. Do not be afraid to swap them out if you find a better quote.

7. Some Additional Structure Tips for Essay Focus

Effective structuring will make the difference between a good essay and a great essay. It’ll help you deliver a successful essay that will win you points, and boost your confidence.

Write clearly and simply. Use an active tense. Use quality sources.

Look for surprises and really interesting points – chances are, if they surprise and stimulate you, they will do the same for others when you write about them!

Write the introductory paragraph and conclusion last!

Learn to Sift Through Ideas and Concepts Quickly

The following advice is very useful not only for essay writing but also for learning in general.

Chunking is a very valuable concept when it comes to gathering research material, sorting it into buckets, using it, and writing with it.

Think of it as large pieces and small pieces.

A whole section of an essay can be one big chunk into which you insert a whole series of smaller chunks.

In nonfiction writing, which includes essay writing, you can think of a small section as a specific idea expressed in a few sentences at most.

Breaking your ideas down into individual paragraphs (even if you group them later) can do wonders for gaining clarity of thought flow and connections.

Nonlinear Work

Working non-linearly is important: It’s a fact that we can not write down all of our ideas one by one in one sitting; at least, most of us do not.

If we have a system for putting ideas and evidence we encounter in the right place in our essay structure, we make our lives much easier.

Broadly speaking, it will help you to stick roughly to the following work structure:

1. Define the objective

2. Research

I say “roughly” because in practice there will be some overlap with other areas. But if you have a rough flow, you can better manage your overall process and energy.

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to write first drafts before tweaking grammar, spelling, structure, etc. The faster you can get an overview of your essay, the more motivated and original your work is likely to be.

Quick Questions to Keep Asking as You Write

In journalism, there are classic questions that are asked at every stage of research and writing: Who, What, When, How, and Why.

These questions are also very useful in essay writing because if you remember to ask (and answer) the “how” and the “why” at each stage of your essay, you will bring your essay to life.

These simple questions will help you focus on your argument and the evidence you have to support it.

Sometimes it can be easy to get lost in details and not see the forest for the trees.

A good solution to this is to step back from writing. Literally, stop for a few moments or minutes and remember K.I.S.S.: Keep It Super Simple (in the original it’s Keep It Simple Stupid – but I prefer my wording!).

Ask yourself: does the basic argument make sense? What is the main point you want to make? What is the main point that is missing? What is the most important thing the essay needs now to make it work better?

If you can not find the answer to any of these questions, ask yourself, “ How can I figure this out quickly? ” – let your mind find a solution.

If THAT does not work, you can try saying to yourself, “ If I had the answer to this question, what would it be? ” Basically, this is a psychological trick to enable yourself (and your mind) to find the right connections and name them.

Methods to Help You Focus Better When Studying and Writing Essays

There are a number of things you can do to help your overall concentration, which will also help you when writing your essays.

The Pomodoro Technique

You can use the ” Pomodoro Technique” to complete short, focused periods of work (sprints) each day that will help you get into the right frame of mind.

The basic idea is that you set a timer for 25 minutes and then work during that time without distractions. There are free and paid apps available on various mobile device stores to act as timers. During those 25 minutes, do not check email, Twitter, Facebook, or other websites.

Once the 25 minutes are up, take a 5-minute break. Repeat this process four times and then take a 15-minute break.

The reason is that it’s very hard to concentrate for more than 25 minutes – but after that, you have a nice break before starting a new 25-minute burst. You’ll find that you can get a lot more done in those 25-minute periods than you normally would. This gets you into the flow.

It also increases the total amount of work you get done over multiple sprints, making you much more productive. The short concentration phases make it easier for you to focus.

Although 25 minutes is the default setting, some people find that other time intervals work better for them; I personally tend to set mine to 45 minutes with a 5-minute break. Otherwise, it’s too short for me to be able to write sufficiently.

This technique is especially helpful for those of us who are easily distracted.

It’s not just about concentration. The Pomodoro technique has the added benefit of giving you a physical break from the screen and keyboard, allowing your muscles to rest and your body to stretch.

The v for Victory Technique

Posture is very important when learning and writing. Firstly for general health, and secondly for writing efficiency.

But that’s not all.

Did you know that you can literally program your mind for success by using a body language hack?

Try this: Stand up and stretch your arms above your head in a V shape. Hold them for a few seconds and breathe normally. Bonus points if you close your eyes and imagine success.

Now go back to doing what you were doing before. Do you feel better? Do you feel more positive?

This is a great technique for all kinds of situations.

Eliminate Auditory Distractions

As we learned above, any kind of distraction can seriously disrupt your work. It’s important to learn how to study peacefully.

Related: Where Can I Study Peacefully

Auditory distractions are especially troublesome because, while they may not be loud, they can be intrusive when you are trying to concentrate hard.

There are several obvious solutions: Close doors and windows, work in a room away from the source of the noise and ask the person making the noise to stop.

Less obvious, perhaps, is the use of noise-canceling headphones. Especially if you combine them with focused music or sound effects like forest rain or wind. I personally use YouTube Premium, which has several Focus playlists built-in. You can also try using the headphones without music, but with noise cancelation turned on.

Some people also report great success with binaural beats. If you search for “binaural beats focus,” you’ll find many options, including hour-long soundtracks.

These binaural tracks have the advantage of not only eliminating the source of the interference but also programming your brain’s waves to help you focus and write better.

Once you find a soundtrack or playlist that works for you, add it to your favorites and repeat if that helps.

Eliminate Visual Distractions

Ideally, remove all visual distractions from your workspace and leave only what is actually relevant to the work in front of you. In most cases, a tidy desk means a tidy mind.

In practice, it’s not always that simple. What you can do, however, is move the unimportant things to the edge of your desk and keep the area directly in front of you clear so you do not have a connection to the keyboard and screen.

It’s worth thinking about the overall placement and ergonomics of your workspace. For me, a good amount of natural daylight falling on the desk is helpful. I make sure it comes from the side and not the front.

I also use a small blue light on the desk when I am working, which helps me think positively and focus.

If you have the space, you might want to try putting your desk in the middle of the room. I first noticed this when I visited the home of Charles Darwin, the famous English naturalist. The first thing I noticed in his study was that the desk was right in the middle of the room. The same was true of Churchill’s desk in the attic of his country residence.

The point is that regardless of your particular circumstances, you can have a considerable amount of control over your visual environment. I would advise you to try different configurations and find one that works best for you. You may also find that changing the configuration of your room from time to time helps your motivation and concentration.

Screen Arrangement

I find that the arrangement of windows and applications on the screen I use for studying and writing is very important for efficiency when working and writing.

Right now, I have a 27-inch iMac right in front of me with two windows on it: On the left side of the screen is my mind map and outline, and on the right side is the writing surface where I am currently writing this article. To the right of the iMac is a laptop on which I have the mind map of this article at a glance.

Although I have experimented with 3 and even 4 screens, I personally find that two screens are sufficient for my particular needs. With more than 2 screens, I feel distracted. Of course, you should experiment and find out what works best for you.

I find that having the most important data immediately in view makes it all the better. I like to avoid switching back and forth between different applications and windows as much as possible.

I also find that having a clear visual memory system (a bit like muscle memory for the mind) helps a lot with writing. That’s why I always have the writing surface on the right side of the iMac screen, while the various research windows are always on the left.

Movement and Posture

What writers and students sometimes forget is the importance of posture and movement while working.

It is very important for motivation and health to move around during a workday, especially to protect your back.

I use a sit-stand desk for this purpose. This allows me to use different types of stands, chairs, and standing positions throughout the day to vary my posture and the angle at which my back moves throughout the day. This allows me to write for long periods of time without harming my body.

If you use the Pomodoro technique described above, you could use the 15-minute breaks for sprints to do a short exercise session. This could be a few short stretches combined with some push-ups, planks, sit-ups, or something similar.

Cold Therapy

It may sound like a terrible cliché, but the value of cold showers is incredible. I had the privilege of going to a British private school called Stonyhurst College when I was young. Stonyhurst has, I believe, the very first school swimming pool, which in my day was nicknamed The Plunge . When I was at Stonyhurst, the pool was surrounded by scary-looking showers and enormous baths with invariably cold water.

What I did not know then, but know now, is the value of cold water for overall mood, health, and learning performance. You may have heard of Wim Hof, the Iceman, who advocates cold therapy for health. If not, check out his videos on YouTube. They are incredible.

The way I practice it is not by jumping straight into the cold shower in the morning, although that’s probably the best method, but by washing with warm water for a few minutes and then turning the water to cold for 1 or 2 minutes. This always makes me feel more invigorated and better prepared for the morning’s work.

All I can say is: try it!

One technique that I think really contributes to efficiency in writing is dictation.

I personally use the app VoiceIn for this, but there’s also a free alternative from Google that I describe later in the “Tools” section of this article.

I either handwrite or type out the outline for the essays and articles I write and then I use a combination of typing and dictation when I write the article or essay.

I find that the decision whether I dictate or not is psychological. Sometimes I feel like dictating the article, sometimes I find it better to type it. Often I have found it helpful to start writing and then move to dictate when I am in the flow.

It’s a matter of trial and error, and I encourage you to keep a regular journal of what works and does not work for you personally to discover the best methods for you.

If you find that dictation is helpful, my advice is to get a good microphone on a stand that you can swivel in and out, and position the microphone very close to your mouth for much better results with the dictation software or app.

Finding Flow When Writing Essays

The ideal state when writing – including essay writing – is a flow state. This is the state where everything comes easily to you and you feel like you are doing your best while fully concentrating on what you are doing.

There are some things that can help you achieve this state:

Awareness of Resistance

Resistance is the enemy of flow. Resistance is anything that distracts you from your work and causes you to turn your attention away from what you are doing. The more you are aware of it, the more you can avoid it.

I think it’s important not to give up too soon when resistance comes in the form of procrastination or motivation. In the short term, it’s worse to give in to resistance and procrastinate, so you need to be prepared for it.

I find the easiest way to deal with resistance is to acknowledge it, then just ignore it and get on with the task.

Forming Habits

To make learning and writing a habit, which then makes everything easier, it’s good to understand how habits can be formed.

Habits are formed through three steps:

• the routine

The best way to form a habit is to choose a cue that is so repetitive that you can not help but do the routine every time you encounter the cue. The best cue is often a place, time, person, or feeling. For example, if I write in the same place at the same time in the morning and I feel a certain way, I can not help but do it, and so a habit loop is formed.

So if you want to make it a habit to write in the morning, you have to find a cue that you can not ignore. Perhaps the moment you finish breakfast.

However, make sure you have a reward at the end of the routine that you look forward to. This will make it easier for you to motivate yourself to do the routine, and encourage the formation of a new habit.

Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the best favors you can do for yourself as a writer is to learn keyboard shortcuts.

If you do not know them yet, you should figure them out and use them. You’ll be amazed at how easy it all is.

Sleep, Diet and Hydration

This may sound familiar, but it’s worth reiterating how important it is to eat right, get enough sleep, and drink enough water.

When you are in optimal condition, you can make better use of the time you have.

A good tip is to darken the room where you sleep as much as possible. You will then have a deeper and more restful sleep.

Use Mental Management Techniques

Top athletes and their coaches use mental management and visualization techniques for a reason. It works.

If you spend a little time visualizing the feeling of success, what it will bring you and how you will get there, the actual process will be easier for you.

Instead of racking your brain over the steps, you’ll have them pre-programmed in your head – and you’ll just do them.

An important part of mental management is to NOT focus on failures, but instead focus on and celebrate when you do something well. This has the effect of anchoring in your mind the practices that lead to success, while not anchoring those that lead to failure.

Tools and Apps That Help With Essay Writing

When writing nonfiction, I use a number of apps on a daily basis that helps me immensely with my work.

This is a powerful research database app (unfortunately only for Mac) that uses AI to find useful snippets of information.

Related: Is DEVONThink Worth It

This is an amazing app that allows you to review and edit text very quickly and adapt to any tone of voice you want.

Related: What Is InstaText

This is the mind mapping and thought development app I use to brainstorm and outline my non-fiction writing. In fact, all my writing.

A very useful AI summary app that gives you a useful snapshot of a PDF file or book.

A reliable dictation extension that lets me dictate directly into my writing canvas. Or you can use the free Google Docs tool.

Something of a secret among writers. It is one of the best, if not the best AI GPT -3 app.

Related: What Is Sudowrite

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Some Words Feel Truer in Spanish

By Natalia Sylvester

Ms. Sylvester is the author of the forthcoming children’s book “A Maleta Full of Treasures” (“La Maleta de Tesoros”).

My earliest relationship with language was defined by rules. As an immigrant who came to this country from Peru at age 4, I spent half of my days in kindergarten occupied with learning the rules of the English language. There was the tricky inconsistency of pronunciation to navigate and, once I learned to speak it, the challenge of translating what I’d learned into reading skills.

At home, my mom would often create games to help my sister and me preserve our Spanish and improve our grammar. Driving around our neighborhood in Miami, she’d point at a traffic light, hold up four fingers and say, “Se-ma-fo-ro — on which syllable do you put the accent?”

Each language had its defined space: English in school, Spanish at home. But as my parents became more fluent (and my sister and I more dominant) in English, the boundaries became blurred. Being bilingual empowered us to break barriers beyond the rules and definitions attached to words. Some things were simply untranslatable, because they spoke to this new space we were living in — within, between and around language. We were making a new home here, same as so many immigrants who end up shaping language as much as it shapes us.

It became evident as the phrase “Cómo se dice?” or “How do you say?” became a constant in my home. Sometimes, it’d be my parents who asked, “How do you say” followed by a word like “sobremesa” or “ganas.” It seemed simple enough in theory, but proved nearly impossible for us to translate without elaborating using full sentences or phrases. After all, to have a word to describe a long conversation that keeps you at the table and extends a meal, you’d have to value the concept enough to name it. Some ideas are so embedded in Latin American and Spanish cultures that they exist implicitly. Of course “ganas” can be something you feel but also give, and be at once more tame yet more powerful than “desire.” (If you know, you know.)

Other times, it’d be my sister and I who were curious about a word’s Spanish counterpart. Was there really no differentiating in Spanish between the fingers (dedos) on our hands, and those on our feet we call toes? When we wanted to say we were excited about something, the word “emocionada” seemed to fall short of capturing our specific, well, emotion. Sometimes we would blank on a word. But sometimes, we would find that the perfect word isn’t necessarily in the language we’re speaking.

What I’m describing, of course, has its own word: code switching. The act of shifting from one language or dialect to another, particularly based on social context, is often framed as something that so-called minorities do to fit into more mainstream spaces. It’s true that code switching can be a form of assimilation, a way of shielding ourselves from the prejudices rooted in racism, classism and xenophobia that can arise when we freely express our culture and language in spaces not designed to embrace them. But what I seldom see discussed is how code switching isn’t solely a reactionary response to feeling unwelcome. Within our own communities, it can signal comfort and belonging.

Take the Spanish word “maleta,” or “suitcase” in English. This year, I was at a writing conference and met up with two Mexican American authors, one of whom brought her suitcase to the venue because she had already checked out of the hotel. We walked the halls and offered to help with her maleta, making several jokes and references to it, but never once using the word “suitcase,” despite speaking mainly in English.

This was an entirely natural and unspoken decision. There are some words that simply feel truer in Spanish than they do in English. I call these home words and heart words because I associate them with the place I most grew up using them: at home, among family. Though the words might share a literal definition with their translation, one version carries emotional depth that enriches its meaning. To code switch this way among friends implies we share not only a language, but an intimate understanding of where we come from.

A suitcase is for clothes and possessions when someone travels, but to me, a maleta meant family had arrived from Peru, carrying flavors, textures and memories of my birthplace. Language is rooted in context, which is another way of saying that language is driven by memory. In this way, what we do or don’t choose to translate is another way of telling stories about our past.

Last year, a study on the specific way that Miamians use direct Spanish translations to form English phrases called the practice an emerging dialect. It’s a form of borrowing between languages that results in what is known as calques. For decades, expressions like “get down from the car” and “super hungry,” which are translated from Spanish, have made their way into regional speech, even in the case of non-Spanish speakers.

When I shared the article on social media, my DMs were flooded by friends and family — not only in Miami but also in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and in Southern California — who joked that they’ve been using these phrases since they were children, and their parents had, too. The novelty was not in their usage but in their validation (whether or not we sought that validation). My friends and I grew up being told to speak a certain way and respect the rules of both languages. We, in turn, didn’t so much break the rules as we simply played with them, swirling bits of English and Spanish together until it resembled something new yet familiar, our fingerprints proudly planted in its mess.

This is one of my greatest joys as a writer. I love language not only for all it can do but also for all it can’t and all the space it leaves in the gaps for creation. It is empowering that something as supposedly fixed as the meaning of a word or phrase is actually alive and evolving. It means we don’t have to lose parts of ourselves to assimilation; we can expand language to include the full breadth of our experiences.

Words are just sounds and letters until we collectively give them meaning through story. When we use language to connect, it’s one of the most beautiful things that makes us human.

Natalia Sylvester is the author of the forthcoming children’s book “A Maleta Full of Treasures” (“La Maleta de Tesoros”).

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April 2, 2024

Eclipse Psychology: When the Sun and Moon Align, So Do We

How a total solar eclipse creates connection, unity and caring among the people watching

By Katie Weeman

Students observing a partial solar eclipse on June 21, 2020, in Lhokseumawe, Aceh Province, Indonesia.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

This article is part of a special report on the total solar eclipse that will be visible from parts of the U.S., Mexico and Canada on April 8, 2024.

It was 11:45 A.M. on August 21, 2017. I was in a grassy field in Glendo, Wyo., where I was surrounded by strangers turned friends, more than I could count—and far more people than had ever flocked to this town, population 210 or so. Golden sunlight blanketed thousands of cars parked in haphazard rows all over the rolling hills. The shadows were quickly growing longer, the air was still, and all of our faces pointed to the sky. As the moon progressively covered the sun, the light melted away, the sky blackened, and the temperature dropped. At the moment of totality, when the moon completely covered the sun , some people around me suddenly gasped. Some cheered; some cried; others laughed in disbelief.

Exactly 53 minutes later, in a downtown park in Greenville, S.C., the person who edited this story and the many individuals around him reacted in exactly the same ways.

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When a total solar eclipse descends—as one will across Mexico, the U.S. and Canada on April 8—everyone and everything in the path of totality are engulfed by deep shadow. Unlike the New Year’s Eve countdown that lurches across the globe one blocky time zone after another, the shadow of totality is a dark spot on Earth that measures about 100 miles wide and cruises steadily along a path, covering several thousand miles in four to five hours. The human experiences along that path are not isolated events any more than individual dominoes are isolated pillars in a formation. Once that first domino is tipped, we are all linked into something bigger—and unstoppable. We all experience the momentum and the awe together.

When this phenomenon progresses from Mexico through Texas, the Great Lakes and Canada on April 8, many observers will describe the event as life-changing, well beyond expectations. “You feel a sense of wrongness in those moments before totality , when your surroundings change so rapidly,” says Kate Russo, an author, psychologist and eclipse chaser. “Our initial response is to ask ourselves, ‘Is this an opportunity or a threat?’ When the light changes and the temperature drops, that triggers primal fear. When we have that threat response, our whole body is tuned in to taking in as much information as possible.”

Russo, who has witnessed 13 total eclipses and counting, has interviewed eclipse viewers from around the world. She continues to notice the same emotions felt by all. They begin with that sense of wrongness and primal fear as totality approaches. When totality starts, we feel powerful awe and connection to the world around us. A sense of euphoria develops as we continue watching, and when it’s over, we have a strong desire to seek out the next eclipse.

“The awe we feel during a total eclipse makes us think outside our sense of self. It makes you more attuned to things outside of you,” says Sean Goldy, a postdoctoral fellow at the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Goldy and his team analyzed Twitter data from nearly 2.9 million people during the 2017 total solar eclipse. They found that people within the path of totality were more likely to use not only language that expressed awe but also language that conveyed being unified and affiliated with others. That meant using more “we” words (“us” instead of “me”) and more humble words (“maybe” instead of “always”).

“During an eclipse, people have a broader, more collective focus,” Goldy says. “We also found that the more people expressed awe, the more likely they were to use those ‘we’ words, indicating that people who experience this emotion feel more connected with others.”

This connectivity ties into a sociological concept known as “collective effervescence,” Russo and Goldy say. When groups of humans come together over a shared experience, the energy is greater than the sum of its parts. If you’ve ever been to a large concert or sporting event, you’ve felt the electricity generated by a hive of humans. It magnifies our emotions.

I felt exactly that unified feeling in the open field in Glendo, as if thousands of us were breathing as one. But that’s not the only way people can experience a total eclipse.

During the 2008 total eclipse in Mongolia “I was up on a peak,” Russo recounts. “I was with only my husband and a close friend. We had left the rest of our 25-person tour group at the bottom of the hill. From that vantage point, when the shadow came sweeping in, there was not one man-made thing I could see: no power lines, no buildings or structures. Nothing tethered me to time: It could have been thousands of years ago or long into the future. In that moment, it was as if time didn’t exist.”

Giving us the ability to unhitch ourselves from time—to stop dwelling on time is a unique superpower of a total eclipse. In Russo’s work as a clinical psychologist, she notices patterns in our modern-day mentality. “People with anxiety tend to spend a lot of time in the future. And people with depression spend a lot of time in the past,” she says. An eclipse, time and time again, has the ability to snap us back into the present, at least for a few minutes. “And when you’re less anxious and worried, it opens you up to be more attuned to other people, feel more connected, care for others and be more compassionate,” Goldy says.

Russo, who founded Being in the Shadow , an organization that provides information about total solar eclipses and organizes eclipse events around the world, has experienced this firsthand. Venue managers regularly tell her that eclipse crowds are among the most polite and humble: they follow the rules; they pick up their garbage—they care.

Eclipses remind us that we are part of something bigger, that we are connected with something vast. In the hours before and after totality you have to wear protective glasses to look at the sun, to prevent damage to your eyes. But during the brief time when the moon blocks the last of the sun’s rays, you can finally lower your glasses and look directly at the eclipse. It’s like making eye contact with the universe.

“In my practice, usually if someone says, ‘I feel insignificant,’ that’s a negative thing. But the meaning shifts during an eclipse,” Russo says. To feel insignificant in the moon’s shadow instead means that your sense of self shrinks, that your ego shrinks, she says.

The scale of our “big picture” often changes after witnessing the awe of totality, too. “When you zoom out—really zoom out—it blows away our differences,” Goldy says. When you sit in the shadow of a celestial rock blocking the light of a star 400 times its size that burns at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface, suddenly that argument with your partner, that bill sitting on your counter or even the differences among people’s beliefs, origins or politics feel insignificant. When we shift our perspective, connection becomes boundless.

You don’t need to wait for the next eclipse to feel this way. As we travel through life, we lose our relationship with everyday awe. Remember what that feels like? It’s the way a dog looks at a treat or the way my toddler points to the “blue sky!” outside his car window in the middle of rush hour traffic. To find awe, we have to surrender our full attention to the beauty around us. During an eclipse, that comes easily. In everyday life, we may need to be more intentional.

“Totality kick-starts our ability to experience wonder,” Russo says. And with that kick start, maybe we can all use our wonderment faculties more—whether that means pausing for a moment during a morning walk, a hug or a random sunset on a Tuesday. In the continental U.S., we won’t experience another total eclipse until 2044. Let’s not wait until then to seek awe and connection.

Francis Collins: Why I’m going public with my prostate cancer diagnosis

I served medical research. now it’s serving me. and i don’t want to waste time..

Over my 40 years as a physician-scientist, I’ve had the privilege of advising many patients facing serious medical diagnoses. I’ve seen them go through the excruciating experience of waiting for the results of a critical blood test, biopsy or scan that could dramatically affect their future hopes and dreams.

But this time, I was the one lying in the PET scanner as it searched for possible evidence of spread of my aggressive prostate cancer . I spent those 30 minutes in quiet prayer. If that cancer had already spread to my lymph nodes, bones, lungs or brain, it could still be treated — but it would no longer be curable.

Why am I going public about this cancer that many men are uncomfortable talking about? Because I want to lift the veil and share lifesaving information, and I want all men to benefit from the medical research to which I’ve devoted my career and that is now guiding my care.

Five years before that fateful PET scan, my doctor had noted a slow rise in my PSA, the blood test for prostate-specific antigen. To contribute to knowledge and receive expert care, I enrolled in a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, the agency I led from 2009 through late 2021.

At first, there wasn’t much to worry about — targeted biopsies identified a slow-growing grade of prostate cancer that doesn’t require treatment and can be tracked via regular checkups, referred to as “active surveillance.” This initial diagnosis was not particularly surprising. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the United States, and about 40 percent of men over age 65 — I’m 73 — have low-grade prostate cancer . Many of them never know it, and very few of them develop advanced disease.

Why am I going public about this cancer that many men are uncomfortable talking about? Because I want to lift the veil and share lifesaving information.

But in my case, things took a turn about a month ago when my PSA rose sharply to 22 — normal at my age is less than 5. An MRI scan showed that the tumor had significantly enlarged and might have even breached the capsule that surrounds the prostate, posing a significant risk that the cancer cells might have spread to other parts of the body.

New biopsies taken from the mass showed transformation into a much more aggressive cancer. When I heard the diagnosis was now a 9 on a cancer-grading scale that goes only to 10, I knew that everything had changed.

Thus, that PET scan, which was ordered to determine if the cancer had spread beyond the prostate, carried high significance. Would a cure still be possible, or would it be time to get my affairs in order? A few hours later, when my doctors showed me the scan results, I felt a rush of profound relief and gratitude. There was no detectable evidence of cancer outside of the primary tumor.

Later this month, I will undergo a radical prostatectomy — a procedure that will remove my entire prostate gland. This will be part of the same NIH research protocol — I want as much information as possible to be learned from my case, to help others in the future.

While there are no guarantees, my doctors believe I have a high likelihood of being cured by the surgery.

My situation is far better than my father’s when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer four decades ago. He was about the same age that I am now, but it wasn’t possible back then to assess how advanced the cancer might be. He was treated with a hormonal therapy that might not have been necessary and had a significant negative impact on his quality of life.

Because of research supported by NIH, along with highly effective collaborations with the private sector, prostate cancer can now be treated with individualized precision and improved outcomes.

As in my case, high-resolution MRI scans can now be used to delineate the precise location of a tumor. When combined with real-time ultrasound, this allows pinpoint targeting of the prostate biopsies. My surgeon will be assisted by a sophisticated robot named for Leonardo da Vinci that employs a less invasive surgical approach than previous techniques, requiring just a few small incisions.

Advances in clinical treatments have been informed by large-scale, rigorously designed trials that have assessed the risks and benefits and were possible because of the willingness of cancer patients to enroll in such trials.

I feel compelled to tell this story openly. I hope it helps someone. I don’t want to waste time.

If my cancer recurs, the DNA analysis that has been carried out on my tumor will guide the precise choice of therapies. As a researcher who had the privilege of leading the Human Genome Project , it is truly gratifying to see how these advances in genomics have transformed the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

I want all men to have the same opportunity that I did. Prostate cancer is still the No. 2 killer of men. I want the goals of the Cancer Moonshot to be met — to end cancer as we know it. Early detection really matters, and when combined with active surveillance can identify the risky cancers like mine, and leave the rest alone. The five-year relative survival rate for prostate cancer is 97 percent, according to the American Cancer Society , but it’s only 34 percent if the cancer has spread to distant areas of the body.

But lack of information and confusion about the best approach to prostate cancer screening have impeded progress. Currently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all men age 55 to 69 discuss PSA screening with their primary-care physician, but it recommends against starting PSA screening after age 70.

Other groups, like the American Urological Association , suggest that screening should start earlier, especially for men with a family history — like me — and for African American men, who have a higher risk of prostate cancer. But these recommendations are not consistently being followed.

Our health-care system is afflicted with health inequities. For example, the image-guided biopsies are not available everywhere and to everyone. Finally, many men are fearful of the surgical approach to prostate cancer because of the risk of incontinence and impotence, but advances in surgical techniques have made those outcomes considerably less troublesome than in the past. Similarly, the alternative therapeutic approaches of radiation and hormonal therapy have seen significant advances.

A little over a year ago, while I was praying for a dying friend, I had the experience of receiving a clear and unmistakable message. This has almost never happened to me. It was just this: “Don’t waste your time, you may not have much left.” Gulp.

Having now received a diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer and feeling grateful for all the ways I have benefited from research advances, I feel compelled to tell this story openly. I hope it helps someone. I don’t want to waste time.

Francis S. Collins served as director of the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021 and as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH from 1993 to 2008. He is a physician-geneticist and leads a White House initiative to eliminate hepatitis C in the United States, while also continuing to pursue his research interests as a distinguished NIH investigator.

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Scream-Crying With Olivia Rodrigo at the Guts World Tour

The pop star invites girls to feel rage, euphoria, and everything in between with abandon.

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So, last night at Madison Square Garden, when Olivia Rodrigo told us, “When the lights go down, I want you to think of something that really pisses you off and scream,” I knew exactly what to do. And so did the thousands of mostly girls and women around me. When the room went black, the stadium erupted with a primal scream that lasted for several moments. Wow, we all needed that, didn’t we? I thought. I’m aware of Rodrigo’s pretty, thin, and white-passing privilege, but it wasn’t lost on me that a fellow Asian woman conducted that chorus of guttural screams. Nothing quite challenges the quiet and submissive “other” stereotype like a song called “All-American Bitch.” Especially the lyric “I scream inside to deal with it like AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

When the lights were on, I saw most of the crowd was comprised of young women of various races and ages in butterfly clips and sequined mini skirts and shades of lilac. Some were arm in arm with their best friends, bobbing their heads in unison. A duo held each other’s faces as they shouted along. Others filmed selfie videos, belting to songs, to be uploaded to Snapchat. One, probably no older than 10, took a selfie with her mom. Another a few rows in front of me seemed to be FaceTiming her grandpa. Before the set began, a group of boys wearing sunglasses, crop tops, and purses conducted a photo shoot with their ring light and a quartet of girls behind them cheered them on. What could these beautiful young people possibly be so pissed about?

A lot, actually, and Rodrigo’s music shows that. Growing up is hard. (“If someone tells me one more time, ‘enjoy your youth,’ I’m gonna cry,” and “They all say that it gets better, but what if I don’t?” she sings.) Whereas last year’s celebrations of girlhood were Barbie-pink and carefree and joyous and tied up in a bow, songs on Guts and Sour remind us that girlhood is also angsty and enraging and extremely embarrassing. These formative years of your life are some of the most self-conscious you’ll ever be, especially if you’re not a straight, cisgender boy. It is a time when fitting in—whether it’s sitting at someone’s lunch table or owning a Stanley Cup—means survival, and failing to do so means questioning yourself entirely. Shame is something girls are taught at a young age and never really unlearn—whether it’s about their appearance, who they decide to be intimate with, what they decide to do with their bodies. Comments evolve from, “You’re too loud,” to “Your skirt is too short,” to “She’s wearing too much makeup,” to “She’s a slut,” to “You’re too bossy,” to “Why aren’t you married yet?”

Being a kid is especially hard right now. We’re in the midst of a teenage mental health crisis (with teen girls twice as likely as boys to experience sadness ), books are being banned from schools, access to gender-affirming care is being threatened, and reproductive health care is becoming more and more difficult to obtain. One year after the fall of Roe v. Wade , 25 million women were living in states with severe abortion restrictions. Rodrigo herself knows that; some of her tour proceeds will benefit her Fund 4 Good , which aims to support girl’s education and reproductive rights and prevent gender-based violence.

Being a girl means facing all those big challenges and the tiny everyday ones, and taming the storm of emotions that come with them. It’s wanting to kiss someone’s face with an upper cut and also wondering, why don’t they love me? with mascara streaming down your face. It’s knowing you should be grateful all the time but getting jealous of another girl, because she posted a nice photo. It’s yelling at your mom, because she doesn’t get it, but calling her immediately when you don’t know what to do. It’s feeling like everything you do is tragic and hating yourself for it, even though, years later, you might eventually look back and laugh. It’s wanting to call a boy stupid but being terrified that he might physically hurt you. And it’s being furious that all of it has to be this complicated.

It’s also not just girls. As P. Claire Dodson wrote for Teen Vogue after Guts was released , these feelings aren’t only reserved for adolescence. We belittle Rodrigo’s songwriting—and our very own emotional capacity—by doing so. These messed up feelings don’t cease to exist when we turn a certain age, so we mustn’t be ashamed to keep feeling them. We should embrace them as we continue to come of age, even into our 30s or beyond.

During her Guts World Tour, Rodrigo invites us to feel all of that out loud. There might be a lot of things to be mad about, but there’s a beauty in feeling it together. At MSG, the emotion was just as palpable during her many ballads as during her head-thrashing rock songs. During her acoustic arrangements, I was struck but how young the voices sounded singing along. They belted “traitor” with full force: “You BETRAAAAAAAAYED MEEEE.” It’s comforting to know that Rodrigo is giving these girls, some of whom looked like they were still in elementary school, a safe space to feel hurt, even if they haven’t experienced the kind of heartbreak she’s singing about yet. (Little girls have big feelings, too.) In a world where women are conditioned to shrink ourselves to make other people comfortable, Rodrigo encourages us to not hold back, to be messy and yell, “Fuck it, it’s fine!” and be on our worst behavior for a night. And when she floated above the crowd on a metallic crescent moon, Rodrigo also provided a feeling of magic. Faces and phone screens lit up alongside the twinkling star decorations hanging from the ceiling, and when she waved at sections of the crowd, you could feel the euphoria as girls cheered and felt seen.

There have been many before Olivia Rodrigo (she’s brought Sheryl Crowe and Jewel onstage), and there will be many after her. But she understands that girls, and women, are strong and delicate and precious and intelligent and complicated and confused and so, so powerful. They should be given the space to dream—and the grace to scream.

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• Generate topic ideas for an essay or paper | Tips & techniques

Generate Topic Ideas For an Essay or Paper | Tips & Techniques

Published on November 17, 2014 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

If you haven’t been given a specific topic for your essay or paper , the first step is coming up with ideas and deciding what you want to write about. Generating ideas is the least methodical and most creative step in academic writing .

There are infinite ways to generate ideas, but no sure-fire way to come up with a good one. This article outlines some tips and techniques for choosing a topic – use the ones that work best for you.

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Table of contents

Understanding the assignment, techniques for generating topic ideas, tips for finding a good idea, other interesting articles.

First, you need to determine the scope of what you can write about. Make sure you understand the assignment you’ve been given, and make sure you know the answers to these questions:

• What is the required length of the paper (in words or pages)?
• What is the deadline?
• Should the paper relate to what you’ve studied in class?
• Do you have to do your own research and use sources that haven’t been taught in class?
• Are there any constraints on the subject matter or approach?

The length and deadline of the assignment determine how complex your topic can be. The prompt might tell you write a certain type of essay, or it might give you a broad subject area and hint at the kind of approach you should take.

This prompt gives us a very general subject. It doesn’t ask for a specific type of essay, but the word explain suggests that an expository essay is the most appropriate response.

This prompt takes a different approach to the same subject. It asks a question that requires you to take a strong position. This is an argumentative essay that requires you to use evidence from sources to support your argument.

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Getting started is often the hardest part. Try these 3 simple strategies to help get your mind moving.

Talk it out

Discussing ideas with a teacher, friend or fellow student often helps you find new avenues to approach the ideas you have and helps you uncover ideas you might not have considered.

Write down as many ideas as you can and make point form notes on them as you go. When you feel you’ve written down the obvious things that relate to an idea, move on to a new one, or explore a related idea in more depth.

You can also cluster related ideas together and draw connections between them on the page.

This strategy is similar to brainstorming, but it is faster and less reflective. Give yourself a broad topic to write about. Then, on a pad of paper or a word processor, write continuously for two or three minutes. Don’t stop, not even for a moment.

Write down anything that comes to mind, no matter how nonsensical it seems, as long as it somehow relates to the topic you began with. If you need to, time yourself to make sure you write for a few minutes straight.

When you’ve finished, read through what you’ve written and identify any useful ideas that have come out of the exercise.

Whichever strategy you use, you’ll probably come up with lots of ideas, but follow these tips to help you choose the best one.

Don’t feel you need to work logically

Good ideas often have strange origins. An apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head, and this gave us the idea of gravity. Mary Shelley had a dream, and this gave us her famous literary classic, Frankenstein .

It does not matter how you get your idea; what matters is that you find a good one.

Work from general to specific

Your first good idea won’t take the form of a fully-formed thesis statement . Find a topic before you find an argument.

You’ll need to think about your topic in broad, general terms before you can narrow it down and make it more precise.

Maintain momentum

Don’t be critical of your ideas at this stage – it can hinder your creativity. If you think too much about the flaws in your ideas, you will lose momentum.

Creative momentum is important: the first ten in a string of related ideas might be garbage, but the eleventh could be pure gold. You’ll never reach the eleventh if you shut down your thought process at the second.

Let ideas go

Don’t get too attached to the first appealing topic you think of. It might be a great idea, but it also might turn out to be a dud once you start researching and give it some critical thought .

Thinking about a new topic doesn’t mean abandoning an old one – you can easily come back to your original ideas later and decide which ones work best.

Choose a topic that interests you

A bored writer makes for boring writing. Try to find an idea that you’ll enjoy writing about, or a way to integrate your interests with your topic.

In the worst case scenario, pick the least boring topic of all of the boring topics you’re faced with.

Keep a notepad close

Good ideas will cross your mind when you least expect it. When they do, make sure that you can hold onto them.

Many people come up with their best ideas just before falling asleep; you might find it useful to keep a notepad by your bed.

Once you’ve settled on an idea, you’ll need to start working on your thesis statement and planning your paper’s structure.

If you find yourself struggling to come up with a good thesis on your topic, it might not be the right choice – you can always change your mind and go back to previous ideas.

Write a thesis statement Make an essay outline

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If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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Deeply Rooted: An Analysis of How College-Aged Women View Body Hair and Body Hair Removal

• Lexi Abrams Vanderbilt University

This study seeks to explore the ways in which college-aged women view body hair and body hair removal. Drawing from interviews with ten undergraduate women at Vanderbilt University, between the ages of 19 and 21, this essay suggests that there appears to be a cognitive dissonance when it comes to young women's views on body hair removal. Throughout this study, participants acknowledged the burdens of body hair removal, whether those be financial, physical, or social. They also understood how the ideas around body hair removal are inherently tied to racism, misogyny, and classism. And yet, they report that they feel bound to continue removing their body hair in order to fit in and conform to societal standards. A lack of body hair is linked to feelings of confidence, desirability, and greater sexual function. Participants expressed how having little to no body hair is often an expectation while engaging in sexual activities, although these expectations may fluctuate depending on the nature of the sexual relationship. Although this study is no way statistically significant, these ten interviews revealed important findings about how young, college-educated women understand and engage with body hair removal. These findings speak to how far we as a society have come with body hair removal, and how much farther we need to go. 

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