Holistic Health-- 4 Compass Points: Emotional

Understanding the Emotional Compass Point is like understanding the universe! Whether we look at it on a macroscopic as psychology or the microscopic level as neurochemistry or genetics, we still don’t know much about the human mind, including its mysterious connection to the body and overall wellness. This introduction will start things off by looking at the basic “big picture,” the psychological tasks of life.  

As discussed in my first book, Keep Your Eye on the Prize! www.keepyoureyeontheprize.org, the question, “What is life really about and what is the point of it all?” is one that people ask throughout life. Put another way, what is the “Prize”? Freud and Erikson concluded that the two major tasks of adult life are to love and to work. Accomplishing these tasks is not easy, because it requires skill in understanding and working with our emotions, most of which reside outside of our awareness in unconscious urges and desires that can govern our behavior in powerful ways. 

Gaining awareness of our emotions and what triggers them can give us more power to make conscious choices about how we react and behave. The more we understand about our emotions, the more we can choose actions that further happiness rather than distress. Even more importantly, medicine has become increasingly interested in how the mind-body connection promotes health or illness, so if health is your goal, read on! There will be a series of blogs that cover some of the basic aspects of emotional life. Look for titles beginning with “ECP” for “Emotional Compass Point.”