So my muse decided to take a holiday recently. He packed his bags and went to Hawaii or somewhere. And I know he’s been sitting in the sun drinking Pina Coladas the whole time. That smug bastard. Now, I should say I told him to take a break. The problem is, I’ve found it hard to get back into the flow of things. It turns … Continue reading A Creative Leave of Absence
Why nostalgia is important? Nostalgia is a shield against existential challenges. Evoking positive experiences and feelings from the past can help you cope better with the present and the future. January for me is the month to think about what happened the year before. To make a balance, to see what went well and what went less well. What I achieved, and what I would … Continue reading Why Nostalgia is Important?
The Parable of the Second Arrow According to the Buddha, any time we suffer misfortune, two arrows fly our way. The first arrow is the bad event itself, which certainly can (and often does) cause pain. The second arrow is our reaction to the bad event, the suffering we attach to our pain. This secondary pain, he tells us, is always self-inflicted. What you might not have been told, however, … Continue reading Escaping the Emotional Rabbit Hole
The words you use can change your reality. Language actually generates changes in your brains and changes your perception of the environment around you. Language is linked to emotions. Your words are constantly sending messages to your brain. According to neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, negative words cause the increase of cortisol, the stress hormone. Therefore, adopting a negative attitude and using phrases … Continue reading Why You Are the Words You Use
Hello there! Welcome back on another Sunday! I want to talk about emotions today; about how weird they are. I am a believer that emotions guide us. I made many decisions based on how I felt and most turned out to be good for me (If you have taken the MBTI test at 16personalities.com, there is a part on decision-making and it turns out, I … Continue reading Understanding Emotions
I write to call myself a writer and be called a writer, because that means more to me than words could ever convey. Continue reading Why I Write
There’s a big difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is the feeling you get when you did something wrong, or perceived you did something wrong, whereas shame is a feeling that your whole self is wrong – a belief that you’re a bad person, or unworthy as an individual. Now, guilt isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be a useful emotion designed to help … Continue reading A Crying Shame
Take this moment. Just for you. Your body. Your mind. Your purpose. Breathe it in. Then let it out. You are beautiful. . . . SnapDragon is a writer, artist, and donut enthusiast. Follow Snippets of SnapDragon for all kinds of goodness, yo. Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On Pausing.
Hi everyone! Let’s talk about emotions today. I want to talk about them in a pure observational way. No trying to understand, no whys. The main questions I am curious about is whether there is a dominant feeling in your life and whether there are specific emotions associated with specific times of the day. Starting with the first: I think currently, there is no dominant … Continue reading Emotions
Inside this chest pounds a heart so steady. Inside this head lives a brain so alive. And somewhere in between rests a spirit so gentle, even the tiniest of scratches leaves a scar. . . . How would you describe your spirit, Dear Reader? What inspires you? What shakes you to your core? (Such easy questions to answer, I know!) 🙈 We’re in this thing … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On The Gentle Spirit.
I fondly remember the days of grammar-school playgrounds; of brown-bagged lunches; of field trips to museums, caverns, and coal mines. I remember the sense of belonging within those classroom walls. There was a constance amongst us kids: a comradery that strengthened with each lesson, each game, each talent show. The questions we asked were not stupid, but welcomed. We were family. And as the decades … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On The Same Side.
There are many things I do not know. Like what it takes to make a light switch work; or how many species of bird reside in my home state. I do not know advanced mathematic formulas; I do not know why the daffodils come back each spring. I’m just one person, with a single, yet unbelievable brain. Yet there is limited capacity. And I mess … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On Knowing.
The other night, while I was trying to sleep, I started thinking about the post I wrote last week where I stated that hatred is driven – at its core – by a fear of death. I couldn’t shake the idea that I was missing something fundamental. Naturally this started to make me feel a little anxious. Which then got me thinking, why I am … Continue reading Why Everything Scares You To Death
A life is infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things. When you zoom the lens out, when you consider the enormity of existence. A life is but a speck in the vastness of time and space. A life is nothing. It matters not a jot. But when you zoom the lens in, past all of the galaxies and all of the solar systems, past all … Continue reading The Meaning Of Your Life
I’m afraid of the dark. Like, for real. And it’s not because I think there are trolls in the basement, or Civil War ghosts in the attic. (But—ahem—now that I’ve revived that thought, I might crawl into bed even earlier tonight.) (pulls the blanket up to her chin) I’m afraid of my own mind. Because as soon as the sun sets, I feel an impending … Continue reading SnapDragon Speaks: On The Dark.
Hi all, How have you been? It has been a long time since we last interacted here! I missed you all! I took a long-ish break from writing but not from thinking. So, we will meet here regularly now to discuss what I have been thinking about. I want to discuss what it means to have internal peace today. I reflected on it and realized … Continue reading Internal Peace
Provided by AP from Clear Air Turbulence Why is it always said, he cried like a little girl? We never say, she cried like a little boy, do we? For that matter, we never say she cried like a little girl either. Of course I’m forgetting that’s because it’s acceptable for girls to cry! Silly me. It’s just boys who don’t cry! Except that’s not … Continue reading Why Crying Like A Little Girl Is The Manliest Thing You Can Do
Hi everyone, Welcome to another Sunday post about my quarantine reflections! This is turning into a weekly report of what I contemplate most on that given week. In my post last week (here), I talked about emotional ups and downs quarantine is causing us to experience. So, this week, I thought a bit more on emotions. Emotionality has a taboo towards it. If you are … Continue reading The Good Side of Emotions
Hi everyone, I have been thinking about emotions lately. Their depth, their intricacies, their flow. How they are much more powerful than logic, whether we admit to this or not. Then, I started thinking about the emotions that are especially more powerful than others, at least for me. Love is one of them. Love is probably a strong emotion for all humans. I am not … Continue reading Love
How do emotions influence our performance? Does it differ depending on the emotion? If so, can we use this in our advantage? How? We tend to think about emotions as something out of control, whilst we have a general opinion that we can control our performance. However, if emotions have a big influence our performance, do we really control the way we perform in different … Continue reading Emotions and Performance. How this relationship works?
