Lindenfield - Emotional confidence : [simple steps to build your confidence]

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Assert Yourself

Confident Children

Confident Teens

Managing Anger

Managing Emotions at Work (HarperThorsons Audio)

Positive Under Pressure (with Dr Malcolm Vandenberg)

The Positive Woman

Self-Esteem

Self-Esteen Bible

Self-Motivation

Super Confidence

Success from Setbacks

I would like to thank everyone who has given me and my family emotional and practical help during the very difficult months after my daughter, Laura, died. Without your support this book could certainly not have been written.

I am particularly grateful to my editor, Wanda Whiteley, and many other staff at Thorsons who always responded with such care and concern when I informed them of yet another setback in the writing of this book. I know that the late delivery of the manuscript has caused pressure to very many people who have been involved in its production and I am so appreciative of their willingness to work at breakneck speed to enable us to reach our deadline date.

I would also like to thank Tiffany Thomas for helping me with the background academic research to the book.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband Stuart, for his unfailing emotional support and for getting up at the crack of dawn to do yet another edit on yet another book.

with Emotional Understanding and Skill

I hate driving. Its not so much the stress that upsets me as the boredom and, more importantly, my lack of confidence when I am behind the wheel. The main reasons behind these uncomfortable feelings are that a) I know virtually nothing about the workings of the machines I drive and b) I am completely dependent on others to help me out should anything go wrong.

Because I am aware of these limitations, I rarely take the driving seat. When I do, I always restrict myself to routes where I know I can readily get help, and I proceed at a very cautious safe pace.

I bet some of you have started thinking No wonder she gets bored and no wonder shes such an unconfident driver! But I would argue that my car is by no means essential to my health, welfare or happiness, so I am quite content to maintain this level of driving confidence and to remain dependent on the knowledge and skill of others to transport me from A to B.

In contrast, I would never again accept being equally ignorant about the emotional machine within me. I am glad that I have now acquired sufficient knowledge about its inner workings to feel free to drive it wherever and whenever I want. I enjoy being able to rev its engine up and down to my hearts content and still feel competent and in control even when I am driving my feelings at full throttle. Should this particular engine break down or show any signs of wear and tear, I know how to repair it myself, quickly and efficiently. Although in a major crisis I might one day be happy to turn to professionals for some extra wisdom and support, Im certainly glad I no longer have to run to them for every minor emotional wobble.

I am not suggesting that everyone needs my level of emotional knowledge to be able to run their own feelings with confidence. But I do know from my work in the self-help field what a tremendous support it can be to have, at the very least, a DIY level of emotional understanding. In recent years there has been a surge in research findings in this field particularly as a result of the developments of neuroscience and brain imaging. I have found these developments fascinating. Psychologists are now better able to see in colourful imagery the emotional response patterns in the brain. They are also more able to say with some confidence how our genetic inheritance affects them. Interesting as these developments are, my main focus is always on how we can gain better control of our problematic emotions. So each time a new piece of research emerges I do a mental check to see if the findings still fit with the self-help methods I use and write about. So far, so good, is my current conclusion!

So I am still confident that the following summary will provide a helpful background to the self-help exercises and strategies in this book. I have tried to keep the language simple and used everyday examples to bring the theory to life. But it will mean much more to you if as you read, you also do the exercises I suggest. These will make the theory even more memorable and useful as you will be applying it to your own personal experiences.

If later you would like to extend your study further on the workings of our emotions, there are plenty of interesting new books on the subject. But the research is developing so fast that you might be best doing regular checks on the internet for the latest findings.

Having unsuccessfully scoured the dictionaries and psycho logical literature for a simple, concise definition, Ive taken up the challenge to write my own. Thats how Ive come to understand why it was so difficult to find one!

Emotion is not easy to define or describe because it is a description of a series of complex, inter-connected happenings in a number of different locations in the body and mind. The task becomes even more awesome when you realize that emotion can be described as either a personal internal experience or as a series of scientifically observable facts.

My final attempt at a definition (in the box) is perhaps still a little too wordy for my own liking, but the examples and details given below should help to bring it to life.

The reason which evolutionists have given for the origin of emotion is that, as animals grew in sophistication, their young needed a longer period of parenting to safeguard their survival. The emotional bond between mother and child ensures that both act in ways that will mean that the young are less likely to be abandoned until they are fully capable of surviving by themselves. Interestingly, scientists have found that the brains of the very earliest of animals, the reptiles, are totally devoid of emotional neurons. On birth, baby lizards, I am told, instinctively stay motionless to avoid being instantly eaten by Mum. In contrast, todays young humans, with their sophisticated emotional brains, seem to know instinctively how to take actions which tug on Mums guilt strings to keep her hovering around for a lifetime!

But of course, emotions can do more for us than ensure we get protective bonding with a parent. They also help us to make decisions and act in ways which will sustain other key relationships