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Category Archives: Anger

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The Story of a Woman’s Anger

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Dr. Jantz
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On February 15th EatingDisorderHope.com is giving away 10 copies of my book Every Woman’s Guide to Managing Your Anger. For a preview of what to expect, here’s a collection of blogs I ran a few months ago featuring case studies of four women whose stories are shared in the book:

Pamela Under Stress: A Busy Mother’s Siege Mentality

Pamela really felt under siege by the pressures of her life. Every task, every demand on her time — even those she agreed to — began to feel like an attack against her peace of mind, her emotional stability, her physical stamina…. Read more.

Paralyzed by Anger: Jenny’s Story

Jenny listened to the voice message from Colin with mixed emotions. Part of her wanted to smile at how sweet he sounded over the phone. The other part of her counseled to avoid being swayed by the sound of his voice. She had already made up her mind not to continue going out with him. Her reasons were very specific and justified. He wasn’t serious enough. He lacked motivation. He wasn’t sensitive enough to her needs. For each reason, she could relive a detailed example of that failing…. Read more.

Anger In Waiting: Connie’s Story

Connie glanced at the clock on the dresser, agitated by how late it was. Almost simultaneously she heard her husband call up to the bedroom from downstairs. Rob wanted to know when she’d be ready to leave, and it was obvious by his tone of voice he was irritated at her tardiness. He’d said to be ready at 5:30, and she still had six minutes left, according to the clock…. Read more.

Resolving Relationships: Katie’s Story, Part I

Katie came to work with me originally because of depression and an eating disorder. Her mother was concerned because, at twenty-three, Katie was obese. She had a good job but was plagued by high absenteeism that threatened her employment. When she was at work, she was meticulous and thorough. But there were just too many days when she couldn’t seem to make it in. Her weight never seemed to go down. It would plateau for a time, but then Katie would have a “down time” and up it would creep…. Read more.

Resolving Relationships: Katie’s Story, Part II

Katie hadn’t worried about it much while still in school because the sheer busyness and activity level of college kept a lid on her weight. As soon as Katie graduated and got a job, however, things started to unravel. Even though she wanted to lose weight, she couldn’t seem to. The heavier she got, she worse she felt. The more out of control her life and her eating became, the angrier she got. The angrier she got, the more despair she felt. The more despair she felt, the deeper her depression. The more depressed she became, the harder it was to go to work and the easier it was to eat…. Read more.

Click here for details on how to enter the book giveaway.

Posted in Anger, Eating disorders, Relationships, Stress | Leave a reply

Resolving Anger: The Proverbs Series

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Dr. Jantz
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As I blogged about a few days ago, on February 15th EatingDisorderHope.com is giving away 10 copies of my book Every Woman’s Guide to Managing Your Anger. For a preview of what to expect, here’s a blog series I ran a few months ago featuring excerpts from the book.

RESOLVING ANGER: THE PROVERBS SERIES

Calming Quarrels (Proverbs 15:18)

Proverbs 15:18 — “A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.” Anger can produce a state of heightened anxiety and watchfulness. Anger can distort events and twist them into unintended shapes. Anger keeps you hot-tempered and itching for a fight, so much so that your attitude actually stirs up dissension. Being patient, however, is said to calm a quarrel. When you are able to turn your anger over to God, you are able to patiently wait for him to exact justice for you. Being patient keeps you calm and better able to realistically assess a given situation. Being calm leaves room for grace.

Fighting Fairly (Proverbs 17:14)

Proverbs 17:14 — “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.” Nowhere is this truer, I think, than in working with couples. If both people have unresolved relationships, starting a quarrel between them unleashes a torrent of hidden issues….

Protection or Destruction? (Proverbs 17:19)

Proverbs 17:19 — “He who loves a quarrel loves sin; he who builds a high gate invites destruction.” There are women I know, probably women you know, who love a good argument. It seems they like nothing better than to fight about nearly everything. If you are one of these women, you know deep down how much satisfaction you get out of unleashing your temper….

Driving Out the Mocker (Prvbs 22:10)

Proverbs 22:10 — “Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended.” Did you know that you have a “mocker” inside your head? This is that negative voice you’ve read about that puts you down and devalues you. This voice is fueled by all the false, destructive, and unkind things said against you and things done to you. When this voice says you are not lovable, it mocks the truth of God’s love for you….

The Battle Belongs to the Lord (Prov. 26:17)

Proverbs 26:17 — “Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own.” Every one of you has been damaged by a sin in your life — your own sin and the sins perpetrated against you. You are a casualty of a war raging. This war takes place in your life but also in realms beyond your comprehension….

Avoiding Gossip (Prov. 26:20)

Proverbs 26:20 — “Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.” Become aware of what sort of fuel incites your anger. Learn to be discerning. Refrain from indignation and umbrage at unsubstantiated rumors and gossip. Not only is this sort of behavior destructive, it often diverts you from your own work of reflection and recovery….

Two to Tango (Prov 26:21) 

Proverbs 26:21 — “As coal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.” An old saying is that it takes two to tango. If you insist on being a quarrelsome person, you will find a willing partner; you are sure to find plenty of opportunity to kindle strife….

Click here for details on how to enter the book giveaway.

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EatingDisorderHope.com Sponsors Monthly Book Giveaways in 2011

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Dr. Jantz
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Every month this year through November, EatingDisorderHope.com is featuring one of my books in its library of resources for eating disorder treatment, discovery and related issues. Each featured book comes with a book giveaway, the next one scheduled for February 15 – Every Woman’s Guide to Managing Your Anger. 

I’d like to thank Eating Disorder Hope for sharing my books, and I’d like to encourage you to check out their website for a whole host of information and inspiration intended to support its mission: “To offer hope, information and resources to individual eating disorder sufferers, their family members and treatment providers.”

Every Woman’s Guide to Managing Your Anger helps women face their anger issues, move beyond them, and live the life they were meant to live.

So if you (or someone you know) want to…

  • accept the truth of your anger
  • examine where it comes from
  • be honest about how you use it
  • be open to change
  • be willing to forgive, even yourself
  • be willing to feel something else besides their anger

… click here for details on how to enter the book giveaway today.

Posted in Anger, Eating disorders | Leave a reply

The Excessity of Anger

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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Some of you are probably scrunching up your eyebrows at this category. After all, who would want to gather up and surround themselves with an excessity of anger? Yet for some people each expression of anger is as precious to them — to their sense of self and identification in the world — as Imelda Marcos’ espadrilles were to her. Just as Imelda felt more herself and more complete with every pair of shoes, there are some people who intentionally “put on” anger every day as a personal statement and protective covering.

You probably know someone like this.

It’s the person who is able to find fault in just about every person she meets and every situation she encounters. Nothing is left alone to be just what it is. It is always critiqued, criticized, evaluated, and ultimately found lacking. She reacts the same way to people.

Coworkers are incompetent; her kids are a mess; her husbund (or ex-husband) a fool. She considers herself akin to the only sighted person in the land of the blind, constantly amazed at the ineptitude around her. Therefore, she feels duty-bound to continually, incessantly point it out. It is impossible for her to leave well enough alone because, to her, it’s never well enough; the only “well enough” is her “never enough” — her anger, irritation, and annoyance. For her living out her wellspring of anger every day is a necessity for her sense of self and a defensive stance against a hostile world. Yes, her anger is an excessity.

This isn’t an issue just for women; men also can exhibit inappropriate levels of anger.

It”s the man who doesn’t speak to others as much as he barks at them. Questions and comments are really thinly veiled commands. He always has an opinion, is never afraid to voice it, and rarely has one that is positive. This is the man who attacks his life from the position of adversary. He is convinced that people are out to get him and that only eternal vigilance on his part — sometimes epxressed in a raised and animated voice — keeps him and his family safe.

His family has learned not to question him and the dog wisely stays out of his way.

Like money, anger is a conduit for power and control. Anger is effective. Angry people usually get what they want through the feelings their anger generates in others. More people are afraid of angry people and will attempt to accommodate them or placate them. Usually this means giving up something to the person who is angry, even if what is given up is the other person’s self-control.

Yes, anger is effective and powerful. Because of this, anger has the potential to crowd out other responses in your emotional toolbox until it’s the first thing you reach for, every time.

SOURCE: Chapter 2, “Examine Your Excess,” in Gotta Have It! by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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6 Disciplines for Eliminating Self-Defeating Attitudes

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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During the darkest days of World War II, when the Allies were struggling and losing on every front, Winston Churchill had the uncanny capacity to quiet his active mind by focusing on some entirely new — often offbeat — activity and giving it his undivided attention. Later, he could return to the strategies of meeting head-on the hated German war machine with his keen mind rested and refreshed.

I can’t think of many people in the history of the world who have held more responsibility in their hands or had more monstrous crises to face than Winston Churchill during the years when he was prime minister of England. However, not everyone realizes he was able to face up to the sort of challenges that would have killed a dozen lesser individuals because of a pattern of behavior he had developed early on — a system for eliminating self-defeating attitudes. Fortunately, Churchill’s system is bound by neither time nor geography and can operate as freely and effectively in the wars you and I fight in our minds today.

THE MASTER KEY

In the context of learning to change gears while in the center of mental conflict, I once heard commentator Earl Nightingale read a quote by Winston Churchill that explained how the great statesman could concentrate on the many affairs of government without becoming stressed. He would consciously force himself to think about things that were completely unrelated to the problems before him.

Winston Churchill knew how to tap into one of the primary antidotes for emotional exhaustion: Change your focus momentarily so you can come back to face your challenges with fresh insights. Without using the exact words, Churchill was sharing with us one of the keys to regaining control of our lives.

We all know how a negative life view can keep us trapped, fearful, and stuck with choices that ruin any opportunity we might have for success. Let’s look at six proven, practical disciplines that, when implemented, can turn an attitude of defeat and despair into hope, energy, and confidence.

1. Review and renew your attitude daily, ready to change your focus so as to embrace optimism over pessimism.

2. Get physical, as exercise can enable you see problems with new eyes and, in fact, even alter your attitude.

3. Become accountable, ready and willing to accept the truth as shared with us by trusted friends, and as realized with our own eyes, ears and realizations.

4. Learn to be content with what you have, as wise men and women know that happiness comes from accepting the impossible, doing without the indispensable, and bearing the intolerable.

5. Relinquish your anger, a natural emotion that serves a healthy purpose but can become harmful when it is our focus or a continual part of our personality.

6. Clean house emotionally, taking steps to sweep away stress and self-defeating attitudes.

As you begin practicing the six disciplines, you will discover many wonderful things begin to happen in your life that help you refocus your priorities and reduce your level of emotional exhaustion. But just as the appearance of one robin does not promise a spring, so you must trust these disciplines for the long haul rather than expecting overnight success.

SOURCE: Chapter 7“Six Disciplines for Eliminating Self-Defeating Attitudes” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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R is for Responsible for My Emotions

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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Just as children come in all body types, they also come in all emotional types. Some children are natural stoics. Some children have a seemingly endless supply of pendular emotions. Other children are one-sided emotionally, reacting to a variety of situations with a specific emotional response, such as anger or disappointment. You may have emotionally different children but one desired outcome — for each child to become responsible for his or her emotional response.

KNOWING YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL STATE

Before we begin to talk about your child, we need to talk about you.

As the adult role model, you need to have your emotional act together. Just as your own poor food choices can make it difficult for your children to eat responsibly, your poor emotional choices can make it difficult for your children to react responsibly. Your emotional stability, or lack thereof, provides an environment for your child’s emerging emotions.

Think for a moment how you usually respond to the following situations with your child — not what you hope you’ll do or what you think you should do but your standard response.

  1. How do you respond when your child whines?
  2. How do you respond when your child is excited?
  3. How do you respond when your child is angry?
  4. How do you respond when your child is happy?
  5. How do you respond when your child is defiant?
  6. How do you respond when your child is hopeful?
  7. How do you respond when your child is sad?
  8. How do you respond when your child is right?
  9. How are your responses to others different from how you respond to y9ur child?

The way you respond to your child, and to others, speaks volumes. As the adult, you set the emotional tone for your child, affecting his or her own emotional response. So now take the time to go through the same nine questions again, this time answering with the healthy responses you would like to emulate in the future.

ASK FOR HELP

Father, thank you for making us as  diverse emotionally as we are physically. Help me to know and understand my child’s emotions. I confess I’ve allowed the sun to go down on my own anger. I accept that my emotional stability is a model for my child. Help me to allow my child to experience and express emotions. Alert me to any difficulty my child has with emotional stability, and help me to subdue my pride in order to get needed help. Amen.

SOURCE: Chapter 7, “R is for Responsible for My Emotions,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Turning Negatives Into Postives: Mark’s Story

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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Mark’s marriage ended badly. He fought it, kicking and screaming, until his wife made it quite clear she no longer wanted anything to do with him. She was done with him and the marriage. It didn’t matter how much he still loved her; she no longer loved him. She couldn’t even stand to be anywhere near him. There was someone else, and she wanted that relationship more than she wanted him. She was finished, and for a time, Mark thought he was, too.

Nothing made sense anymore. Mark couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong or why someone who had once loved him could come to hate him so much.

Had she ever really loved him at all?

How could he have been so blind?

For a long time after the divorce, Mark didn’t want to see anyone. His friends had been their friends, and some were now only her friends. With a morbid fascination, he tried to keep up with what she was doing. That ended when he found out she’d married again. She was moving on with her life, and Mark couldn’t seem to get on with his. What right did she have to be happy when she’d made him absolutely miserable? It wasn’t fair.

A good friend finally took Mark aside and told him it was time to let his ex-wife go.

While they were married, he had held on to her out of love. Since the divorce, he had held on to her out of anger. He needed to let her go — to let the anger go. It was like a breath of fresh air sweeping over Mark’s heart when he found the strength to forgive her and move on.  He decided he was not going to concentrate on those last ten months but on the five years before that when he’d been happy. He realized he was grateful to her for helping him develop an understanding of love. Ultimately, she threw it away, but Mark found he was ready to reclaim it.

With this renewed confidence in his ability to give and receive love, Mark was ready to put the past behind him and embrace the future.

FILL YOURSELF UP WITH GOOD THINGS

The pain of this world can produce so much that is negative, but God is able to take those negatives and turn them into positives. Ask God to help you clean out the old, negative spaces, so you’ll have room for the renewing attributes of a healed, redeemed life:

  • Let joy take the place of anger
  • Let confidence take the place of fear
  • Let peace take the place of guilt
  • Let mercy take the place of blame
  • Let pride take the place of shame

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” ~Galatians 5:22

SOURCE: Chapter 4: “Gratitude,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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4 Steps to Healthy Anger Management

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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If someone steals your wallet, you feel anger. If you come home after a much-deserved vacation and discover your house has been ransacked and burglarized, you feel violated and angry. If someone says something insulting to a member of your family, your anger may be so intense that you want to punch that person in the mouth. These are all understandable emotional responses.

You would hardly be a responsible human if you allowed these events to pass as if nothing had happened. However, we are also capable of doing irreparable damage to ourselves while we’re intent on attacking others. The missile of anger and hate that we launch will return to us every time.

Here are four useful ways to rethink your situation when you start to get angry:

1. Be your own person. Even if your anger has festered for yeas, you don’t need to let the actions of others dictate how you feel. Determine what you want out of the encounter. The old idea of counting to ten is still a good rule of thumb before saying anything at all. It will give you time to think about the situation and your response.

2. Don’t intimidate, and don’t be intimidated. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” What a great idea. Be assertive by asking the person to be reasonable in your debate, even as you promise to return the favor.

3. If the shoe fits, wear it. There may be times when you will be confronted with the truth, but you may not want to hear it. That’s when your defenses may rise up like a ten-story building. Again, take a moment and listen to what’s being said. If you need time to think about it, say so. Then ask God to give you the courage to accept the truth and confess your fault if necessary.

4. Practice intentional kindness. God’s Word says that a kind word turns away anger (Prov. 15:1). Think of something positive to say to the person — even if it’s, “I hear what you are saying, and I need to take your comments seriously.” Take the offensive in praising the accomplishments of others. Edify those with whom you work and live. Tell them when they do good work. Anger and honest praise have difficulty living together. Be known as someone who sees the best in those around you.

SOURCE: Chapter 3: “The Poisons of Anger, Fear, and Guilt” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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10 Questions for Finding the Source of Anger, Fear, and Guilt

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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Are you aware that what you are feeling as burnout and emotional exhaustion are really only the tip of a much deeper iceberg? Would you like to get to the source of your problem? Would you like to be able to throw your whole self into your life — like you did when you were a kid — free of anger, fear, and guilt? Are you ready to prepare yourself to smile, laugh, praise others, relax, and let your heavenly Father speak to you in fresh, new ways?

If you really want to work at this, then first I’d like you to answer some simple questions:

1. Do you find yourself waking up some mornings afraid to face the day?

2. Would you describe yourself as a person who has peace of mind?

3. Do you find it difficult to forgive others?

4. Do you ever deny your anger — perhaps because you do not know how to handle it?

5. Have you ever paid the price for getting even with someone?

6. Do you feel fearful of things, people, or events that are now history?

7. Are your fears, for the most part, realistic?

8. Do you live with guilt for things that were not your fault?

9. Is there something that’s making you feel especially guilty at this moment?

10. Do you feel you have the ability to choose anger, fear, or guilt in a given situation rather than just accept that emotion as it comes?

What do your answers to these questions say about you and where you find yourself at this moment? If you are feeling stressed to the point of burnout or on the threshold of emotional exhaustion, your answers may provide clues to what’s going on inside. As you reconsider each question, you may find that anger fear, or guilt are burdening your life and adding to your stress.

Every day we find ourselves confronted with overbearing, domineering colleagues, neighbors, and even family members who make unreasonable demands on our time, try our patience, and drive us crazy. They seem intent on lowering our self-esteem. They appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing, bullying us, forcing us to take more than our share of aspirins, driving our blood pressure sky high, making us bitter, withdrawn, and sometimes even crippling us emotionally.

So we get angry — a natural response to hurt and intimidation. But then we often become fearful, wondering if we’ve done the right thing by expressing our rage. After all, now we may have really opened Pandora’s box. So we back off, hide, or even deny our anger, become a captive of our fears, and begin to live with guilt for having taken a stand in the first place.

It seems that we’re always living with the big three: anger, fear, guilt.

Does any of this sound familiar? These are normal emotions, but there are times when our anger, fear, and guilt are not appropriate — when we hang onto them long after they should have done their useful work. In this chapter we’ll see how this contributes to our stress, which can lead to burnout and then to emotional exhaustion. This is when fear, anger, and guilt become emotionally and physically toxic. It’s important to know the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, fear, and guilt, because how you handle these three often poisonous emotions will be a major key to your regaining control of your life.

Next Tuesday: How to know the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, fear and guilt.

SOURCE: Chapter 3: “The Poisons of Anger, Fear, and Guilt” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Drowning in Anger, Fear and Guilt: Beth’s Journey Through Depression

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Dr. Jantz
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If you feel inexplicable anger, fear or guilt on a regular ongoing basis, as Beth’s story illustrates depression may be to blame.

What is wrong with me? Beth wondered. The worry, never far from the surface of her thoughts, intruded again. But still, Beth had no answer. She felt run-down, listless, and unable to generate energy or enthusiasm about anything. She made sure her kids were taken care of and pantomimed her way through a declining number of social functions, but she couldn’t remember the last time she could honestly say she felt good.

Her husband had even commented on her early nights to bed — without him — and her inexplicable lethargy. She wasn’t eating, and her clothes had begun to droop on her diminished frame. Even wearing bright colors seemed like a lie. Her smile was a pale echo of its former self, detached from any presumed goodwill.

And it wasn’t just her inability to feel joy that frightened Beth. As she went through the motions 0f cleaning up her youngest son’s scraped knee, she realized she couldn’t even feel bad for him. Empathy had left too. Picking him up, kissing his cheek, cleaning his wound and bandaging it, all had been accomplished without the expected emotional attachment. She could display a form of concern, but it was without substance. What is wrong with me? she continued to ask herself. Where did my passion for life go?

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

The answers to the question, “Why do I feel this way?” come from a variety of sources. Many important answers come from the first aspect of the whole-person view we refer to as the emotional self.

One of the key areas we consider when assisting clients in recovery from depression during therapy is how the person feels about himself or herself. In essence, we say to our clients, “Tell me who you are and why.” If clients are not optimistic and hopeful about their own future, depression can establish a stranglehold. Once established, depression produces the negative self-talk that reinforces feelings of guilt, shame, worthlessness, and helplessness. The person’s optimism is drowned in a flood of negative effects from excessive anger, fear, and guilt. Over and over again we have seen the damage done by these three emotions spilling over their appropriate boundaries and inundating a person’s sense of self-worth. In almost every case, this trio of emotions holds the key to depression.

This is not to say that anger, fear, and guilt are completely negative. If someone treats us poorly, it is natural for us to feel anger over the injustice. If we are threatened in some way, it is appropriate to be fearful. If we have done something clearly wrong, it is helathy for us to feel guilt. This kind of anger helps energize us to protect and defend ourselves. This kind of fear motivates us to quickly seek a solution to our danger. This kind of guilt produces the remorse that causes us to change our behavior.

In proper proportion, the emotions of anger, fear, and guilt are healthy, appropriate emotions. But, as with many things, too much of them can wreak havoc. Left unresolved, these three emotions can eat away at your sense of optimism, hope, and joy.

Learn more about depression here, including 30 conditions that may signify depression.

SOURCE: Chapter 1: “Emotional Currents,” Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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