this is not a duet

that’s enough emotions for a whole year. ciao

I remember first learning that you can cry from any emotion, that emotions are chemical levels in your brain and your body is constantly trying to maintain equilibrium. so if one emotion sky rockets, that chemical becomes flagged and signals the tear duct to open as an exit to release that emotion packaged neatly within a tear. Everything made sense after learning that. That sudden stability of your emotions after crying. How crying is often accompanied by the inability to feel any other emotion in that precise moment. And it is especially beautiful knowing that it is even possible to experience so much beauty or love or happiness that your body literally can’t hold on to all of it. So what I’ve learned is that crying signifies that you are feeling as much as humanely possible and that is living to the fullest extent. So keep feeling and cry often and as much as needed

SHIT WHAT

Also let yourself cry. It really is a biochemical release valve to dump out all the chemicals that make you feel stuff.

I honestly think one reason men in western culture have so many problems is that we don’t let them cry, and literally their brains get stuffed with all this crap that doesn’t have a release valve. Men, please cry. You’ll feel better. It’s ok. You are not lesser for taking care of your health.

This is why tears from different emotions look different under an electron microscope. They’re literally made up of different things. 

Happy tears are structurally different than sad tears than angry tears than overwhelmed tears etc.

You’re not over exaggerating. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not too much. If it hurts you it fucking hurts you. If it makes you angry, then it makes you angry. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling.

positivity is cool and all but repressing negative feelings is toxic to yr mind and body. dont feel guilt for having an array of emotions. its corny to fake positivity when it isnt sincere, feeling stuff even bad stuff is nothing to be guilty over. its okay to feel bad sometimes

shout out to everyone who was forced to internalize all their emotions growing up and now have a constant underlying anger that colors every part of their lives bc they never got to learn how to process their feelings

I wish more people got this because some ‘low-empathy’ people are the most compassionate and sympathetic in the universe, and I hate it when that’s taken to mean ‘unfeeling and probably hostile’ when nothing could be further from the truth

Or, as my dad put it,

Sympathy: I know how you feel Empathy: I feel how you feel Compassion: is there anything I can do to help?

the whole “anger is poisonous and bad for u” mindset was created by people who didn’t want to deal w the justified anger directed at them by others

anger is powerful and important, anger is fuel, and only you determine whether or not your anger is good or bad for you

This site is an AMAZING resource for understanding how humans experience emotions, and how their bodies and minds react to specific emotions such as fear, anger, happiness, etc.

It even has flow charts that map out the processes people go through in reacting to emotions, such as:

how my emotions work

is 2am an emotion

me playing my favorite videogame

(via garps)

does anyone else feel really stupid and embarrassed after expressing any sort of emotion or is that just me

Amazing

positivity is cool and all but repressing negative feelings is toxic to yr mind and body. dont feel guilt for having an array of emotions. its corny to fake positivity when it isnt sincere, feeling stuff even bad stuff is nothing to be guilty over. its okay to feel bad sometimes

People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves 

Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.

Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:

Just had to reblog this because I am honestly so tired of people claiming that Africans are “less evolved” than everyone else 

My addition to the above list:

Epigenetics does not have anything at all to do with genetic memories. It is a thing that affects characteristics like health risks, and this speculation floating around about how phobias could be related to some ancestral trauma is complete and utter nonsense.

It’s only a matter of time before such a claim is used as another pseudoscientific tool in the arsenal of people claiming that bloodlines have anything to do with the validity of one’s worship of European pantheons. “My ancestors were Swedish, and because of epigenetics I have genetic memories passed down from those ancestors, so therefore my connection with the gods is better than yours!”

Just, no. Stop. STOP.

gonna also chime in here:

saying the “male brain” works one way and the “female brain” works another way is ludicrous. for so many reasons, even beyond the obvious of imposing that tired old either/or mentality with regards to maleness and femaleness

occasionally you will read about how a study suggests that “men are naturally better at spacial reasoning” or “women are naturally better at cooperation”, but for one thing, given how early the brain wires itself and how easy it is to influence the wiring (like, disturbingly easy), and given the tremendous social expectations we face from pretty much the moment we leave the freaking womb, it’s impossible to study gender differences in a vacuum. 

like, do your findings prove that “women are better at reading faces”, or do they prove that, when you are part of a group that has been socialized since birth to be “nice”, to take care of other people, and to above all avoid making folks angry, you damn well have to learn how to read the room, and read it fast.

also, the “left brain, right brain” thing is bunk. there are not, like emotion-driven people and logic-driven people. everybody is primarily emotional. that circuitry is older and reacts much faster, and this is why nobody is immune from sometimes making wildly irrational decisions.