Mark Goulston Quotes

The amygdala in the emotional center sees and hears everything that occurs to us instantaneously and is the trigger point for the fight or flight response.

When people get into that fight-or-flight place, then they move away from the creative centers of their brain.

Emotional life grows out of an area of the brain called the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, whence come delight and disgust and fear and anger.

Most of us know when we are about to react emotionally. We can feel it. Often there is a brief warning before the amygdala hijack. For some of us, it is butterflies in the stomach; for some, it is an increased heart rate, and for others, it is a feeling of agitation.

Remember that feelings or emotions emanate from the more ancient, less evolved, lower part of the human brain, while thoughts are a product of our highly evolved, uniquely human, outer part of the brain.

I'm quite an emotional person. I cry a lot. I do not like conflict, so if I have an argument with my parents, I'll often cry. I become too emotional.

I got interested in the emotions after studying patients who had lost the ability to emote and feel under certain circumstances. Many of those patients also had major impairments in their ability to make decisions.

The amygdala is one of those brain structures that a lot of people know a little bit about, and there's a definite tendency to conflate the amygdala and the fear response itself - as if the amygdala, and the amygdala alone, 'causes' fear.

Studies show when people yell, they get themselves even angrier. Interesting factoid: If you and/or your partner's heartbeat becomes higher than 100 beats per minute during an argument, you will not be able to fully understand/process what the other is saying.

Sometimes I get emotional. I let my emotions get the best of me.

When you're overwhelmed by your emotion, you listen less and you judge more. This is also the reality of the dogmatic mind.

Our brain is the factory of the emotions

Adrenaline dulls reason; panic kills it.

If you consume something that's poisonous, you don't consciously think of vomiting; your body just does it. It's a reflex. When I'm happy, I don't instantly feel the need to get rid of that feeling. But when I'm sad, I think maybe that's what happens.

The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.

My manners have always been the first thing to go when I get upset, and some people say that they stopped coming back a long time ago.​

Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late.

If the mind is dominated by hatred, the best part of the brain, which is used to judge right and wrong, does not function properly.

How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense—if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example—then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain.

There are some things we can't choose, but in being present we can choose how we want to relate to them

Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too.

Well, you can’t control what they do, but you can control how you respond to it…whether you allow it to drive you crazy, or occupy all of your thoughts, or whether you note what they’re doing, consider it, and make a conscious decision as to how much you’ll let it affect you

Anger begins as an inner twinge. We sense something long before it blossoms (explodes?) into an emotional tirade. If we listen to this twinge -- and follow its advice -- the emotional outburst (or in burst) is not needed.

When caught in conflict and blame - make a U-turn and shift your attention from blaming thoughts to what's going on emotionally in your body.