My goal for the day is to introduce both what emotions are, how to practice with understanding, connecting with regulating emotions and the role that both

meditation plays in that process and the role that both meditation plays in that process and the role that interpersonal connection

plays.

And so that we'll all hopefully by the end of today wind up with a set of tools to process emotions

and a successful way that won't involve some of the negative sabotaging, repressive,

suppressive, addictive tendencies that are somewhat epidemic in our culture today.

So let's get started. Up until certainly in the 1960s and 70s there was an era in psychology

that focused on the idea that the role of

growth that the role of growth and human happiness involved what was called individuation, which was the idea that we moved towards self-definition

self-sufficiency and there were a lot of psychologists at the time who really focused on helping patients

essentially find essentially finds a sense of self-stability and a sense of looking for a sense of what was the core purpose in life outside of relationships,

outside of the idea was to help the individual move from the family and from some of the social interactions so that the person in therapy could find a purpose outside of the influences of the world

around.

And of course, some of the dominant themes that were in existentialist psychology and so forth

really supported this. But then there was a second group of psychologists by the names of

Bulby and Ainsworth, Winnicott, and Fairburn, and Bayon, and so forth and so on,

Low Wald that suggested that human beings are social animals.

We are packed animals.

And that the idea of trying to guide people

towards self-sufficiency

to be self-regulating outside of relationships

rather than leading anywhere positive, in fact,

...