Feelings & Emotions

On paper, everything’s fine: steady job, decent house, friends you see regularly. Nothing’s obviously broken. So why does the question “why am I not happy?” keep showing up in your head? This question can make you feel alone, but therapists hear it often. “I’d say it’s probably one of the…

As a licensed mental health counselor at Thriveworks, Jaclyn Bencivenga hears about anhedonia all the time—though most patients don’t mention it by name. “Even if they’ve never heard the term, many people come to me and talk about how nothing makes them feel good or happy anymore,” she says. If…

Sometimes your therapist asks you a question that stops you in your tracks and completely shifts your perspective on a situation. For me, it was when my therapist asked me to picture my current situation as if it was a movie scene. Then came the breakthrough question: “What do you…

You’ve been in therapy for a while. You’re pretty self-aware, you can trace your attachment style back to childhood, and you know your patterns and why you do what you do. But when your therapist asks “how does that make you feel?” you respond with a three-paragraph analysis rather than…

Most people don’t walk around openly saying “I hate myself,” but plenty of us have thought it. Maybe it crossed your mind after a pretty big mistake or during a rough mental health spiral. Or maybe it’s been part of your inner monologue for years—a harsh critic in the back…

Maybe you’re questioning your career, second-guessing your relationships, struggling to imagine a future that actually excites you, or realizing the life you expected doesn’t quite match reality. Or maybe nothing is technically wrong, yet you can’t shake the feeling that you’re drifting through the world with little sense of direction…

What if a lot of what you think is a problem to fix is actually just… being human? We’re living through a mental health awareness boom, which is mostly a good thing. But it’s also created a new kind of anxiety: the feeling that every uncomfortable thought or emotion is…

You’re sitting at work answering emails when you realize you’ve read the same sentence three times and still have no idea what it says. Or you’re parked outside your daughter’s dance class, staring at nothing, realizing you can’t remember the last time you had an hour to yourself—much less what…

You’re folding laundry, sitting in traffic, or halfway through a perfectly fine Tuesday—and suddenly you’re crying. Not because anything happened. Not because you’re particularly sad. You just… are. It’s disorienting. Maybe even a little embarrassing. And the harder you try to figure out what’s wrong, the more elusive the answer…

When’s the last time you tried to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes? This is one of the simplest ways to practice empathy, a powerful skill that plops you into another person’s headspace so you’re in tune with what they may be thinking or feeling. To be human is to…

You’re lying in bed when an unexplainable wave of dread hits. Or maybe an irrational fear that something bad is about to happen ambushes you during your morning commute. These scenarios highlight how impending doom is like a party crasher: It doesn’t knock, but barges in, takes up the whole…

Sexual attraction in relationships is often treated like a taboo subject. Many people feel judged for admitting they’re not physically attracted to their partner, or for worrying about the role of physical chemistry in a relationship. But the truth is, it’s entirely possible to deeply care for—or even love—someone without…