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Feelings

Tracy noticed that he was starting to feel tension in his neck and shoulders. This seemed to get worse when he worried about passing the test and making the team. Tracy tried to not get upset about what other people were doing and to just get through one thing, one day, and, sometimes, one hour at a time.

Stressful thoughts often lead to difficult feelings. It's okay for us to have hard feelings. This happens to everyone. People with stressful homes or hard days at school may have more upsetting feelings. Sometimes people who are thinking about really hard stuff, like a fight with their parents, may have worse feelings. On the flip side, people who think about happy or fun things, such as a great day with their friends, may be able to improve their feelings.

Some people have learned how to control their thoughts to help control bad feelings. When something that upsets them pops into their head, they replace that idea with a thought about something happier. This is called "thought-stopping" and it actually helps people to feel better!

Let's practice right now. Think about some different big and important things in your life and what feelings go with those things? People may feel sad or angry if they think about an argument or fight. People may also feel happy or excited if they think about something nice like spending time with their friends or a movie they love. 

Our thoughts and our feelings are closely linked together. Everyone has hard feelings sometimes and that's okay. Just getting better at identifying our thoughts and feelings can help us to do better. This is called emotional awareness. This just means paying attention to what your thoughts and feelings are all the time. Sometimes, just knowing and saying how we are feeling can help a lot!  If those hard feelings get to be too much, it can be helpful to learn some tricks to control them. We can learn some of these tricks by practicing on our own or with a therapist or counselor. If you need help, talk to a parent, teacher, or school counselor. If they aren't available, click on the HELP NOW button at the top of this page.