Emotional History

My parents often showed me that they were proud of me

When I was growing up, my family always attended the important events in which I participated (e.g., plays, concerts, sports events).

My parents helped me to feel proud of myself.

My family taught me to believe in my talents.

I learned from my past to feel good about what I have accomplished.

I learned from my parents that mastery is all about believing in yourself.

My family taught that if I am failing at something, it usually has very little to do with bad luck.

My past history makes it easy for me to feel proud of the achievements of those close to me.

I easily express my pleasure in the achievements of others.

When I was growing up, there was lots of affection shown in my home.

My parents often showed me that they loved me.

As a child, I felt really accepted by most of my peers.

My family touched, hugged, and kissed one another a lot.

I came from a very emotionally expressive family.

My parents often said "I love you" to me when I was a child.

I feel comfortable expressing affection to those I care about.

From their actions I always knew I was important to my parents.

As a child, my preferences and interests really mattered to my parents.

My parents responded to my emotions when I was growing up.

I feel comfortable receiving affection from those I care about.

It's easy for me to say "I love you" when I feel it.

I was afraid of my father's anger.

It was hard for me to show my own anger to my parents.

I feel highly uncomfortable when people are angry with me.

I was taught as child that anger is very similar to aggression.

I was afraid of my mother's anger.

I can't talk about my own anger with comfort.

My family generally believed that anger was a destructive emotion.

I try to avoid becoming angry.

Not too many people can tell when I am angry.

I will keep my anger controlled until I eventually blow up.

I often feel that my anger is out of control.

I've learned from my past that expressing anger is like throwing gasoline on an open flame.

I keep my sadness to myself.

Past experience as taught me that letting myself be sad is a waste of time.

I'm rarely sad.

My family taught me that feeling sadness was cowardly.

I learned as a child that expressing sadness just brought everyone else down.

I try to quickly get over being sad.

I am impatient with other people's sad moods.

When I was a child, my loneliness wasn't noticed by my parents.

No one can tell when I am sad.

I've learned by through experience that there's very little point in talking to others when I'm downhearted.

I hate being around sad people.

I could never openly express my worries and fears to my parents.

My parents believed that I should just get over my fears and not dwell on them.

My parents believed that I should just get over my fears and not dwell on them.

As a child, I just wasn't allowed to be afraid.

I was taught as a child to avoid thinking too much about my fears, because doing so could paralyze me into inaction.

I learned when I was young to keep going even when I was afraid.

My family taught me that exploring my fears would make me a wimp.