It's been awhile so I thought what better time to "really go for it" with my readers. As students of our courses and coaching know, the feelings and thoughts incurred in trading often are EXACTLY like the feelings and thoughts our parents gave us when we were young. If not our parents then a proxy like a teacher or coach did the number on us.

This is part of the human condition and while it amazed me at first, it no longer surprises me to be able to find the emotional architecture or the echo(s) in every trader I speak with.

But you can get started on your own. Write down your worst feelings about a trade or trading. Then write down your worst feelings you can remember from your parents or grade school. Then compare.

Some of us have had to repress the feelings so it may be hard to see the match. For most of us, the match is stunningly and disconcertingly obvious.

Fret not however (or fret less) because now that you know that an old feeling is getting transferred to a current situation you can more easily detach that feeling from your next trading action! Even Jennifer Lerner of the Harvard Lab on Decisions is saying that "processing" the feelings puts the person in a much better position! (New Handbook Social Psychology).

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