Malka Ceh, PhD, MSc, cNPA

About

You take better care of yourself now. You eat with attention, move your body, make plans, set reminders, and often follow through. Your calendar is, at times, tidy. Your inbox is under control. Even your dentist appointments are booked. You invest in your growth: you sign up for courses and, when time allows, finish some books you buy. You’re planning a retreat. You try. And sometimes, you succeed.

But still ... You snapped at Jordan on Monday, even though you’d promised yourself to stay composed. Yesterday, you walked away from Alex’s question, knowing it would only make the next conversation harder. You woke again at three in the morning, replaying how in 2018, you told Claire’s boyfriend that the job sounded “surprisingly legitimate.” You meant it as a joke. No one laughed.

What is that? It’s your emotions doing what they were shaped to do, not necessarily what you need them to do.

Emotions are biological algorithms. They automate where your attention goes, how you interpret what you see, and how you behave. They were carved by evolution to pass on genes, not to make you happy or act in line with your values. Nature doesn’t ask what matters to you. It doesn’t care about your goals, your values, or how you feel. And so your emotions don’t either—unless you intervene.

I’m here to help you understand how your emotional system works and how to patiently refine it into an instrument that supports the life you’re trying to live and the person you want to be. Hi, I’m Malka. It’s lovely to meet you.

I work with emotions for a living. I’m a certified (neuro)psychoanalyst with a PhD in evolutionary anthropology and an MSc in psychotherapy science. I study how emotional systems are built, what they’re built for, and how to work with them in the world we live in.

Through therapy and coaching, classes and salons, I offer guidance and education rooted in biology, shaped by experience, and delivered with care. I help you understand the patterns behind your emotional responses and learn how to shift them.

Emotions shape every atom of your life. They deserve your time, your attention, and your thoughtful care.

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In the unskippable group project of being human, emotional challenges lurk like mischievous gremlins, ready to trip you up. 🌪️ Naturally, I asked ChatGPT which emotional challenges humans struggle with most. Because when in doubt, ask the robot. 😏

Take a moment to notice: which of these tends to mess with you most? And which are more like occasional speed bumps? Your answers might surprise you and reveal your next emotional growth hack. 🌱✨

🔊 Upregulated Emotional Expression: Your emotions crank the volume past effective and straight into earthquake alert levels. Like using a megaphone for an intimate conversation; leaning across the café table, voice rising with every sentence, hands flailing dramatically while your friend slowly leans back, wondering if they should pretend they don’t know you ... 🎤💥

💧 Emotional Overwhelm: Your emotions come at you like a tidal wave. 🌊 Whether it’s their intensity or your capacity to process them, you end up feeling drowned in the feels.

🔥 Emotional Suppression: You deliberately stifle your emotions; like a pressure cooker with a sealed lid. While this can build resilience and the bottling it up might work … until it doesn’t. 🚪💥

👁️‍🗨️ Limited Empathetic Perception: You find it difficult to read others' emotional states accurately. Feels like reading a book in dim light. You know there’s meaning there, but it’s all a blur. 📖💡

🔍 Impaired Emotional Recognition: Sometimes you know you’re feeling something … but what? Other times, you don’t even register there’s a feeling at all. It’s like having an inbox where the important emails show up blank ... or don’t show up at all. 🌀❓

🤐 Downregulated Emotional Expression: You lock your emotions up like a vault … but, uh, the key’s still inside. 🔒🗝️ Good luck getting in.

Now tell me: where do your emotional gremlins cause the most chaos? Drop your ranking below. 👇😏

#EmotionalHealth #EmotionalIntelligence # EmotionalLiteracy #EmotionalGremlins #EmotionalFitness #PersonalGrowth #MentalHealth #PersonalDevelopment #PeakPerformance #PerformanceHacks #Aff

Have you been introduced to Emotional Fitness? 🤝 Meet your greatest ally. Ever wish your emotions worked for you instead of dragging you into an existential crisis over the wrong coffee order? ☕😵‍💫 Well, emotional fitness is the underrated superpower you didn’t know you needed. 💪✨. It’s not just about feeling good (though, bonus points if you do). It’s about having emotions that actually pull their weight: aligning with your goals 🎯, matching your values 💡, and not throwing tantrums when life throws curveballs. ⚡
Think of it in two dimensions: 🌿a) Emotional well-being: aka feeling deluxe okay. ⚙️ b) Emotional functionality: the system that keeps you there. Together, they turn your emotions into high-performance tools 🛠️ instead of unpredictable gremlins. 👀 So, are you in? Double tap if you're ready to train your emotions like the badass life allies they’re meant to be. 💪🔥💚
#EmotionalFitness #UpgradeYourEmotions #EmotionalSuperpower #EmotionalHealth #PeakPerformance #BrainGains #MentalWellness #SelfDevelopment #AffectScience #Affectology

🌱 Spring is almost here! The season of shedding old leaves, sprouting fresh starts, and monumental transformations (or, you know, new logos, new colors, new slogans ...). (🎶 Delicate spring piano.)

Meanwhile, emotional fitness is doing the opposite: tiny shifts that actually make a difference. (☕ Sound of a very typical Tuesday afternoon.) No overnight awakenings. No "new you" nonsense. Just science-backed tweaks that get you feeling more emotionally tuned in and ready to thrive. 💪

✨ What’s your tiny shift this season? No need to announce it; just give it a subtle, knowing nod. (😏🎩) It deserves one. 😉

#AffectCrafting #EmotionalFitness #ScienceBacked #EmotionalIntelligence #Psychology #PersonalGrowth #MindsetShift #EmotionalWellbeing #OptimizeYourLife #NoFluffJustScience

Do you feel that pull to scroll, snack, or binge-watch when you plan to do work, work out, clean, or do something else productive? 😵‍💫
Here’s the truth: boredom has evolved to guide you toward growth, but in today’s world, it’s hijacked. 🎲🎰 Your brain is designed to always seek "something better". 🔎 This instinct would have helped you in the evolutionary past to find better places and ways to secure food, shelter, allies, a partner, and solve other life’s challenges. 💡 But now? Instead of growing your resources, boredom tempts you toward:
• 🍟 Junk food
• 📱 Mindless scrolling
• 📺 Binge-watching shows
• 🛒 Impulse shopping
These quick dopamine hits create spikes and crashes that deplete your dopamine reserves, leaving you restless, unmotivated, and stuck in a loop of craving. 😩 When you give in to boredom with instant gratification, you lose the opportunity to build up your dopamine capacity and fuel your long-term motivation. It also becomes a habit that weakens your resistance to distractions and the ability to focus, work deliberately, and make an effort.
Enduring boredom is a superpower in today’s world. 💪🏻💪🏻 Why Boredom Matters:
• It allows your dopamine levels to replenish. 🌱
• It builds the capacity to take meaningful action, especially when things feel hard.
• It’s essential for sustainable well-being and a good life.
The ability to endure boredom without reaching for a quick fix enables you to make real progress toward your goals.
Emotional Fitness Tip:
Next time boredom strikes, remind yourself: the urge to scroll or snack is not a need—it’s a nudge. Don’t follow it. Bear it.
💭 What’s your go-to reaction when you’re bored? Take time to reflect.
#EmotionalFitness #BoredomHack #DopamineReset #SelfMastery #Resilience #AffectiveScience #Affectology #Affectologist

How many times a day does this happen? You feel a surge of *anticipation and excitement*, only to crash into frustration or restlessness soon after. 🧠📉 This is a dopamine crash, a drop in your brain’s anticipation chemical after an intense peak from things like scrolling social media, eating junk food, or binge-watching shows. 🤑🚨 The higher the peak, the deeper the crash. And after the crash, your dopamine levels drop below baseline, leaving you stuck in regret, boredom, or apathy. 😖 In contrast, actions that require effort, like working out or doing deep work, lead to a gradual climb toward satisfaction and pride, without the dramatic crash. These effort-based rewards keep your dopamine levels balanced and sustainable. 💪🏻⚖️🥰

🔑 Emotional Fitness Tip:
To maintain healthy dopamine levels:
1️⃣ Avoid or limit extreme dopamine spikes.
2️⃣ Focus on effort-based actions like exercise or creative work.
3️⃣ Allow your dopamine system to reset with rest, boredom, or low-stimulation activities.

💭 Think about it: Which habits make you feel energized, and which ones leave you feeling drained? ☝🏻

#DopamineCrash #DopamineHealth #EmotionalHealth #EmotionalFitness #Neuroscience #SelfMastery #AffectiveScience #Affectology #Affectologist

Your emotions emerge from the three-layer build of your brain. 🧠✨
1️⃣ Primary emotions: Evolutionarily developed and hardwired from birth, these simple yet essential emotions originate in your brainstem.
2️⃣ Secondary emotions: Shaped by your early-life experiences and environment, especially your relationships with significant others, they run on the limbic system.
3️⃣ Tertiary emotions: The most complex, emerging from the brain’s cortex and strongly integrated with reflective processes, like self-awareness, conscious effort, and willpower.

Understanding the anatomy of your emotional system equips you with the basics for reprogramming and optimizing your emotional functioning. 🌱💡 Stay tuned as we explore each layer. 😉

#EmotionalFitness #Neuroscience #SelfImprovementJourney #EmotionalHealth #MindsetMatters #SelfAwareness

What are emotions?

Emotions are your brain's biological algorithms. 🧠 They interpret what's happening around you and motivate and guide you in your behavioral responses. Each emotion generates a unique feeling that drives your response. 🚀

Here’s the breakdown of every emotion:
1️⃣ Trigger: The sensation, situation, event, person, object, behavior etc. that sets off a feeling.
2️⃣ Feeling: Your subjective experience, the how you feel part.
3️⃣ Behavioral Response: How you (re)act based on that feeling. Your response may be behavioral, verbal, a facial expression, an increase in blood pressure and that alike.

Think of emotions as your interpretation engine, alerting you about opportunities and risks, guiding your decisions and fueling their enactment. By understanding this mechanism better, you can optimize it to work in accordance with your personal goal and values. 💡🎯

Reflect: What’s one emotion you’d like to understand or optimize better? 💭

#EmotionsExplained #EmotionalIntelligence #EmotionalFitness #SelfImprovementJourney #MindsetMatters #PersonalGrowth #InnerWork #MentalWellbeing #EmotionalHealth #SelfAwareness

In the entangled landscape of your experience, emotional challenges emerge as typical nuisances. 🌪️ Pause and reflect: How would you rank these challenges in your emotional makeup, from most to least pressing? 🧠 Your ranking might surprise you—and illuminate your next step in emotional growth. 🌱✨

🔊 Upregulated Emotional Expression: Your emotional expression exceeds what's effective—like using a megaphone for an intimate conversation. 🎤
💧 Emotional Overwhelm: Your emotional intensity exceeds your processing capacity, like a cup overflowing—whether it's the intensity of the emotion itself or your capacity to process it, the experience leaves you feeling flooded. 🌊
🔥 Emotional Suppression: You deliberately stifle your emotions—like a pressure cooker with a sealed lid. While this can build resilience, it might also lead to emotional eruptions. 🚪💥
👁️‍🗨️ Limited Empathetic Perception: You find it difficult to read others' emotional states accurately—like trying to read a book in dim light, the cues are there but hard for you to decipher. 📖💡
🔍 Impaired Emotional Recognition: You struggle to identify your own emotional states—you either experience feelings but can't quite recognize and name them or simply fail to notice them. 🌀❓
🤐 Downregulated Emotional Expression: You tend to keep your emotions to yourself—like locking a door but leaving the key inside, access becomes impossible. 🔒🗝️

#EmotionalIntelligence #EmotionalGrowth #EmotionalFitness #MentalHealth #PersonalDevelopment #PsychologicalInsights #EmotionalIntelligence #PsychologicalGrowth #EmotionalWellbeing #MentalHealth #EmotionalFitness #ConsciousGrowth #EmotionalDevelopment #PsychologicalInsights

Your emotional fitness is more than just "feeling good" – it's the product of your emotional well-being 🌿 and emotional functionality ⚙️. When you work on both dimensions, your emotions become your greatest tools 🛠️ for living a good life. 🌟 Explore what peak emotional health looks like for you. 🌈 Double tap if you're committed to developing your emotional fitness 💪🤍
#EmotionalFitness #EmotionalHealth #PersonalGrowth #MentalWellness #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfDevelopment #MindsetGrowth #EmotionalWellbeing #MentalHealth #PersonalDevelopment

In 2015, Harari proposed a paradigm shift: 🌀 Psychology must move beyond its preoccupation with mapping and fixing dysfunction and toward understanding the mechanisms of optimal mental functioning. 🌟 It challenged me to study emotional performance and its role in human potential. 🌱 An integration of insights from neuropsychoanalysis 🧠, evolutionary anthropology 🦴, and clinical work 💡 gradually revealed how emotions, when properly tuned, function as sophisticated instruments of human advancement. 🎯✨

#EmotionalFitness #EmotionalHealth #SuperNormativeStates #OptimalFunctioning

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