Argh! Sigh Ugh 😛 Sniff Hooray!
As human beings we experience more negative emotions than positive
ones. Researchers are not set on the exact number of basic emotions but
whomever you ask the majority of them are what we would label as
negative.
In one of my favorite movies exploring emotions, Inside Out, the plot
revolves around an 11 year old named Riley and the inner workings of her
mind which are controlled by her 5 basic emotions: Anger, Fear, Disgust,
Sadness and Joy.
Which of these would you label as positive?
In the film, the character Joy is always trying to limit the influence Sadness
has over Riley and her memories. After Riley’s family makes a big move to
a new city, this results in disaster as Riley is less and less able to access
and “feel” her sadness as it gets buried within her mind. It is only at the end
(spoiler) once she is fully able to feel and process her sadness around the
move is she able to reach out and receive the support that she needs.
I love this movie because it demonstrates so clearly what often happens
for us in our emotional landscape. We try to deal with these so called
negative emotions with strategies that often leave us less able to cope
with life.
The healthiest thing that we can do is practice acceptance and live with
all of our emotions.
But we often don’t.
In Susan David’s book Emotional Agility she brings up two strategies that
many of us apply in our lives to defend ourselves against our negative
feelings.
Bottling and Brooding.
Many of us use both strategies to cope but most of us use one more than
another.
Read the descriptions below to make a guess on your preference:
Bottling:
You hate your job but are scared to look for another one so you tell
yourself that you are lucky to have work when so many are
unemployed.
You just had a fight with your partner and so you dive into an urgent
project at work.
Susan writes, “Bottlers try to unhook by pushing emotions to the side and
getting on with things. They’re likely to shove away unwanted feelings
because those feelings are uncomfortable or distracting, or because they
think that being anything less than bright and chipper is a sign of
weakness, or a surefire way to alienate those around them.”
Brooding:
You received difficult feedback at work and you spend hours thinking
about what you could have done differently and what you need to do
to improve in the future.
You snap at your partner after a long day and you spend the evening
criticizing yourself and wondering why you are always so irritable.
Susan says, “When hooked by uncomfortable feelings, brooders stew in
their misery, endlessly stirring the pot around, and around, and around.
Brooders can’t let go, and they struggle to compartnmentalize as the
obsess over a hurt, a perceived failure, a shortcoming, or an anxiety.”
Do you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions?
Wherever you land, the important piece is to realize that neither of these
brings us into a place of well being and balance. Neither helps us harvest
the important information that these emotions can share.
We also ultimately spend way more time and energy trying to avoid or
solve these emotions than we would if we could just feel them and move
on with living.
So we need to practice feeling our feelings, without resisting them or
getting lost in them and we need to know how to do that.
Below is a favorite practice of mine that helps process emotions and stay
present with the “felt sense” rather than perpetuating or blocking the
emotion with thoughts.
I’m also including a video series I recorded last year that walks you
through the process I use to hold emotions (especially big ones) with an
open, kind presence. This allows you to glean the important information
and then let them flow through you with more ease.
May these open up some more room in your life to live with your feelings
but not be dictated by them.
❤ Jennifer
The 90 Second “Feeling the Feels” Practice
In Pema Chodren’s book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and
Change, she references Jill Bolt Taylor and her research into how the
experience of anger only lasts for 90 seconds when we allow it.
Without any input from our thinking mind, our body naturally feels
an emotion and releases it.
I practice this throughout my day whenever I notice a strong
emotion arising or when I have a moment to be quiet and check in
with myself (waiting for tea to brew, my son to put on his shoes, my
cat to decide whether or not to get settled on my lap 🙂
- Set a timer for 90 seconds or loosely watch a clock.
- Close your eyes and notice what you are feeling.
- Breathe with the feeling, noticing but not getting caught up in
any thoughts about the emotion. - Connect with the bodily sense of what it is like to experience
this emotion. - Where do you feel it in your body? Is it heavy or light? Hot or
cold? Contained or expansive? - Get really curious about what it is like to live inside your body
with this emotion. - You can even say, “Oh so this is what it is like to feel ….”
- If any thoughts arise, just gently return to the experience of
feeling the bodily sensations of your feeling. - After 90 seconds, take a brief inventory. How are you feeling
now? - Then move on into your day!