“It’s all gone terribly wrong”

October 27, 2022 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

But what if it hasn’t?

When we’re in the “other half” of our 50/50 emotional life, sometimes we may think something has gone terribly wrong, that maybe we’re wrong, that our life is wrong, that everything is wrong.

I want to offer that life and our human, emotional experience is 50/50 – 50% “good/positive” and 50% “bad/negative.”

It has to be this way because we wouldn’t know what “good” is without “bad.”

I think we’ve been taught incorrectly that our emotional lives should be “good” most, if not all, of the time. So when something happens and we feel the “bad” 50%, we think something has gone terribly wrong.

But if that “bad” 50% is supposed to be there, has anything really gone wrong?

No. We’re just in the 50% that sucks sometimes. And that’s okay. We’re okay. It’s all okay. We’re in the human experience.

It may not feel okay in the moment, but when we can stay with the negative feeling and allow and process our emotions, that’s when we’ll move forward.

Avoiding the negative emotion can hurt us. Instead of experiencing the emotion, we buffer: we seek other things to make us feel better. Other things, like false pleasures, we don’t necessarily want, like over-eating, over-drinking, binging Netflix, over-Instagraming, over-working, over-spending, etc.

We do these actions instead of allowing and processing an uncomfortable emotion like boredom, loneliness, shame, fear, jealousy.

But experiencing the negative emotion can help us. When we’re willing to experience the range of emotions, we open our lives up so much more. That’s when we know we can handle any emotion.

When we open up to the 50/50, we get some authority over it. Then we don’t have to be in a hurry to seek false pleasure or change things impulsively to feel better.

Your turn: How would your life be different if you recognize that your emotional life is 50/50 and that’s okay? Are you open to allowing and processing negative emotions instead of avoiding or resisting them? What would you be more willing to do for yourself if you embraced the 50/50 of your emotional life?

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What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

How to feel your feelings

June 9, 2022 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ 1 Comment

Stop resisting.

All of us experience emotional pain at certain points in our lives. We often turn to food, alcohol, shopping, work, or something else to ignore the pain we feel. These temporary distractions only prevent the process that needs to happen to let the painful feelings go.

What happens when feelings hurt:

• Something occurs to trigger your emotional pain.

• You can barely make sense of it and it overwhelms you.

• Emotional pain enters your body—the vibrations in your body caused by the thoughts you’re having are excruciating.

When this happens, you can make a choice to: avoid it, resist it, react to it, or process it.

Avoiding

When you choose to avoid your pain and pretend it isn’t there, you are basically lying to yourself. This doesn’t work long term. The truth is that avoidance causes pain to fester. The more you avoid it, the more you have to avoid it. You might eat, for example, instead of feel. Then you might get upset because you ate when you weren’t hungry. Then you might obsess about your body or your exercise routine. All of these tactics keep you from addressing the cause of the pain and instead, multiply undesirable symptoms such as weight gain.

Resisting and Reacting

When you resist the emotion, you tell yourself that you shouldn’t be feeling this way and then you feel bad in addition to the painful emotion you’re already feeling. When you resist, it’s like trying to hold a large beach ball under the water. The beach ball always wants to pop back up and gets stronger the more you try to push it down.

When you deal with pain this way, you act it out or fight against it. You might yell at the person you believe caused your pain. You might talk behind their back, you might give them the silent treatment, or maybe take even more drastic measures against them. This may seem to help with the pain temporarily because it alleviates the vibration in the moment, but these actions almost always backfire.

When we react from negative emotion, we almost always get a negative result. Our actions are usually uncontrolled and unthoughtful. Fighting against the emotion becomes a losing battle–anxiety speeds up the vibration of the already painful emotion, making it even more intense.

Processing and Allowing

When you choose to process pain, you are choosing to feel it. We are so reluctant to feel pain on purpose. We tell ourselves that feeling pain is a bad thing because it feels bad, but this isn’t actually true. When we allow ourselves to feel our pain all the way through, we see that it’s manageable and it can do no long term harm (unlike avoiding and fighting, which can have many long term consequences).

Allow the feeling to be in your body even if you can’t make sense of it in your mind yet. Observe. Say in your mind “I am processing pain” over and over as you feel the pain. You don’t need to fix it or make it go away.

Notice any desire to react, resist, and avoid. You can say the desire out loud or in your mind, or write it down. You don’t have to act on it—just acknowledge it. You can tell yourself, “That won’t help” or “That’s not worth it” every time you notice the desire.

Remind yourself, “This is pain…This is part of being human.” Allow the painful vibration to be there as you do laundry, take a shower, drive your car, or talk on the phone. Notice its heaviness, its energy, its ability to take your breath away. Just notice.

As you do this, you’ll begin to see that your thoughts about the situation appear. It may take a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks. Let it take as long as it takes—there’s no need to force it. Just keep noticing what you notice.

Your turn: What happens to the feeling if you just allow it to be there and feel it all the way through? Where do you feel it in your body? Does it move around or stay still? Is it hot, cold, warm? What color is it? What happens if you’re allowed to feel this way without reacting to, resisting, or avoiding the emotion?

What’s on your mind? Is there something on your mind that you’d like to have addressed in these weekly posts? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, let me know. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

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You’re thinking your feelings

February 3, 2022 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Feel instead.

The title of this post may seem a bit confusing. “What do you mean, I’m thinking my feelings?”

Many people use the phrase, “I feel like. . .” and they get this mixed up with how they’re feeling. When people say, “I feel like. . .” it’s actually a thought, not a feeling.

When asked “How do you feel about it?” or when people are wanting to express their feelings but they’re actually expressing their thoughts, they may say:

“I feel like it’s unfair to them” – The thought is “It’s unfair to them” and the feeling might be “indignant” or “upset” or “frustrated” when someone thinks something is unfair.

“I feel like he disrespected me” – The thought is “He disrespected me” and the feeling might be “hurt” or “angry.” Some people might say the feeling is “disrespected” but go further than that. Is “disrespected” a feeling? What do you feel when you feel “disrespected”? It might be more like “angry” or “vengeful” or “hurt.”

“I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve seen you” – The thought is “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you” and the feeling might be “sad” or “hurt” when someone has been absent for a while, or “relieved” to see someone again after a long absence.

“I feel like it’s not working out” – The thought is “It’s not working out” and the feeling might be “disappointed” or “defeated” or “hopeless.”

“I feel like I’m doing a good job” – The thought is “I’m doing a good job” and the feeling might be “satisfied” or “competent” or “celebratory.”

Feelings and emotions are vibrations in our body. We can describe them in single words–as in the examples above–though we can feel different emotions at the same time. Feelings and emotions come from the thoughts we think.

And what we’re feeling will drive our actions or inactions.

And our actions or inactions are what create the results we get in our lives.

Therefore, we can be more engaged with our lives when we know what we’re thinking and feeling.

It’s important to understand how we’re feeling because we experience life through our feelings.

And what we feel comes from what we think about our life. What do you want to purposely think about your life so you can live a fulfilled and meaningful life?

Your turn: How can you become more aware of your feelings? What is it like to actually feel the feelings in your body?

If you’re open to it, try this self-inquiry: “When I’m feeling _____ (choose an emotion), where do I feel this emotion in my body? Does it stay still or does it move around? What color is it? Is it heavy, light, diffuse, solid? Is it hot, cold, warm? Can I be with this emotion and allow it instead of resisting, reacting to, or avoiding it? What happens when I allow it to be there and really feel it?”

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Work with me: Want to create a more meaningful life in which you get to show up the way you want and stop quitting on yourself? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.