Episode 4: Activating the superpower of processing emotions
Hello, and welcome to episode 4: Activating the superpower of processing emotions. In this episode I discuss the wide range of normal human emotions – comfortable and uncomfortable – and how to activate your superpower of processing uncomfortable emotions.
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Kids are often told to “cheer up,” “stop being afraid,” or “don’t be nervous.” So, it’s no surprise that many people grow up thinking that difficult emotions are not okay.
What if instead, as five-year-olds, we were taught that life is approximately a 50/50 mix of comfortable and uncomfortable emotions?
What if we expected every single day to have its moments of boredom, anxiety, and fear, and also happiness, peace, and laughter?
If you’ve taken at least a few trips around the sun, you know that life isn’t a bowl of cherries. There are some cherries, yes, but there are also the pits.
And then add the loss of a spouse, and now life is no longer 50/50. It is precisely 100% profoundly difficult, unprecedented emotions. It’s the darkest darkness.
If we are not taught to expect difficult emotions, then we are certainly not taught how to have these emotions: how to be with them until they pass, how to feel them fully, and how to process them completely.
We think that if we face a difficult emotion, it will consume us, but this is simply not true.
When we are courageous enough to be fully present with a difficult emotion, it often loosens its grip. It shrinks to more normal proportions.
Just like the most joyful emotions don’t last forever, difficult emotions are temporary, too.
Processing emotion, which I’ll teach you how to do in a moment, is a superpower for two reasons. First, we can gain mastery over our emotions. We know that difficult emotions will not consume us. We know that they are a temporary sensation in our body – that will not harm us.
But processing emotions is a superpower for an even more important reason. Choosing to process a difficult emotion is to increase our willingness to feel any feeling. This is the ticket to the future you want to create for yourself.
Here is how to activate the superpower of processing emotion. Give yourself one to two minutes to do the following:
1. Breathe it in, invite the feeling to be with you.
2. Give it a name. What exactly are you feeling now? Sad? Lonely? Angry? Guilt or regret? If you can’t quite name it, no problem. Skip to the next step.
3. Where is the feeling located in your body? Are you experiencing it in your chest, your shoulders, your stomach, your head?
4. If it were a color, what color would the feeling be?
5. Would you describe it as hard or soft?
6. Is it fast or slow?
7. How does this feeling make you want to react?
8. Why are you having this feeling?
9. Take a few deep breaths. Breathe the feeling in. Repeat these steps again because the feeling will likely change in some way. Notice how the feeling changes.
After 1-2 minutes bring this process to a close. Notice where you end up. Notice how the feeling has changed. Recognize the courage it took to feel this feeling. Congratulate yourself.
Dedicating just one to two minutes to feeling a difficult emotion has a powerful impact on the grief you’re feeling today, and can literally shape your future, too.
I spent years avoiding the difficult feelings, which meant stalling my healing process.
Eventually I learned that the best way through the pain is straight through.
In processing feelings, we:
1. We override the primitive brains fear of difficult feelings. Remember, it is hard wired to avoid pain. Instead….
2. We utilize and strengthen the prefrontal cortex, aka the adult in the room.
3. We reduce the feeling to proper proportions
4. By describing it in terms of location, color, texture, the feeling becomes less scary and more do-able.
5. In processing a feeling, we honor the feeling, we bear witness to it, we TEND to it.
6. We can learn from the feeling
7. We gain mastery over the feeling
8. We increase our confidence in our ability to feel any feeling (and therefore our overall confidence!)
And while this is NOT the main goal, a side effect of processing a feeling is that the feeling will very likely lessen, lighten, dissipate, loosen its grip or possibly leave entirely.
We get all those benefits in just 1-2 minutes. To me, that’s a superpower, and I hope you’ll learn to activate yours.
But if you don’t find the courage today, that’s okay too. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to this podcast, and it will be your traveling companion as you face difficult emotions of today, and eventually, create a life you will love again. In the meantime, know that I believe in you and I’m here for you. Take care.
