Episode 124: The 2 Biggest Fears About Feeling Your Feelings
In today’s episode, I wanted to bring back Abby and hear how she implements A.S.K. when she realizes she doesn’t have enough hours in the day.
Here is a common scenario in my world: I had a lot to get done – back-to-back client meetings and deadlines looming. My anxiety was through the roof!
I kept telling myself, “you need to acknowledge your feelings,” knowing that it helps when I am stuck in anxiety. But it wasn’t working. I kept coming up sad and overwhelmed. No matter how many times I tried, I wasn’t getting any relief.
At the end of the day–-meetings over, deadlines met – I was still spinning with anxiety. I realized I had gone through the whole day without really feeling anything. Every time I had gone through the motions of naming my emotions, they were quickly hijacked by my Monger saying, “Feeling sad is a waste of time. You don’t have time for this nonsense. Move on and focus!”
This is a common experience for many of my clients. We shame ourselves for feeling our feelings. We tell ourselves that we don’t have enough time for them, that we won’t get anything done by feeling things. Or, worse, we fear that allowing ourselves to experience our emotions would open up a bottomless pit of despair that we would never be able to find our way out of.
In today’s episode, I want to dive a little deeper into the F word. I talk about Acknowledge your Feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety. In episode 119, I introduced the topic, but today I want to dive a little deeper and answer some of the questions that I receive from clients and listeners about feelings.
Feelings are a big part of my coping strategy around my anxiety. Allowing my feelings and facing them has been a game-changer for me. I KNOW the fear that doing this will open the flood gates, that all the feelings will come out and overwhelm. So, in this episode, I address some common fears about acknowledging your feelings.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
How to allow your feeling even when you are afraid that it will lead to overwhelming despair
How to acknowledge your feeling when it seems like that will just add to the stress you are already experiencing
How our feelings don’t just go away if we ignore them but will show up in other places
How acknowledging our feelings isn't something you have to DO because it is something your body naturally does – you just have to give yourself permission.
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
I had a lot to get done. Client meetings, a number of deadlines to make my anxiety was through the roof. I kept saying to myself, you need to acknowledge your feelings because I know it's so helpful for me when I'm stuck in anxiety, and what kept coming up is sad and overwhelmed, but that wasn't working.
It wasn't giving me any relief. No matter how many times I tried. At the end of the day, meetings over deadlines hit and still spinning with anxiety. I realized I hadn't really felt anything. I'd gone through the motions of acknowledging my feelings, but every time I named them, I was quickly hijacked by my monger saying, you don't have time for this feeling.
Sad is a waste of time. Move on and focus. Finally, I realized I hadn't really acknowledged my feelings. I had just named them. And then my monger had shamed me for them. So again, I tried to name my feelings, and I had another major aha. This time when I named them, I actually allowed them rather than shaming myself. My biggest fan chimed in and said, whoa, it's just so hard to feel sad, especially when you don't know why.
Almost immediately. My shoulders dropped. I got a little teary just from feeling the compassion and kindness. And then I moved on with my evening. Yes. Earlier in the day, I was naming my feelings. Yes. I was saying them out loud, but what followed was my monger saying, well, that's not appropriate. That is ridiculous.
How can you be feeling that way? So I wasn't actually acknowledging and allowing my feelings. I was saying them and then slamming them down with criticism and judgment. You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.
I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. This idea of shaming ourselves for feelings, not having enough time for them, or telling ourselves we will enter a pit of despair and never get out. If we feel anything is common for not just me but many of my clients in today's episode, I want to dive a little deeper into the F.
I talk about acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety, and then in episode 119, I introduced the topic, but today I want to dive a little deeper and address two of the fears that clients talk to me the most about when it comes to feelings. As I was writing the happier approach and doing my research on quieting the Munger, I realized the importance of allowing your feelings.
I'd always given lip service to this idea. I mean, I'm a therapist by training, but personally, in my own life, I would run from feelings, push them down, channel them into work and let my anxiety run them. Now feelings are a big part of my coping strategy around my anxiety. Allowing my feelings and facing them has been a game-changer for me.
And I know the hesitancy, the fear that you'll open up the flood gates, and all the feelings will come out and overwhelm you. So let's address some of these common fears about feelings, fear, number one. Okay. You say to allow your feelings, but I'm afraid if I feel my feelings, I will be lost in a bottomless-pit-of-despair.
Man. Oh, man. Do I understand this fear when you've spent most of your life packaging up your feelings, sticking them in a box, bearing that box deep inside. The idea of letting these mysterious sensations into the forefront is scary. Not only have you buried your feelings, but you take a lot of pride in the fact that you can control your feelings, that you don't let your feelings run amuck.
Like those needy emotional people who can't control them. Yep. That's a common refrain of our BFS. We do it better because we can control ourselves. So my first pushback is really, are you in control of your feelings because feelings might not be showing themselves, but all that pushing and burying is exhausting.
So frequently, we are exhausted with headaches, stomach problems. We have lots of anxiety or depression, and we are big fans of numbing with alcohol, food, exercise, TV games, et cetera. Not to mention that we tend to push those closest to us away because true intimacy comes from vulnerability. And when we're cutting off huge parts of ourselves, there is no vulnerability.
So no, you don't have this feeling things mastered. You just think you. Imagine you're standing on the 50-yard line of a football field to your right is the end zone for team-bottomless-pit-of-despair. And on your left is the end zone for the team-I-got-this. If you start in team-I-got-this in the end zone, and you allow yourself to acknowledge a feeling.
And even if you start crying, In response to your sadness, you will have only made it to the 20-yard line. It might feel like you're almost in the bottomless-pit-of-despair end zone, but you're still 80 yards away. The chances of you getting to the bottomless-pit-of-despair end zone is highly unlikely.
The truth is you're not wired to be someone who swims around on your feelings and gets stuck there. It's just not your way. So when you start tapping into a feeling and things come up. Remind yourself that you are nowhere near the bottomless-pit-of-despair, even though it might feel like. I remember the day we found out my dad had dementia.
My first response was to research everything I learned as much as I could about his illness. I figured the more I knew, the more in control I would be. The challenge was they don't know a lot about dementia, and there were many, many unknowns after I'd researched as much as possible. I poured myself a glass of wine and started calling people to share the news.
I called my best friend and shared the data of what was happening. No tears, no sadness, just data. And she responded with the appropriate. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. And I responded with, I know this is huge. I can't believe it. And went into the research that I'd found and the data. No feelings, no sadness. We hung up the phone.
I poured another glass of wine, and I sat alone in the kitchen for a minute before I decided to call another friend. Again, the same thing, no feelings, just data, same shock response. Hang up, sit alone, start to feel, rinse and repeat. And when I ran out of close friends, I pour myself another glass of wine, and I reached for the chocolate, telling myself I was engaging in self-care.
In reality, I was letting my BFF run the show, stay hopped up, numb out. Don't feel anything. In my mind, I was doing what I should be doing, reaching out, asking for help sharing my news. But in reality, I was delivering a news report. I was telling people so I could avoid the quiet it wasn't asking for help.
I wasn't letting people in, and I wasn't being vulnerable. I was sharing data each time I told someone it hot me up more. It pulled me out of my feelings and into my anxiety. So I had some wine to offset that anxiety. If I could go back 12 years, I would do it differently. I would still research because I love to research, and it helps me feel in control.
But this time, I would say to myself, wow, this is hard. Oh, sweet pea. This sucks. So many unknowns, so much out of your control. And this is your dad. You're larger than life, Dad, who is going to slowly lose his mind. His worst fear is coming to reality. Allow the tears allow the fear, allow the doubts because by allowing those feelings to be honest with my experience, I wouldn't get stuck in anxiety or solving the problem or doing something I could take action from a calmer, more loving, kind place.
I remember the first time I really allowed the feelings at an inappropriate time. I was driving to work, and I heard a song that reminded me of my dad, and I started to cry. My normal response would be to say, stop crying. We don't have time to deal with this. I was standing at the 20-yard line of the, I got this end zone, scared as hell that if I shed a tear, I would run the 80 yards into the pit.
Get it together. I told myself I could feel the pit in my stomach as I tried to push everything into that box. And then my biggest fan popped in and just whispered, just let it happen. So I did. I cried big ugly gasping tears as I drove to work, telling myself over and over it's okay.
And then, two minutes later, it was gone. The pit in my stomach was gone. My tears dried up, and I felt a huge relief. It worked this whole acknowledging the feelings thing. I got to work popped into the bathroom. Assuming I would look a mess and was shocked to see that I looked fine—no makeup streaming down my face.
It was just me and my sad eyes looking back at me, allowing the feelings feels foreign and uncomfortable, but in the end, it leads to much, much less anxiety and drama. The next fear I hear a lot is I'm stressed out all the time. I need to get out of my feelings, not feel more. So here's a story from Emily.
Someone I recently worked with, Emily, has had a tough year. Her ex-husband harps on her about every little thing when it comes to the shared custody of their sons, her company is going through some restructuring there. So there's a lot of unknowns in the workplace, and her mom's breast cancer just recently returned.
She is overwhelmed, to say the least recently. I mentioned to Emily that she needed to feel her feelings. And her response was, "I have no problem being angry and sad. I'm the first to share all the hard times I'm going through and complain about them. I feel like I get stuck in my feelings. I take them out of my kids. I feel stressed out all the time. I need to get out of them, not have more of them." To which I thought to myself, you do a great job of justifying your feelings and replaying the events that leave you feeling stuck, but you don't ever allow yourself to feel anything. You just intellectualize.
I used to be just like Emily; I would feel stressed and then spend the rest of the day justifying why I was stressed, listing off all the stressors, but never allowing myself to soften into the anger, sadness, and frustration.
Just replaying the things I was stressed about over and over and over. I would argue that Emily wasn't feeling anything. She was simply naming all the bad things in her life. She wasn't allowing herself to feel them. She wasn't owning her anger or giving herself a chance to experience it. She would just label the event that justified her anger and move on.
When we spend our time justifying and intellectualizing our stress, we are dancing in the shallow end. Think of it like entering the ocean. And the water is chilly. As you wade in and you stand in the shallow end, and the cold waves keep splashing, you. You just stand there getting slapped by the cold waves, never actually getting in the water.
Similarly, when we replay our wrongs, we just keep getting hit with the cold waves. But when we wade in all the way in and immerse ourselves in the cold water, when we allow the anger to come over us and feel the pain completely. We will feel better when we soften in to what is happening head-on. We can assimilate and find relief when we accept our anger. It dissipates when we accept the cold water and allow our body to adjust it dissipates, but standing in the shallow end saying how cold the water is. It doesn't feel good. And it doesn't.
Recently, Emily sent me an email. She shared how she did end up losing her job. The company was downsizing, and she was one of the casualties. Emily came home from work and was devastated. She called her partner for support, and he immediately jumped into problem-solving mode, remembering our conversation.
She stopped him mid suggestion and said, "You know what, today? I just want to be pissed off. I just want to be angry because this sucks. Tomorrow I will solve the problem. Today, I'm just pissed." As she was telling me this story, she said, "I was shocked that came out of my mouth, but I did just want one day to be angry."
This is acknowledging your feelings. Emily allowed herself to feel angry because she was legit angry in her email. She shared how skeptical she was about the process but how much better she felt? I didn't feel like a victim like I thought I would. Feeling the anger empowered me. I was amazed at how much it helped.
Acknowledging your feelings isn't something you have to do. It's something your body naturally does. You just have to give yourself permission. So the next time you notice yourself listing off all the negatives in your life, ask yourself, how does this make me feel with each response? Just allow yourself to soften and give yourself some empathy and kindness, such as, oh, that sucks. Or, oh, sweet pea. And then ask yourself again. How does this make me feel? At first, you might have to ask yourself multiple times before you soften into the actual feeling. This process allows you to move past the shallow end and swim into the deep water. Riding those waves. It's life-changing. Here's what I know to be true about feelings.
Feelings are messy. They're individual. Each person experiences them, deals with them, and faces them differently. Feelings are legit. They are biological responses to what's happening in our world. Feelings can't keep us stuck, but our thoughts about our feelings can, and if we don't feel our feelings, they will show up in other places.
They don't go away if we ignore them. When we stay hopped up in our anxiety, we miss the colors of life. We miss the nuances, the connections, the experiences, the feelings. I know feelings are messy, and I know we hate messy, but when you can trust yourself enough to allow this natural process, your life will shift, and your anxiety will decrease. Envision yourself, standing on the 20-yard line and looking way down the field at the bottomless-pit-of-despair, and remind yourself, I'm 80 yards away, just feel.
Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.
Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.
I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.
Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am - 6 pm EST).