#52 - 1 SIMPLE Tool to Help Manage & Overcome Negative Emotions
Have you ever been really anxious and stressed for something? Maybe you get stuck on this thing looming in your future and even though you KNOW that stressing about it won't help, you can't seem to stop? Maybe that stress turns to fear and you know that it's that shithead perfectionism rearing its ugly head? I know I have. FREQUENTLY! And for me sometimes, it even becomes a physical sensation in my body. Sometimes those fears and all that stress can be paralyzing, am I right? Well, lately in the books I've been reading this has come up a LOT and in all those books, there's 1 SIMPLE TOOL that all these authors have been referring to as a way to help manage and overcome these instances of paralysis and fear. I've been using it and I LOVE IT! And I want to share it with you!
WHAT I TALK ABOUT…
Negative emotions and how they can paralyze us
The physical sensations that can accompany negative emotion
Dr. Tara Brach and a passage from her book “Radical Acceptance”
The 1 simple tool that multiple professionals in meditation, social work and therapy have taught to manage and overcome negative emotion - and how I’ve been using it in my own life!
Resources in this episode:
“Radical Acceptance” by Dr. Tara Brach - here
Book a transformation call here
Check out my brand-new free e-book on the “Top 10 tips to Take Back Your Life” here
TRANSCRIPT:
Intro…
Hey everyone and welcome to the growth tribe podcast where we're all about growing ourselves to create lives. We love on our terms. I'm Ellen and I'm a former biomedical researcher turned coach who fell in love with personal growth when it empowered me to transform my health, quit my PhD, travel the world and start my own business. But don't get me wrong, I'm still figuring my shit out too, and I'm so pumped to share what I'm learning along the way. We've got amazing interviews, big stories, tips, tricks, and no bullshit action steps that we can all learn from. So with that, welcome to this episode of the growth tribe.
Main episode…
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the growth tribe podcast. I have to say what's so fun about doing these podcasts is that it really just feels like it's friends getting together over coffee, over a glass of wine, and just chatting about like real life things. And this morning, like we're taking that to a whole new level because literally you're going to be like my roommate this morning and we're chatting over our morning coffee because I'm literally sitting here as I record this in my glasses, my fuzzy row, my moccasins, my pink flannel pajama bottoms. Because as I was reading this morning, I just read something that struck me on how powerful it is and also how simple it is. So that's really like setting the stage this morning for the kind of conversation that we're going to have because I'm not even shitting you right now.
That is exactly how I look like hair, not done like smudges all over my glasses. Like, wow. Actually like lots of smudges all over my glasses. But today what I really want to talk about is I'm reading the book radical acceptance right now. I'm actually rereading it. It's a book by dr Tara Brock and she is a psychotherapist as well as a Buddhist and a meditation teacher. And I've read this book before and I always really, really enjoyed how practical and simple it made some of the Buddhist teachings. And you know, I took a world religions class when I was in college and I always found Buddhism to be a really, really fascinating subject. And some of the ones that I've been reading in today's this morning's passage, cause y'all know I read like every freaking morning I really wanted to share this with you because it hit me so hard and I've realized that it is something that I've seen come up a lot and something that I actually used, which I didn't realize until I was reading it this morning.
So I really wanted to share it with you. So if you hear me like sipping on coffee in the background, it is legitimately because I just spoke up, I've been reading and I just had a moment of inspiration and I wanted to tell you about it. So what I've been reading this morning in radical acceptance is she's been talking about pausing and pausing and not, and really the whole notion of radical acceptance before we get into all of it is to be very accepting of the emotions that we experience and not trying to resist them. Which I know is something that so many of us struggle with. I struggle with it. I mean, when you have those, those impulse moments of feeling like somebody is threatening you, whether they're shaming you or they're blaming you and it's stirring up these emotions of anger, of fear, of maybe intense sadness.
You know, I think we've all experienced this at some point in time, right? Like, I know I have, you probably have to. But how to like cope with those moments where we experienced this kind of emotion. And she was telling the story about this guy that she'd worked with. His name was Jacob and he was somebody who had Alzheimer's. And in his early, early months of having Alzheimer's, he was about to give a speech to a community of people on meditation. He was somebody who had meditated for like 20 years and he was about to sit down in front of a hundred people and talk to them about his experiences meditating. And he, as he sat down, he started to have this intense experience of, you know, forgetting, forgetting who he was, forgetting why he was there. And he kind of started freaking out.
You know, she describes it as his mind was spinning and confusion, but what he did in that moment was, I mean he literally did it in front of this entire community. People he was about to speak to, he just sat down and he started naming the emotions he was experiencing, afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I'm failing. Powerless, shaking, sense of dying, sinking, lost and how that helped him. Like he just sat there, he, he started naming the things he was experiencing and maybe he began to relax and he began to calm down and he even was like noting that as he was experiencing this, and this is something I've heard of before.
You know, I'm a big Brene Brown person and she actually does something very, very similar. I don't remember what book she references this in. In fact, I actually think she probably references this in a lot of her books, but she talks about a moment when she started experiencing intense, intense shame and instead of resisting it, all she did in that moment was to start saying pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, and it was something that she'd actually gotten from I think one of her research participants or one of her graduate students or something like that, but she just started naming the thing that she was experiencing that the shame she was experiencing was painful, so she just started saying pain, pain, pain, pain and Tara Brach and Brene Brown kind of name what this does a little bit differently.
Tara Brach in the book I'm reading basically says that it helps to kind of disconnect you from the emotions that you're experiencing. Brene Brown says that it gets you out out of what she calls lizard brain, which is basically that brain we get into when our emotions start to take over, but the practice is essentially the same. In both of these instances you are pausing, which is another really, really important tool that Tara Brach talks about as a way to kind of manage some of our negative emotions. You pause and then you just start to describe the feeling, name the emotions that you're experiencing. And as you do that you start to regain control of the situation.
And as I was reading this and I was, I was kind of reflecting, connecting it back to my girl Brene Brown. I realized that I've done this a lot recently, like as you guys know, I started a new job in mid-March. Um a job where I'm being a professional tutor and I am essentially serving as a mentor and a teacher and tutor to high school age students. And it has been a great experience, but it's also been a rocky one. There's been lots of highs and lots of lows because a, I'm teaching things, some of which I haven't done since high school, you know, so there's been a lot of refreshing and relearning material. I'm also teaching things that I've never actually taught before. You know, I tutored math way back when but since college really the only thing I've taught or tutored in or mentored in has been biology and not even that but like upper level biology.
So some of these like basic biological concepts like basically anything having to do with plants I have not done in a really long time. You know, so each day that I show up to tutor it's kind of an exercise in failing and starting to accept failure.
But more so than that it's been an exercise in like imperfection. You know, we'd have these things that are essentially office hours where I'll show up to them and I have no idea what these students are going to ask me to help them with. I have no idea sometimes what subject they're going to ask me to help with. Is it going to be, you know, sat act or is it going to be algebra two or geometry or is it going to be biology? I'm contemplating putting physics on my profile. Is it going to be physics? I don't know. When I show up to these sessions, and there have been many, many instances when I've had, you know, a few Rocky office hour sessions where I haven't felt a hundred percent comfortable with the material where I get this, maybe you can relate to this. I will get this intense tightening in my chest and I feel my breath start to quicken and it's essentially like an anxious response.
It's how my body tends to respond when I'm in uncertainty, when I'm am, I'm scared when I have a fear around being imperfect, like there's a reason why I have recovering perfectionist people pleaser, should-er all over my Instagram bio on my website because these are things that I still battle with on a daily basis sometimes, you know. We all do. There are so many of us, women in particular, who struggle with these things, and I feel this in a really, really intense way when all sometimes start these, these office hour sessions, these little tutoring sessions.
What I've started to do before I launch each of these sessions or sometimes mid session when I know a student's about to jump on and it's the subject that I haven't looked at in a while, is I will literally sit there and maybe not like say it out loud because I'm literally miked up when I'm doing these things. So I'm not like necessarily rattling off, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling scared into my microphone because that would just be super weird. If anybody ever reviewed my sessions and heard me rattling off these emotions, they'd be like, well, she's a crazy person.
Um but I'll still sit there and I'll kind of start breathing really, really deeply. Breath is huge for me. I'll start breathing really, really deeply and I'll inwardly start to think of, it's okay. You're just feeling anxious. It's okay. I know there's, there's uncertainty here and it's making you a little scared. Right? And I'll, and I'll just kind of talk myself through some of the things that I'm experiencing. You know, sometimes even when I sit down to record these podcasts and I know that I'm going to be sharing some kind of intense stuff with you guys. Some stuff that that may be, I'm a little nervous about how it's going to be received.
Sometimes I have to stop my recording and do the same kind of thing, pause, breathe, and kind of just talk myself through these emotions. And upon reading this this morning, I didn't realize this was a practice, but it is, it's a practice in radical acceptance. It's a practice in shame, resilience. It's a practice in emotional intelligence on some level too. Like anytime you name the emotions you're experiencing, it's a practice and emotional intelligence as well. And what I've realized is how important this practice has become for me. And apparently for so many people as it's in multiple of the books that I've been reading lately, how important this practice is for helping us manage our negative emotions. It seems stupidly simple, right? But it's so helpful because it starts to, like I said before, it disconnects us from some of the emotions we're experiencing.
So if you're somebody who really, really struggles to manage your negative emotions, maybe you know, fear or uncertainty or judgment, maybe it paralyzes you and you just kind of close in on yourself and shut down. Then try to implement this the next time you experience that. You know, if you're in a situation where you're not comfortable naming the emotions out loud, that's fine. Just pause, take a really deep breath, maybe a few deep breaths, and just to start to even in your head, talk yourself through what you're experiencing. Talk yourself through some of the emotions that you're experiencing. Okay? I'm feeling fear. I'm feeling judgment, I'm feeling rejection. I'm feeling maybe a little bit of shame, you know, just talk yourself through those things. And another situation. Maybe, maybe fear doesn't paralyze you or uncertainty doesn't paralyze you, but maybe you get this intense physical feeling. Kind of like I described when I'm feeling anxious about going into my little office hour sessions. Maybe you feel that tightness in your chest. Just same thing, pause deep breaths and start to talk yourself through it.
Or maybe you're someone who really, really struggles with lashing out. That was actually a story that Tara Brock told in this book was a girl who, because of how she was raised because of some of her life experiences growing up, the only way which she'd ever known how to manage and deal with some of the emotions she was experiencing is she would turn them all into rage and she would just snap at the people who were blaming her, who she felt were judging her, even if they weren't really overtly judging her. If she felt any sort of blame or like somebody thought she was doing something wrong or being imperfect, all of her hurt, she would turn into rage and she would just snap at people. She would snap at her supervisor. She would snap at her husband, she would snap at her family.
Maybe you're somebody who does that. And if you are, don't judge yourself and don't compare yourself to, you know, all these other situations here. Don't compare yourself. We all manage our negative emotions in different ways. But what I've realized upon reading this and upon reflecting back on some of my own experiences is no matter how you're currently managing your emotions, you can do this very, very, very simple strategy to try to disconnect yourself from those negative emotions you might be experiencing. Simply pause. Simply take a few really, really deep breaths and simply start to name the things you're experiencing. Simply start to talk yourself through them. And if talking yourself through them isn't helpful or isn't something that comes naturally to you, that's something that can kind of develop over time. So just start by naming the emotions. Just like that guy did, who you know had a, an instance of Alzheimer's in front of people.
He was meant to be speaking to, you know, just name them out loud, like heated, afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I'm failing, powerless, shaking. You know, you can even name the physical sensations. You know, sometimes I'll be like, "Oh my chest is so tight." So just start to name the things. And once you name them, they start to have just like so much less power over you. Right?
I want you to just try this, you know, take, take a chance on this random thing that I'm telling you is a simple way to help you manage your negative emotions. But just try it, you know, just sit down in that moment, pause, breathe and just to start to name those negative things you might experience it because it's really helped me and I've seen it show up in so many different places from so many different experts. Really smart freaking people have said that this is what they use or what they tell their clients to use. So I encourage you to try it for yourself, you know, see if it helps. See, it helps you manage your negative emotions. Just cause it's really, really simple and straightforward doesn't mean it doesn't work, you know? So I encourage you to give it a try.
I hope you found this useful. And with that, thank you so much for being a part of the growth tribe and I'll talk to you all next week.
Outro…
Thank you so much for listening. If you love this episode, please share it with your friends so that they can join the tribe as well, or better yet, share it on Instagram stories so that I can shout you out and send you a huge thank you. Your support means the world to me. And of course, I want to thank you for being a part of the growth tribe.
