We\ncannot change how we feel until we process the emotions we are\nalready experiencing. And it’s important to remember that ALL\nof our emotions are okay. They are what they are. People don’t\ncontrol their emotions. Our emotions arise to show us what we\u2019re\nthinking. Our emotions arrive with the message to pay attention\n– become aware – of the thoughts we are choosing. (Spoiler alert: our\nthoughts CREATE our emotions!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if you feel angry, disappointed, or hurt. Allow yourself to FEEL angry, disappointed or hurt. Sit with the feeling. Acknowledge it. Instead of resisting challenging emotions, allow them to be what they are – sensations in our body. Practice describing the physical sensations you feel when you feel the emotion. Then try \u201cbeing with\u201d the emotion by focusing on the physical sensations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nExample: <\/strong> fear to speak in public might feel to some people like sweaty palms, increased heart rate, tight shoulders. If that’s the case, focus on the palms, the heart, the shoulders, without attaching the story of public speaking. Observe the physical sensations objectively, and they begin to subside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\na more active method of processing emotions, find a safe space, set a\ntimer and give yourself 15 or 20 minutes to just be obsessed, or\nthrow a fit or have a tantrum. Scream into your pillow, or beat it\nup. Vomit the voices in your head onto pages you can burn later. \nYour inner child is asking to be heard and is not going to let you\nfeel content again until you give yourself some space to process\nthose emotions. Cry if you need to. Let yourself rage\nuntil the timer goes off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’ll\nbe surprised and delighted how quickly the intensity of the emotion \ncan dissipate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your emotions feel too big to handle on your own, like they might swallow you if you let yourself be alone with them, then find a wonderful therapist to create that safe space with you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Avoiding or suppressing our emotions cannot destroy that catabolic energy. If we try to suppress fear, and brush it off as nothing, we could learn that we\u2019re in actual danger and our intuition was giving us a very important message. I like to ask my anger or my disappointment what it\u2019s trying to tell me. If you are feeling angry about something, there is a reason for that anger, and only you know what that reason is. What is your anger trying to tell you? (Hint: it\u2019s NOT that someone else needs to shape up.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nis not the same as directing our emotions at somebody else. We\ncan’t spill anger, frustration and irritation on others and expect\nthem to process it for us. They are not responsible for our emotions\nany more than we are responsible for theirs! If this has been\nyour experience of hard emotions – people directing them at you, or\nothers around you – it makes perfect sense that you would want to\nsuppress them, or that you would see them as harmful or scary. \nAnyone would feel that way. Processing our emotions is an\nintrospective thing, meaning it is a mirror to look into in order to\nlearn more about our own mind, and improve our own experience of\nlife. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trying\nto shift mindset without processing emotions first is like putting a\nhappy-face sticker on a gas gauge so you can\u2019t see that the tank is\nempty. It looks better on the surface but doesn\u2019t address the\nunderlying cause!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once we have accepted that we have challenging emotions (as all humans do), then we can process them. Once we have processed our emotions, then we can begin to shift our mindset so that we attract better feeling emotions! <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cyndicombs.com\/coaching\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/fEAR2.jpg\")
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It simply transfers that energy somewhere else. It\u2019s like holding a beach ball underwater, eventually it’s going to pop back up with a lot of force. Many times when we try to suppress anger,
or resentment that energy gets even heavier and shows up as shame, depression,
or self-doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\nProcessing our emotions is important.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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