Episode 58 when you can't get over it. Welcome to the first year married podcast where we get real about building the marriage of your dream. I'm marriage Coach K 11, and I take newly married and engaged women from anxious and insecure too confident and connected through practical tips real-life inspiration and more than a little self-awareness along the way. Hey there, ladies. I hope everyone is having an amazing week so far. If you're listening to this right when it came out. So in the last like couple hours every week so far. I'm excited to talk to you today about some kind of advanced stuff that came up with one of my clients. I love when working with one of you allows me to clarify some things that I think, you know, we all can either use either clarification or a Derp I think this is one that's so so important and it's something that I'm seeing a lot of you struggling with especially those of you who are really early in this work. So we're going to be talking today about when you're having an issue and you just can't get over it. Okay, like you're really stuck in this issue and it is feeling very important and probably urgent. This could be an issue with your husband, but it also doesn't have to be right like I've had this with hell things I've had this with extended family, right? There's lots of different your you know, your jobs your money. There's so many places where we can get to a place where we just feel like this is just really bad and important and I need to deal with it and what my client was talking to me about was how she was really confused because she felt like, you know, we talked a lot about the difference between thoughts and feelings over here. The easiest way to think of it is when we're thinking about feelings were actually thinking of physical sensation. Okay. I'm the Opera. Part of the word feelings would be feel how do you feel? Okay and thoughts we want to think of as words or really sentences that are happening in our head. Okay. So like I can't handle this isn't a feeling that's really a thought where she was getting a little confused was when we were talking about. It's really important to process your emotions, which I do believe to be true. It's important to feel your feelings and to process your emotions. She was like well, but then I'm upset because Because I think this is a problem but then when I tell you it's a problem and I think I'm feeling my feelings. You tell me. Well, that doesn't sound like a helpful thought. Okay, that's like the big that's the confusion. Okay, so we're going to try and break this down a little bit. Like where did she get confused? And how can we make this something that feels crystal clear for all of us? So whenever winter situation where we really feel like we're stuck in a rut we can get that separation between how we're feeling and how to deal with our feelings and at the same time. Are the thoughts come into play? Okay. So really the word feeling as I said, the operative part of the word feeling is feel right. We're talking about Sensations. And if I were to say, what is the feeling of this shirt? You would talk to me about the physical sensation of the shirt. It's a bumpy shirt. It's a soft shirt, right? But because we have this phrase I feel like and then when we say, I feel like I'm like, I feel like she has no boundaries or I feel like it's really disrespectful or I feel like it's really hurtful. So really what we're doing is we're describing what we think like our opinion or our story about the situation and we're putting it together this word feel and I think that's where people are getting confused because when I talk to you about feeling your feelings or processing your emotions, I'm very much not talking about staying in that place of like whatever feels like your reality. It's really hard to be married to someone who blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, that's not feeling your feelings. You hear all the words. It's really hard to be married to someone who let's say has depression. Okay, that would be Sentence. Yeah, it's very hard to be married someone who has depression. And so with a lot of people this is one that comes up actually a lot with my clients that particular scenario, they'll try and then like, okay, so I want to do coaching and I want to like have really positive. I want to be positive about how hard it is to be married to someone with depression. Right? And what we need to do is we need to like break that down. I'm gonna actually use those as my example because it's come up with a lot of my clients and I think it's a great one. We need to break that down because you just can't you can't create positive. He's about a situation that you've already decided was hard. If you're describing it as hard you're going to have negative feelings, right because your feelings are a reaction to the thought that you're having or you know, if they're not trying to have really positive feelings. They're like, let me have a good thought about how hard it is to be married to someone with depression, which is a really difficult thing. Right? And so what do we need to do? That's really what we talked about last week, which is getting really clear on what the circumstances okay. My husband is diagnosed with depression. I'll give that to you that is literally what's happening, right? It's hard to be married to someone with depression. You already making a statement like a decision or a judgment call on that situation. Right? And it feels totally real and I feels totally real and I get that but it's also that judgment call doesn't give you any room to move. Right? You're stuck inside hard as soon as you label it that way so then we have the person who's like, okay. Well, I want to feel my feelings like I want to sit here because I'm feeling that it's really hard to be married to him because he's depressed. Okay, what that is actually is a thought Circle that's rumination. Right? That's just ruminating on the same thought over and over it's hard to be married to someone like this. I don't know if I can be married to someone like this. I don't think it's ever going to get better. If you only listen to me about what he should be doing or if he took the medication or what I did it like just the over and over and over that is just having a thought over and over right that is just and whenever we're having the same thought on repeat like that. What happens is that I imagine like a little toy train going through. Sandbox, right? Like the first time it goes through it leaves a little Mark and you can see where the train was but if a little kid was pushing a toy train around the sandbox and the exact same Circle over and over and over again, you'd end up with like a really deep pit like a deep deep track in that sandbox. Yeah, and that's the same thing with our thoughts. You have a thought and then your brain is like, oh I know exactly where to go to get this thought again, and then the more you have it the more automatic and true than it feels that's ruminating and that's what we want to get out of. Okay. We want to get those thoughts those beliefs. And judgment calls and stories whatever one of those ways of looking at thoughts works for you. We want to get those out of our heads out of the train track and down onto paper or into coaching because when you get it outside of your brain, that's when you can start to look at it and pull it apart. Okay. So again sentences stories, those are thoughts and those are the ones that we don't want to spend time and we don't want to be staying with it over and over if we do. We want to make sure if we feel like we need to come to some conclusions. So again use a piece of paper use a mentor use a coach use someone who's going to be keeping you in a sort of constructive environment with your thinking versus just having the same thought over and over and this is it's a very it's not easy and it's not natural. Okay, so I don't want any of you to be beating yourself up because you know, you might have some negative feelings you may have resentment a lot of resentment about what's Going on with certain things in your relationship or with your extended family and don't feel bad. If you start to notice that you're getting into the train track just see it and be like, oh, you know what? And here's the thing. Is that sometimes it just takes this very practical like okay. I see the thought I'm not going to deal with this thought right now. I can make my even make a plan for what I am going to do about this thought or I might just say, you know what I'm eating dinner right now, so it's not time for me to worry about me. Resentment towards my husband so I will visit you later. You're just not this thought. I see you but I'm not really I'm not getting involved with you right now. I'm not attaching myself to you right now. Okay, sometimes people think that if they do the thought work negative thoughts will never come up and that's not true. It's just getting to a place where you see it and you're like, I don't have to immediately dive in just because I had a negative thought I don't have to like jump into that whole situation with all the emotions that go with it. Sometimes I'm just kind of like, well, that wasn't helpful. I'm just going to let that go. Okay. So if I'm letting all these thoughts keep going and I'm not letting myself like spend a lot of time thinking the same thought over and over and I'm only dealing with it in a constructive way. So then where does processing your emotions come in? Right because if I'm saying oh, okay. Well the fact that I'm feeling really unmotivated about investing in my marriage is because I think it's really hard to be married to someone who has depression. So this sort of deflated energy that I'm feeling how deflate it as more of a feeling. It's more of a sensation word. Right? So I'm I'm feeling really deflated. I might feel like my shoulders are drooping amount of energy. I'm depleted. So let's say that's what I'm feeling. So if I'm not spending a lot of time thinking about this whole it's hard to be married to someone with depression. So then how am I supposed to feel my feelings? Okay. This is kind of this is where this question is coming up and the way you feel Feelings is that you get out of your head and into your body. Okay, you leave the cerebral and the analytical and I need to find a solution energy that we go into when we have a negative thought like we have to fix this we're going to leave that alone right now will say like I'll be back with you in a minute like as if you're like closing the store, you know, like back in 15 minutes sign is going on like sorry brain. I just need a minute. I'm I'll be back later. I literally I mean it sounds silly but it is the energy you want to have towards your thoughts sometimes of like I'm just taking a break from you right now and just do it for 30 seconds of like I'm not going to get involved in any thoughts that I have for the next 30 seconds and just you slowly build up this muscle and it doesn't take it's not work. It's not hard work. It's just awareness so you can totally do this. Right and you you put up the 15-minute sign you close the door to the whole cerebral mental fixing it part of your brain and you just go into your body and you say how am I feeling right now? So I'm feeling depleted. Where do I feel that? Like I feel like when I breathe in my lungs don't even really fill up all the way and I'm slouched and I just want to climb into bed, and I just want to you know, close my eyes and everything feels heavy and hard. Okay. Okay body. That's how you're feeling right now. We're going to do that. Now. This is like me becoming an expert in what it feels like to be depleted. I'm going to notice all of it. I'm not going to judge it. It's fine. The fact that I have this really strong negative feeling does not mean the thought was any more or less true like whether I decide about my thought being true that doesn't come from this part. This part is just saying I am now feeling this really negative emotion instead of thinking that I can't handle this emotion. This emotion is dangerous. It's bad for me to feel depleted. Let me go do something to get another. Then in my system which is usually what we do, right? We either try to totally detach or we go do something. That's just going to give us that quick fix that makes us feel better. It's the shopping or it's the chocolate or it's the social media. That's actually more just zoning out but right we're just looking for that other thing because we don't want to be in that feeling but if we just stop and we're like, okay, I'm just going to notice this in my body right now and feel it and I'm just going to go on with whatever is the next thing in my day feeling depleted. Right or feeling angry or feeling resentful. Let me just see if I can make dinner or go through this meeting and also have this feeling answer my emails and also have this feeling what is that like and it's you know, kind of like going through the day sometimes with a bad cold, right? Like if you have a bad cold you and you just know it's not going away right now. You're not quite sick enough to stay home or to totally climb into bed, but you're just like uncomfortable and you're aware of it, but you're still functional. That's kind of like feel like how negative feelings are sometimes. I'm not totally there. I'm slightly distracted, but I'm not dealing with you because I just know that it's a matter of time and I'm drinking my tea and I'm getting my vitamin C and it just needs to process through my system. Okay, the negative feeling kind of does that to us? Like it's just going to be there till it's done. But the cool thing about this is that when I do that I start to realize that I could feel angry or I could feel resentful I could feel depleted and it's actually not as dangerous as it. It felt like it felt like I had to urgently get away from this negative feeling but I don't I did it. Like I spent the rest of my day feeling that when I was fine and sometimes they'll you don't want to set this as a goal. But sometimes as soon as you like really acknowledge it in your body, it's like okay. I'm here. Like I just wanted to be seen feeling just goes away and then you just sort of back to normal, right? So just making space. Okay, you are welcome to be here. As long as you need to be here. And when you're done you can go on that is what I'm talking about. About feeling your feelings and I think when people say you need to be authentic with your feelings and you need to you know, all those all those things about like, you know, you have to be true to yourself your to feel your feelings. You shouldn't deny your feelings. You shouldn't stuff them down. I think that's what we're talking about. We're saying I'm not going to pretend to be happy when I'm sad. Okay, but I'm also not going to say oh my gosh, I'm sad. It's true. My marriage really is over right or oh it's true. I really am ugly or whatever the thing. They do feel sad. The sadness doesn't prove whether your right or not. Okay, and that's what leads us into this deeper question, which I think is underlying all of this and it's the fear that we have about giving up our feelings and and no longer listening to our feelings is that we all know intuitively that there is an idea of intuition and I think women very strongly we know there is that gut sense we know there is a tin suit intuition. We know that there are times when the like no I want that and not that so where does that come up right if I'm not paying attention to my feelings? And the easiest way to think about this is to think about your intuitive sense as a calm wise voice. Okay, it's very calm. It's very clear. When you're having a really strong feeling because you had a really negative thought it usually feels urgent like you have to deal with this immediately and things are terrible and it's very black and white and it's hard to get out of it and your emotions just feel really out of control really high. Even if you're a pretty calm person like for you wherever you are in your spectrum, it'll feel high. Okay, but the intuitive sense, even if it's moving quickly, even if something needs to be decided very immediately It's not coming from that place of like almost Panic like we have to just shut down everything else and only focus on that. That's the fight-or-flight. That's the adrenaline rushing the example that I give is that unfortunately, we've had some broken bones within my family with my kids right about for little kids and when my kids get hurt, but it's not a break. I'll have like if I was a better mother I would have taken better care of them and I get into that that's that's the negative thoughts feeling cycle, right? That's the train in the sand. That's the thing where my thoughts are just getting away with myself and those feelings are not informative. All those feelings are telling me is that I need to look at my thoughts. But when it's a break and I hear that cry, everything gets quiet. I tune everything else out. I see the kid I look at the kid and I quickly make a decision. Okay. Are we going to urgent care? Are we going to the ER? Is this the kind of thing I could just call the doctor on the phone and then decide with her what the next step is. I have this calm clarity about it and I've heard other mothers describe something similar, right if you're in a situation and you know, a lot of people get nervous. Okay? Well, what if my marriage really is a Problem. What if there's an abuse if I'm ignoring my feelings? What will happen? Well, what I believe is that when we're taking responsibility for those urgent feelings, we have so much more clarity and mental focus to be able to hear when that intuitive voice comes out and says no, this is not okay. What's happening right now is not okay. It's time to get out. Right and so we can actually distract ourselves with those screaming feelings, right the ones that are like so loud and make it harder for ourselves. to hear the inner ones, so I think that when we say to ourselves because sound really like kind of Juju and funky but I do think that when we say to ourselves, I'm gonna have your back right like Kayla. I've got your back if you need to tell me something and it's not like some logical thought that you're having. It's like a gut feeling right? I got truth. This is something that I know to be true for me. I'm going to hear you then when I have one of those strong feelings. I'm not so scared. Scared about saying well, where are you really coming from? Because I've already given myself. I promise that I'm not just going to dismiss everything but what I find is that when we want to what we when we're so scared to not get every drop of information out of every negative feeling right you're feeling really resentful so there really is something wrong with him, right? If we like I need to make sure I know that I need to hold on to my resentment because maybe there's some information there that I need that's critical for me. That's kind of the energy that I get from a lot of you especially early on in the process. So we're in that place where ironically actually more disconnected from the part of our brain that can make a logical decision. Right? Because those of you who study brain science, we know that there's what they sometimes there's a lot of different names with some people call it that lizard brain that fight or flight right? We're all that those hormones and adrenaline are produced and when we're in that place of like urgency and high emotion, we can't also be accessing the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of you that makes plans. And has goals and it's connected to your values. Right? So we actually have to start by noticing and taking responsibility for what negative feelings are just coming from thoughts and allowing those to be optional and taking responsibility for creating them for ourselves. And then we can get to a place where we actually have the clarity of mind to make those decisions. Who do I want to be in this relationship? What do I want from this relationship and to really hear that intuitive voice of what do I believe what's true for me? So I hope this has been really helpful a lot of you sent in questions. So next week is going to be part two of this with your questions about processing feelings communicating your feelings of your husband's. So I want you to focus this week really on that little piece of just noticing when you're having A really really strong feeling. Okay, is this like feeling very urgent is as feeling very loud. And if so, let me just grab a piece of paper and write down. What what how would I describe the feeling? What thought did I have that led to this feeling as always you can look into my earlier podcast. You can look into Brooke Castillo at the life coach School podcast. If you want to get much more in-depth, she's where I learned all of this material and then from there you can go into the processing the feelings you tell your brain. I'll be back in five. We're At analyzing the situation. I just need to take care of my body right now check in with your body just notice it notice it as if someone was like programming and a robot and needed to put in how feelings feel to teach the robot how to feel depressed how to feel resentful and you would say, well the robot needs this like this is what happens when you feel resentful. It's like this. Yeah, and it is, you know, it's one of those you got to do it to see it you really have to do it, but this one is Pretty simple because you don't even need pen and paper you just stop. Okay, what's the feeling of having right now rage? Okay fine. I'm not attaching to why I'm feeling rage. I'm not attaching to whose fault it is. I'm just taking a second and noticing what rage feels like in my body is my heart beating fast. Am I breathing fast? Do I feel hot? Whatever those things are noticed it and then just basically invited to stay as long as it needs. You hear it? And by doing so it can move through your body just like that cold, right it can move through and move out versus if you were like, oh, I can't believe that I have a cold I'm going shopping so that the gold goes away right? Like that wouldn't work, right. We just take a minute. We're like, okay, I'm making space for the cold. I'm going to have some tea to step today making some space for the rage, but you're not going doesn't need to make you do anything because you have space for it. You can handle that. You can be yourself and have some Rage or some resentment or some anxiety and then it can kind of go on its merry way eventually. All right, and then you're in that place where you can now go back and be like, okay. Well, what about that? Thought that I had that created all that rage for me? What do I think that is your focus for this week next week. I'll be back answering your questions about feelings. I'm really looking forward to doing that to have an amazing week everyone. Okay. Take care. Bye. Bye.
I was working with a client and she was stuck on the idea of being authentic with our feelings while at the same time taking responsibility for them and choosing what I call “helpful thoughts.” So this week we're going to talk about the difference between processing our feelings and holding onto our feelings. The easiest way is to think of it as sensations vs words. Thoughts are words (sentences, usually), and feelings are physical sensations. We read the tight shoulders and clenched stomach as anxiety or anger. Focus on what the body is experiencing. We’re told to process our emotions, not to ignore how we feel, to honor our feelings, but we need to get really clear on what that means. Going in thought circles... ruminating on that one horrible thing or that offensive thing she/he said... that's not feeling your feelings. That's just having a thought and getting really attached to it being true and having that thought over and over until you can't see your way out of it. This week I'm teaching you how to process a feeling. The deeper question I think is really, when is it a feeling and when is it intuition? If I know that I’m responsible for my feelings, does that mean I can’t ever use them to help guide me? How do I know the difference? Your intuitive sense is not urgent. It is calm and clear. It doesn’t speak to you in rules like “he shouldn’t” or accusations like, “how dare he” or desperate questions like “how can I possibly not be hurt or be happy like this?” Trust that when you quiet the screaming, loud, urgent emotions, that inner voice will certainly come up for you. 