Flowing Through Your Feelings

This episode is all about letting your feelings flow and being present with what is _actually_ going on. We're not here to pretend or make it seem like things are better than they are, but we also don't sit in the negativity. It's about a balance of being present and allowing the feelings to flow and dissipate.

In this episode, I share my personal experience and how I'm currently focusing on this practice while in transition and moving from one city to another.

I hope this episode serves you and helps you process your emotions in a healthier and simpler way.

Please note: This track may include some explicit language.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Freewell podcast. I'm really excited to be here with you it has been a hot minute and yeah that's because I am in the process of moving and I am going to be honest with you I'm going to try to get through this episode without having some kind of emotional breakdown but I can't make any promises so I'm in the process of moving my whole life is changing in a really big way a really intense way a really good way and and it is hashtag a lot it is a lot and so I'm in the process of packing up my house I'm about two days away from actually like handing in the keys and and leaving this place and and it has been an absolute rollercoaster ride and I'll probably talk about this multiple times over the course of the next couple episodes because I have a lot I want to share about like what I've been going through but I am NOT diving into like anything like any details of I guess really what I've been going through those are gonna come out over time once I kind of maybe process them a little bit more but I knew I had to record an episode here I had to record one last episode in this house you know I've been here for six and a half years so much of my life in Italy has unfolded in this space and and it's hard to leave this behind even if I know that I'm moving towards something that is good and something that is meant for me I fought really hard for this house and I so before I moved into this house I was living in another house in the city center in Lucca and I was living with my ex-partner at the time and we didn't start looking for houses soon enough so we started looking for houses I think in February or March and we had to be out by April and the market when we finally did start looking for houses we realized was just really fast so basically houses would come up on the market for rent in the morning and by the afternoon they were already taken so there were times where we weren't even getting in to see a house before we ended up finding out that the house was no longer available so we were actually like homeless for a month during this time because we couldn't find a house that was the right house and like I think that you guys know me well enough to know that I am not one for settling I am not particularly keen on compromise I was not willing to go into any house like we found some houses but they were either at a price point that I didn't think was adequate for what we were getting or they were too small and I knew that I wanted to move into a bigger house so we were living in a house that at the time was about 50 meters squared let's say roughly 500 square feet and it was something like a one-bedroom sort of but it was also kind of a studio and I knew that we needed way more space and so we were still looking at houses in our budget but they were all at the time like one bedroom and I remember walking into one of the houses it had like mustard colored walls and I just thought this is like hideous and like the living room kitchen dining room was one room which is fine open concept is great except this one room one room was really small and I remember saying to my partner at the time like if you sit on the couch you can't even stretch your feet you can't even stretch your legs out because your feet will hit the TV I was like we cannot live like this so we chose actively chose to be homeless for a month we ended up living with one of our friends so major shout out to him thank God he really saved us and in the meantime we were looking for houses and shortly after we moved into this like kind of temporary house we saw this one and I knew the minute I walked in this house that I wanted it so the house is about 75 meters squared 750 square feet two bedrooms two bathrooms and it's got ten windows so in 700 square feet that means basically like every like seven feet there is or sorry 70 feet there is a window which is everything for me it is literally everything for me it was so important that I lived in a place that was light and spacious and it looks out onto you know a little piazza and it's it's just really really lovely and now it's not all sunshine and rainbows there's been a lot of there's been a lot of weird shit with this house like the house is old if it rains really hard outside it rains in the house and then now before before leaving there's been like a ton of problems that have come up which I will talk about in another episode but there's just so many feelings because I knew I wanted this house the minute that I walked into it and now I'm leaving it behind and that feels really big honestly this has been my home I would like to use the term safe space and it has been to a certain extent but it hasn't been as much of that as I think I would have liked just because there have been some like logistical issues with the house and stuff like that so I am forever grateful for this space though because I live in the city center and I'm able to get everywhere on my own and I'm able to be super independent there's a grocery store nearby like it's really well positioned and like whenever there's an event in the city I can go out I can be a part of the event I can be a part of the people and then I could always come back and kind of like retreat into my own space and that felt really good that felt really really really good so you can hear me I'm starting to like tear up a little bit but it's just it's been a blessing being here my life changed being here I learned a lot about myself in this space and one of the things I think I learned sorry guys one of the biggest things I think I learned from being in this space is that Italy is my forever home like this is the this is really truly the place where I want to be maybe not in this city maybe not in this house maybe not in this iteration but Italy is home for me and I have every intention of of creating my life here and that has been a gift and there have been a lot of like hard-won battles that were fought in this house and you know my business came to fruition in this house and I became more of who I am in this house and it's just it's a lot and saying goodbye is very very bittersweet because there are 7 million signs that it is time to go and it doesn't necessarily make the leaving any easier so what I wanted to say today in this episode is about flowing with your feelings really allowing them to just be what they are because I have been on I think I've felt every possible emotion about this move about leaving the house there have been moments of frustration and anger when I've been like fuck it I'm so glad I'm leaving this place like I don't want to be here anymore and there have been times where it's like but this is everything you know this is my space and I'm I'm letting it go and and then we can get into the fact that like you know this isn't mine I'm renting this isn't really mine because even if I owned it nothing is really ours like we could we could have an existential conversation we could dive into the sort of like metaphysical side of everything but this that's how it feels like I felt everything about this move and one of the things that is so important when you're in these kind of transition phases or when you're feeling any big feeling it is to not deny it whatever you're feeling just be there with it and feel it so if you're sad that's okay feel sad and if you're excited or happy okay great feel excited or happy see my I I know a lot of people who like don't let themselves feel excited because being excited scares them because it creates the possibility and the space for disappointment and so they live with like a dimmer switch they live on a lower level because they don't want to feel the highs because they don't want to experience the lows and that to me is not living I want to feel it all whatever all of it might be and there's been some things that I've been feeling in this situation that have been shit like it's been hard it's been sad or confusing or frustrating or whatever and like I can't feel not feel those things and hope to feel any kind of like excitement or or whatever you know like you can't have one without the other duality light and dark we have both within us we experience both within the full spectrum of living and it's vital that we allow ourselves to be human and to experience the full spectrum of what that means of what it means to be human of what it means to to live this this life do you know what I mean so you need to allow yourself to feel whatever you feel you need to let it bubble up to the surface and this is one of the hardest things because oftentimes when we're sitting in something that we don't want to feel and it's up to you to gauge what your own limit is so are you one of those people who refuses to kind of acknowledge full spectrum living like are you dimming happiness because you don't really want to be disappointed because it works on both sides okay whether the emotion is positive or negative it makes no difference we need to just let whatever is coming up come up okay and you need to allow it to be present to be there to be fully seen and allow it to move through your body as well so like really see if you can connect with where in your body you're feeling this emotion so if I was to tell you right now I feel the sadness of this situation because that's probably where I'm at right now I'm two days out from moving I literally should be doing anything besides recording this podcast but here I am but I feel sadness about this sadness because I'm closing a chapter and I'm really aware I'm not sorry I'm not closing a chapter I am closing a whole fucking book I am closing an entire book by by this with this move like my life is about to very radically change and I'm I am aware of that and there is a part of that too that is scary and again it's all the same process we're just sitting with whatever comes up but I feel the sadness in my chest I feel it like dead center dead center right underneath my sternum that would be where the sadness is for me and for you it might be someplace else for example if I was to say I was feeling stressed the stress for me it lives typically in the from the base of my skull down my neck through my shoulders and then sometimes down between down my spine between my shoulder blades that is where I feel tension I think a little bit of anger and frustration lives in that part of my body sadness tends to be really chest oriented for me somewhere near my heart and all of that and so just acknowledging where it is and maybe breathing into it so taking a really really really deep breath and putting all your focus on wherever that space is in your body and really just being with it just allowing it to be there and then now this is something that some of my friends don't encourage me to do and y'all know how I feel about rules I just really don't fucking care so for me and if you are like me it is so important for me to name the feeling I need to know exactly what I'm feeling it is not enough for me to just feel the emotion I need to know what it is I need to be able to label it because labeling it gives me a level of understanding of my current situation and that understanding is permission it gives me freedom I can move through something at the drop of a hat literally if I can name it and I work through this a lot with clients like like one of the most important things for us in terms of emotions from my lived perspective is to call shit by its name it is important that you call whatever it is that you're doing your feeling or whatever by its name because to quote Harry Potter fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself right so when we name something we bring it out of the darkness and into the light and it literally just loses all of its charge there's nothing left for it to hold on to because you're not keeping it a secret anymore usually from yourself not keeping it a secret from other people so if I can come up to myself and I can say I'm feeling really sad that in and of itself is a sort of release just being able to name it and if I can take it one step farther and again so many people say that you shouldn't do this is just about feeling the feeling and for those people power to you but for me this is such an important part of my process and that's what I'm here to share with you guys is my process my my sort of hashtag guide for living well and so like I need to be able to say okay I feel sad because because this is big because it's a change because all of 2023 has been a massive rollercoaster ride it has been filled with a lot of transition I left a partner I met somebody new I went to Asia I've been moving back and forth between where my partner lives and where I live there has been a lot of movement movement doesn't necessarily sit super well with my body if you're into Ayurveda I am Vada that's my dosha and that dosha already involves a lot of movement a lot of anxiety a lot of frenetic energy and so the because that's already an inherent part of me excess movement aggravates my system when you know these things about yourself like this is something that I believe to be true Ayurveda is the only system that has ever made any sense to me as of right now and so like this take everything that I say with a grain of salt filter everything through your system but this to me makes perfect sense so that movement really was challenging for me this year you know I feel sad because like I don't really know what's coming I can't predict the future I know that it's going to be good I know that it's going to be for my highest good I know it's for the highest good of all involved I know that everything is unfolding perfectly I know that everything happens for a reason because those are my core beliefs but there still is a little bit of fear around like uncertainty and not knowing like how my new life will unfold I'm moving to a different part of Italy I'm moving to a different kind of city than I've lived in up until now I'm going to experience a bit of a shift in terms of level of independence because I don't have a car and so I'm not really able to get around by myself and this place that I'm moving to requires a little bit more like does require kind of having a car a little bit more because of the way that it's laid out so there's a lot of unknowns that I'm kind of being confronted with and in all of this I need to kind of regulate my system and just kind of take care of me obviously so that it makes all of this transitioning easier but I need to acknowledge that I feel this way and these are the reasons why this is part of my process I have a friend God bless her who doesn't need to name anything she just needs to like drop into her body figure out where the emotion is where it lives and just kind of sit with it and just it it dissipates like that for me the minute that I can say it out loud and I can name it and I can really like call it what it is it almost always disappears in this case a little bit different it's a little bit different because it's not I mean it's never one and done I say that all the time it's never one and done but in this case because it's a process like I am actively packing my house up I am actively moving it's not that simple it's not that I can just say like I'm sad because I'm moving like I mean obviously but in this moment I'm sad because this is the last podcast I'm gonna record in this house you know I'm sad because I'm dismantling my desk and my house looks empty I'm sad because all of this is very confusing for Mila and it's making her a little bit stressed I'm sad because like my house is covered in boxes and I feel like I have a foot in two worlds like all of these things they are continuing to come up but as they come up I'm still doing the same thing the process doesn't change I'm still feeling what I feel I'm letting it bubble up and then I'm trying to pinpoint where it is in my body if it is in my body at all like where it lives and I'm then trying to name it and say you know kind of call it what it is like I've said the process remains the same regardless of how many times you have to do it regardless of what situation you find yourself in regardless of why blah blah blah blah blah the process is this just feel your freaking feelings also because let's talk for a second about what happens when you don't so the opposite of feeling your feelings is repressing them so you stuff them down and maybe that's not the only option I think you also have the very valid option of fighting against them completely and neither of these is gonna get you anywhere so if you repress them essentially what happens is you build up this like internal pressure cooker until you get to the point where you explode like your shit explodes all over you and whoever is nearest you it will happen it is inevitable it's not something that you can in any way shape or any way shape or form avoid you cannot if you choose to repress you will explode at some point with your emotions all over whoever is around you and it will be deeply unpleasant and probably a little bit embarrassing at least that has been my experience every time I have been in this situation although it doesn't happen now now I'm the opposite now I'm a geyser so like literally I feel my feelings so much that I like drop I cry at the drop of a hat so it's almost the opposite that's because I am I understand too that I'm a very emotional person like I'm not saying that that will happen to you it will not unless you already have a tendency towards being quite emotional like I feel everything so bigly so bigly oh shit what is that that's it's not even English I feel things so deeply and and all of my emotions are so big and so like that bigness tends to escape out my eyeballs unfortunately the other option you have is to fight just tooth and nail against whatever it is that you're feeling deny refute to like refuse to believe like just kind of go against whatever it is that is naturally coming up and saying well no there's no reason that I should feel that way I'm like you know there is like nothing I can do about it so I just need to like you know pull up my big boy pants or big girl panties and just get on with it and like just do it do you know how many times I hear clients say this and it just makes me lol because if it was that simple you'd already be doing it like if it was just that simple that you could just just do it just do it you'd already be doing it sometimes we can use that technique it's very rare and you have to have a very certain kind of personality and you probably need to be in a really emotionally balanced and spiritually whole place in order for you to be able to implement that like there are times when I have been like okay let's just do it but it's because my practice is on fleek I am doing my yoga I'm doing my meditation I'm really my cup is really full and so I can approach myself with that kind of like badass sort of bold just like let's get shit done kind of attitude but if you are in an emotionally fragile state which is exactly what this episode is about you're probably gonna get absolutely fucking nowhere by telling yourself just do it because if you could you would you would have already been doing it right so fighting against your emotions isn't gonna cause you to explode necessarily but it's not gonna get you anywhere either and what I mean by that is if you are fighting against whatever it is that you're feeling and you're saying like oh I shouldn't be feeling this or there's no reason for me to be feeling that or whatever what ends up happening is you make the entire process so much harder you literally create suffering for yourself suffering that is by the way wholly avoidable because yes you might suffer if you feel your feelings but you will suffer for a far far far shorter period of time than if you choose the scenic route of fighting against yourself and fighting against what is true for you and what is naturally coming up by negating or whatever and like let's play this out for a second I could sit here and tell you as a very logically minded person because despite the fact that I am extremely emotional I think I have a fair amount of logic I can tell you that I know my life is changing for the better I know that leaving this house is the right decision I know that I am moving towards something really beautiful something really expansive something really exciting and like I said I'm not closing a chapter I'm opening a whole new book so there is a lot that is good that is coming from this now I know all of those things all of that is true okay does that somehow make me any less sad? No the emotion is there the logic is there as well but the emotion is still there just the same so like I can know that this is the right decision and I can still feel sad about it I can still feel sad about the process of having to pack about the way that meal is feeling about all the things that I've done in this house and the life that I've lived here and how I'm closing this chapter and I am allowed to do both I'm allowed to know and even be excited for that matter I'm allowed to know that my life is going to be better I'm allowed to be excited for what's to come and I am also allowed to be sad at the same moment there is no one or the other it is both and that is the reality of the human experience and sometimes yeah unfortunately because I get it we don't necessarily want to be in these positions we don't necessarily want to be feeling this way and then too when you do have that logic when you are aware that you're being ridiculous it also adds like a whole other nuanced layer of what the fuck is going on here because like I know that things are going to get better so then I could shame myself I could use that to punch myself so then why are you sad well because I fucking am because I am because this is a big deal because this is a big transition because despite the fact that I know that something wonderful is going to happen I am still packing my life up into boxes for literally I cannot tell you the millionth time I don't know how many times I've done this but like a lot I have spent also most of 2023 from let's say May until now basically living out of a suitcase so like enough is enough with that as well right like I'm aware that this is a good thing and I'm still sad about it and all of that is okay all of that is 100% okay and like I could give you another example so yesterday I wanted my partner to come to see me we live about an hour away from each other and I wanted him to come and see me because I really wanted some support and like I knew that that decision made zero sense on paper none it made no sense whatsoever because he works early in the morning so he would have had to have come in the afternoon stayed overnight and left the next morning to go directly to work so it would have been super uncomfortable for him it is also expensive because there is a cost to him coming to see me you like between gas and you have to pay for the highway in Italy as well so there's an hour distance more or less between us so there's a cost as well on no level on no level did this desire make any sense none it made no sense and I was fully aware that it made no sense but I still wanted it I still wanted it by the way it did not happen and I was not very happy about it I was not very happy happy that it did not happen because like obviously I'm in Italy alone so I'm moving alone I'm packing up my house alone it would have been nice to have some company so it did not happen and like I was upset that it didn't happen and like I literally said to him I was like I'm aware that none of this makes any sense and I still feel upset about it like and I'm gonna continue to feel upset about it until the emotion passes and like I was laughing while I was saying this too because I know how ridiculous it is it doesn't change the fact though that like there's those emotions present so we can have all the logic in the world and like we can like try to be the bigger person but again we still need to sit with with what is real for us and what is coming up for us and like saying like well I know that it's not possible and I know it doesn't make any sense does not serve you in terms of the emotion itself what you are risking doing is repressing or avoiding and either way that is you not really dealing with what comes up and if you don't deal with it today you will pay twice for it tomorrow unfortunately because when we don't honor ourselves and when we don't really show up for whatever is present within us we always end up having to circle back to this wouldn't it just be easier to like be a little bit ridiculous because the example that I gave you about wanting my partner to come visit is ridiculous and I'm well aware of it but isn't it just easier to be a little bit ridiculous laugh it off too like because I did I was laughing while I was telling him I was mad I was both I was aware of how ridiculous it was and I was also upset that it wasn't happening but like yeah just be with it and just let it come up and like now there's no problem today there is no issue right and like once I leave the house there's probably going to be residual sadness because it's not a simple kind of cut-and-dry like you know my boyfriend didn't come visit me wah wah wah kind of situation it's a lot more nuanced it's a little bit more complex but even still it's still the same thing like I can be excited about my new life and maybe scared and maybe you know nervous and sad about leaving this and then also know that it's the right choice and then also support myself in whatever way possible and moving towards what I want while feeling my emotions because you gotta feel your feelings they are not just gonna disappear just cuz you want them to you gotta like sit with them and you gotta be willing to be uncomfortable to get what you want which is freedom at the end of the day isn't it that's what first off freedom is what I always want but the reality is is that when you sit with your emotions when you actually show up and you feel this shit fully and you're really really there with it what ends up happening is you grant yourself so much freedom because the emotion moves it dissipates it releases it's it whatever evaporates use whatever terminology you prefer and then you can go on about your life like it's done right instead of like pushing it down so that it explodes at a later date in a way that is much worse and much less convenient trust trust so this is where I leave you today I think this was a really interesting episode and I hope you feel the same way to be honest with you thank you for holding space for me to share a little bit more personal details about what I'm going through I really I really appreciate you being here I really appreciate you listening I hope that you get so much out of this I hope that you feel your fucking feelings because it's so important like just just do it allow yourself to be uncomfortable know that you can do hard things because you can and yeah I'm looking forward to catching up with you guys on a more regular basis once I get settled and yeah just thank you thank you for being here thank you for being a fan thank you for wanting to be on this journey with me wanting to be on your path at all because if you're here you're on your path you are looking to find ways to live your best life as corny and cliche as it sounds but that's totally what it's about you know you're looking for your own version of freedom and yeah I see you and I appreciate you so yeah this is where I leave you until the next episode of the podcast have an amazing amazing weekend and I will see you soon ciao