Controlling Emotions Increases That Overwhelmed Feeling

Are you trying to control your emotions? Have you noticed how hard that is? I tried to do that for a long time. I wanted to feel motivated. To stop procrastinating. I was told that was down to me. That I could change my mindset. Lots of tools and techniques were presented. I tried them all. Nothing really stuck. Because they were filling up my head with Judgement, Expectation, And what I needed to do to fix myself. But I was just out of touch with my essence. It's your essence too.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today I'm talking about a question,

A question I'm asking you I guess,

Whether you are trying to manage your emotions or even more so if you are trying to control them.

I mean it really looks like that's a job for us to do doesn't it?

Quite often it looks like we're the ones who are supposed to control our emotions.

Perhaps you've noticed that.

But it looks to me increasingly like that puts a whole lot of stuff into your heads and it comes from an innocent misunderstanding of where our emotions come from.

And also I tend to think from a place of lack.

Because whether you are seeking to experience more of some emotions or less of others,

There's a sense isn't there that we are somehow missing those ones that we're seeking.

And I think maybe we are mostly seeking.

I'm just letting that contemplation settle with me.

We're mostly seeking aren't we to feel a different way.

Trying to get to a particular feeling with the sense that there's something we can do in the world to make that happen.

But also the message is that it's something that you should be able to take responsibility for.

That your mindset can be manipulated and sorted out to the point where your emotions are yours to control.

And if you've tried that I strongly suspect you will have found that pretty exhausting.

For me it was that the emotion that I was seeking or the feeling that I was seeking it was the feeling of motivation.

I wanted that sense that I could get up every day and do exactly what I was supposed to do having scheduled my week to within an inch of its life.

The sense that I could somehow be motivated all the time.

That was a driver for me for a long time.

And maybe you're seeking something else.

Maybe you want to feel calm more of the time.

Maybe you want to feel less anxious or less stressed.

So here's the model that looks real.

The model that we are working with in the world much of the time right now is as I mentioned this model of lack that you are lacking in some way and that the only way for you to put back in what is missing in order that you can control your emotions and have more of those positive ones.

That model is a model that says put things in.

You lack calm.

You need to put in some kind of skills around attaining calm whether that's mindfulness or something else.

So it looks like there's a skills gap doesn't it in emotional management that somehow you missed out on the emotional management class that didn't exist when you were a child and that that needs somehow that you need to learn that.

And the other side of the lack is that somehow life has chipped away at us to the point where we don't really have calm inside us anymore that we don't have happiness that we don't have contentment and wisdom and love and that those things aren't part of us.

But we are born with all those things.

I hope that all of you can see that.

See how we were born with all those things completely intact,

Beautifully perfect.

If you haven't seen that you just need to look into the eyes of a baby and you can do that all over the internet right now with somebody else's baby because there's plenty of them about.

But spending time with a younger child,

A baby,

A toddler,

You can see that innate calm is in them all the time.

And they have this beautiful ability to flow between emotions as well with not really being bothered.

So there's something that that's pointing us to that I think shows that we were born like that.

We were born innately wise and calm and content all those things.

We were born with resilience,

Confidence,

All part of us.

Now the message now is that they've been taken away through the things that have happened to us in life.

Well here's a slightly different take on that.

The things that have happened to us in life have given us or put towards us some habitual thinking,

Some beliefs about ourselves,

Those kind of things.

They haven't implicitly taken away what was good inside us.

That can't be taken away.

It doesn't work that way.

But there's a layer now,

So there's this perfect diamond of who we are and then there's a layer of stuff and that stuff is thought.

I mean that's all it is.

It's no more solid than that.

It's the word ephemeral,

I don't know.

It's energy.

It's not a solid thing isn't thought.

It's a thing that can pass.

You know we're only ever one thought away from something different aren't we?

Only one insight away.

So there's this perfect diamond and then there's a layer of stuff,

Thought that we've got going around in us and that's what stops us seeing that innate wisdom,

That calm,

That contentment,

The resilience,

Confidence,

All those things.

We just can't see that they are there.

We just can't see them because we've got thought.

And then bearing in mind a lot of what you may be experiencing is overwhelm which is caused by overthinking,

Not by anything else.

If you then put a layer of stuff you need to do to be okay over the top of that,

You've just got a whole pile more thinking.

A lot more things on your mind and guess what?

Now your ability to see that innate well-being and that calm and that clarity and all those things,

Your ability to see all those things is now even more covered up by thought because there's the thinking that you've picked up habitually through life and then there's another layer of thinking about what's wrong with you and what you need to do to fix yourself.

Can you see?

I hope you can see.

I hope you can hear something in what I'm seeing.

If maybe you can get an image of that,

You the perfect whole diamond,

Perfection,

Whatever you want it to be,

Beautiful rose,

Diamond,

Whatever,

However you see perfection,

Then there's the habitual thinking we've picked up through life and then on top of that there's all the judgment that we're wrong in some way and we're not okay and we should be feeling a certain way all the time,

We should be able to control our emotions and here's all the tools and techniques to do that.

I was chatting to somebody yesterday who said that she'd been given this list of things to do for her own well-being and that of her children and she said I just can't remember to do them all and then I feel bad because I can't remember.

Is that helping her to see her innate well-being?

I suspect not.

I don't know about you but I bounced around between all these different tools and techniques,

Carrying them around in my head,

Having a list of things to do every day,

Still seeing that I wasn't okay and then still going to get more and more and more help from outside of me but what's the alternative?

The alternative is to see the nature of what is going on,

To see the nature of thought,

To see how that is working all the time and in that seeing there is a natural falling away.

It's like you see the layer of rubbish and thought and habitual stuff that's stuck and as you see it for what it is,

It's like shining a light on a gremlin.

If you're familiar with the film From the Eight Tis,

You'll understand what I mean but if you shine a light on the gremlin,

It goes poof.

That's all it needs and you are the sunlight and you are the awareness that can bring that about and that's all it really needs.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Claire Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

I’m constantly feeling overwhelmed lately and my mind seems to be going a million miles an hour. Didn’t even consider the relationship between the two. Thank you. I need to slow down the thoughts x

Very interesting, a different way to look at my thoughts.
Thank you.
Namaste 🙏 🌟

Thank you for bringing to my attention all the layers that are weighing me down! 🙏🏻🪷 This resonated very much! I try to practice mindfulness sometimes but find this makes try to control my environment / myself and thoughts. Also try to assess if I’m doing it well or good enough! Need to relax my approach perhaps?

Thank you for that☆ i have spent many yrs working to be better, yo deal to overcome. Certainly understood there needed to be acceptance for all things and compassion . Now your message touches me and aligns w the growing awareness of my overarching overthinking.

Loved this. Exactly what I needed for where I’m at. Thankyou 🙏🏻

Words of wisdom. Thank you Claire. Much love, many blessings