I Spent Years Misunderstanding Feelings

I spent years misunderstanding my feelings. It went through 2 phases. In the 1st phase, if I had a feeling, I thought that was coming from a person or some circumstances and in the 2nd phase if I had a feeling I thought it was because there was something wrong with me.

These are two different types of the same misunderstanding of where our feelings are coming from both of which create suffering, stress, and anxiety.

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 is really a sharing of my own journey,

My own relationship with my feelings as it has panned out over the last few years.

And it's funny isn't it because of course I will only be sharing this from my present moment perspective but this is how it looks to me in terms of my misunderstanding of feelings and their source and what they meant.

That it looks to me like I've gone through two quite distinct phases.

And the first phase was probably took place before the burnout that I experienced in 2015 and probably some of the,

Well definitely the elements of this are what led to me burning out in the end.

So the first phase was a very outside in understanding of where feelings came from.

So if I felt angry or upset that was definitely coming from someone,

Usually someone I think,

Or something outside of me that was making me feel angry.

Like I would definitely have said that sentence I would have said,

That's making me feel angry.

I still say that sometimes now.

And that sense of being wronged and that sense that if that other person didn't improve or change their behavior or come and say sorry that that anger would be a consequence of that.

That was definitely,

There was a sense of that.

If I felt happy there would be this idea really that I had managed to create the perfect scenario in order for me to be happy.

So that would be arranging the perfect holiday or the perfect meal out or whatever,

Or getting my children or people,

The people in my life to behave in a certain way.

And then it was,

I'm happy now because everybody's doing what they're supposed to do and everything's as it should be.

And that meant a lot to do.

There was a lot to do to try and make that be the case.

And of course it was very difficult to sustain if not impossible really because life doesn't really work like that,

Does it?

Life is changeable.

If nothing else,

The most predictable thing about life is that it is changeable.

And then if I felt unmotivated that was coming from an uninspiring task or something that wasn't really very interesting or there was some boredom involved or something like that.

And in fact,

What that did do is send me on a path of repeated promotions,

Always kind of,

Well,

I don't feel very motivated in this job anymore.

I've kind of gone off it,

Must be the job,

Let's get a promotion.

And that meant that in my teaching career,

I moved jobs every four years even when I was a head teacher.

And in fact,

The own job I was in for five years was my first permanent job,

But I did have two maternity leaves during that time.

So you're getting a picture of my crazy life and me trying to control my feelings by controlling the outside world.

And it's like that game where the heads bob up,

Isn't it?

And you have to hammer them down.

I think it's called whack-a-mole or something.

Somebody should update me on what that game is now called.

I should probably just check it out on Google,

Shouldn't I?

I'm sure somebody knows what that game is called.

And so that was the first phase.

And that was the phase that led to me walking out of my job in 2015,

March of 2015,

And never going back due to serious adrenal burnout.

And then the second phase came,

I suppose,

After resigning,

So I didn't work for a year,

And then I resigned.

And when I retrained as a hypnotherapist at that time and started my hypnotherapy business,

I got really into the idea and the understanding that those feelings were definitely something to do with me.

So there was less now of looking at the outside world,

Still some of that,

But less and more looking inside.

And so then in the second phase,

If I felt angry,

I kind of thought I had some kind of anger issue that I should be able to get under control in some way.

And then there was a lot of judgment if I had feelings that I didn't think I should really be having and meant something about me,

Very complicated.

So and if I felt happy,

There was,

I don't know whether I analyzed that much,

But I guess it was this sense that,

Oh,

I'm okay.

Like I've done enough therapy and I've done enough tools and techniques and I've said enough affirmations and done enough meditation,

And now I feel happy more of the time or for a period of time.

And of course,

That had a real temporary nature to it as well,

Because that feels like a grasping now to try and hold on to our moments of happiness like that,

Whether that is from the other side of the world or from ourselves.

And then if I felt unmotivated,

And this was the real crux of the matter for me was motivation,

That I kind of was led to believe that any level of not feeling motivated was because I had at some point in my childhood learned that I wasn't worthy,

I wasn't good enough,

I wasn't,

You know,

It was all around self-esteem,

Not feeling good enough about myself.

And that that meant that,

So the lack of motivation or the procrastination or not doing the things that were going to make me successful were a kind of self-sabotage during which I was somehow hurting myself really,

Because I didn't think I was worth it,

Worth the money or worth the success or worth the number of clients or whatever it was I was not doing,

Not generating as it were.

Now both those phases have a real strong inclination towards control.

And the first one,

You know,

The first phase very much about trying to control my outside circumstances so that I could be okay,

And in the second phase trying to control me so that I could be okay,

Or trying to deal with stuff from the past that was inside me somehow.

Yeah,

That's a big sigh there because it was all exhausting and all non-stop,

Like the wasn't,

You know,

In the first phase there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't feel myself not being in control and fear that and worry about it and feel just actually,

I could feel quite emotional now,

Just tired by having to keep going to control everything to make it okay.

Really that game where the heads bob up and you are trying to bang them down all the time is exactly what that felt like.

And in the second phase I just never felt,

I went inside much more and just felt never okay with myself.

I felt very self-conscious.

I was always checking myself to make sure I was okay and noticing every minute of every day if I wasn't doing what I thought I should be doing because motivation and not procrastinating with a real focus for me might be something different for you,

But there'll be something where you think you're not okay in this area.

And that went on and on and on and on.

And it only changed when I realized that the misunderstandings,

I think I'd kind of passed through the first phase and kind of lost that misunderstanding.

I did before the last few years realize that my outside circumstances didn't create my feelings.

But then the second phase is almost worse in some ways because it's this sense of you just not being okay and having to sort yourself out and having to work on yourself.

And I did that day in and day out for three or four years,

Literally every day,

Meditating,

Working on myself,

Therapy,

Etc.

And what came to light and what I learned in the last couple of years is that I really did have a misunderstanding about feelings.

Feelings are us experiencing thought in the moment that we're always feeling our thinking a hundred percent of the time.

We're never feeling anything else.

And what that did in the main,

Like the thing I want to point to today is what that did is that took a lot off my mind.

I just had a lot less things to think about.

And then there was space.

Space for calm,

Space for clarity.

Space for ease and flow.

And space for inspiration so that motivation isn't quite so required.

Space and I don't know about you,

But I work better when I have some space in my head.

And that's what this brings because there's no more seeking.

There's no more looking for answers.

There's just one answer.

When I feel something,

It's thought in the moment.

I don't have to do anything about that because it's like clouds and it will pass.

It's just brings so much ease,

Simplicity,

Calm,

Space.

Just looking in this direction for a little while can start to bring that.

It really can.

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 Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.