Name It To Tame It - Emotional Distress Tolerance Practice

In this talk, I describe the practice of 'Affect Labeling.' I explain how to practice this technique and the reasons why this practice is so powerful. By the end of this talk, you will know how and why to apply 'emotional accuracy' to your life, and I hope that it will be a powerful aid for you in your continued healing and therapeutic journey. I have found this to be incredibly powerful for my own healing, and it is something I really wish I had known sooner. N.B. - All of my advice is based on my personal experiences and understanding. This is not intended to replace any professional input you may be receiving from a psychiatrist or mental health professional. This is a complementary practice.

Transcript

Hi team. I want to share a practice that I have found to be remarkably powerful. In my emotional healing. Surprisingly powerful considering just how simple it really is. This is one of those techniques where I have that I wish I'd known this sooner feeling. Whenever I get that, I wish I'd known this earlier in my journey. Intuition, I always feel called to share it because it might save somebody else quite a lot of time and aggravation. So this is something called emotional accuracy. Or the clinical term is affect labeling. And it's so simple that I actually, I know I run the risk of sounding patronizing when I try to coach this. But sometimes simplicity is the key. That's so true when it comes to our emotional healing. When we're dealing with the psychological issues as well, Simplicity really is the key. Because the chaos, The confusion and the turmoil of the mind, That's what we're seeking to remedy. We're seeking to come to peace. And peace is always very simple. So often the techniques and practices that are the most simple. Actually the ones that are the most effective. So in emotional accuracy, Which is the title I prefer, Because affect labelling sounds kind of. . . Just very I don't know it's almost too clinical isn't it whereas when it's emotional accuracy that gives us a sense already of what the practice actually entails What we do is we simply ask ourselves, What am I actually feeling? So as simple as that. And keep asking until you have a very precise answer. So you just anyone can find a few moments throughout the day. Maybe take yourself to the bathroom or if you're in the car before setting off on a journey or when you've parked up, Just take some moments. Wherever you can You just take some moments to just introspect. Just breathe and just. . . Turn your conscious awareness to your emotional world, Your inner emotional world. And enquire. What am I actually feeling? What emotion? Am I currently feeling in the present moment? And you keep asking until you can really define. The true flavour of your current emotional world. Often. The answer can actually be quite surprising. And how amazing is that? Wow, I didn't realise. So this is one of those things where it's so, It's almost amusing. Often when I practice this, I'm like, I didn't realize how I was feeling. I had a general vague, Foggy sense. But then upon inquiring, Upon introspecting, You realise, Oh, That wasn't what I was, I was actually feeling something else. Or you just build a much sharper picture. It's almost like. . . If you've ever edited an image before uploading it to social media. You can adjust it and you have those sliders where you can turn up the brightness, Turn up the saturation, Turn up the sharpness, Turn up the vividness, Turn up the contrast until the image is very sharp. Vivid, Very defined. It's essentially doing that. But to your own inner emotional world, You turn the brightness up, Turn the saturation up. Turn the sharpness up until you have a very clear picture of what it is that you are actually feeling. So I'll explain why this is so powerful in just a moment. There's actually two reasons and they're fascinating reasons for why this practice is so powerful. But first, Just to outline very clearly exactly how you would practice this. I always find it better to do it if you do have a little bit of time and space without so much sort of outside influence, So much external busyness and noise. We all live busy lives, So it's not always possible. You might even just practice this whilst you're in the supermarket or whilst you're at your desk at work. The more you do it, The quicker you find the answer just arises for you spontaneously. Essentially, I mean my first piece of advice is just don't allow yourself to be vague about your current emotional state. And that becomes a continuous practice. Never be vague, Foggy, Or have a general sense of your emotional world. Actually. . . Continually. Turn your consciousness, Your awareness to your emotional state. Often Our emotions are kind of running in the background, Aren't they? This is quite a powerful inquiry in itself. Is to regard where are emotions for you. These are powerful questions to ask, Considering that we're putting all this time, Effort and energy into healing our emotional world. It would be a good idea to just get a deeper knowledge, A deeper intuition about emotion itself. So where does your inner emotional world actually sit in your day-to-day life? For most people it kind of runs in the background. It's something that's kind of there but it's not really the focus point of. . . Your experience. So the first thing I would do is turn that picture around. Let everything else fall into the background. And by everything else, I mean literally everything else. Everything in the external world, All the chatter and busyness of the mind. How you feel in the body. That's all still there, But that becomes the background and your current emotional state becomes the foreground. Like put it front and center in your conscious awareness. And from that point. . . This takes a little bit of that. It's like a gentle but focused discipline. So it's still gentle and loving. We're not trying to force. Anything. It's still gentle, But it's very patient, Very disciplined, Conscious attention on your emotional world. Just asking. What is the nature of this emotion? What am I actually feeling? And there's a few things that can be quite surprising. One, The answer might come up but actually surprise you. You might have thought you were feeling okay and then you suddenly realise, Oh, I actually do feel quite sad today. That's one thing that can happen. Um, I mean, I had this the other day. It was so fascinating. I still can't quite grasp it. But I thought I was in a period of like worry. I just like throughout the day, I kind of noticed. I think my agitation's up. I think I feel a bit nervous. I must be in a. . . Period of very minor anxiety, Like I'm in a period of worry. And then but when I did this practice, This emotional accuracy, Because it's almost like I've had enough. Right. I'm fed up of like just feeling generally jittery. What's actually happening? And I sat on a park bench just breathing. Do the. Affect labelling, The emotional accuracy, What's the precise nature? Of this this agitation. And the answer was, You're excited. You're excited. I was like, Oh, I see. It was totally different to what I assumed I was feeling. I assumed I was feeling nervous and worried. Because, I mean. . . Physiologically speaking, Worry and excitement actually have exactly the same physiological effect. Biologically speaking, Fascinating. But I assumed it was worry, But it was only when I did this emotional accuracy practice that I realized, Oh, I'm actually excited. That's because there's some like big opportunities coming up for me recently. A lot of changes and a lot of things going to be changing and happening and stuff. And I assumed I was worried about it. But there was also this beautiful feeling of excitement there as well. And actually, The excitement was the primary flavour of my emotional world at that time. This gives us a sense of why this is so important to do. If I assumed it was worry and continued with that assumption, That assumption. That worry could have developed into anxiety. Could have developed into because I believed it was worry. It could have become worse. And as somebody who's. . . I've recovered from anxiety and I've experienced anxiety in the past really quite severely. Thankfully that's a thing of the past now, But I know how. . . I'm glad that snowball didn't build up, Essentially. So that's one example. But there are some other examples, And these are quite common, Actually. One of them is you might just feel generally quite sad. You feel quite low. And when it's very vague, When it's very foggy, When it's not precisely defined. We sometimes just, Well, I don't know. You just feel like you're in a bad mood. You just feel like you just feel low at the moment. You're just kind of going through your day-to-day, Trying to feel better, But nothing seems to be working. It's worth just, Just. . . Turn that conscious awareness to your inner emotional world. And let it be the forefront of your experience. So it's a recognition, Yes, Yes. There is a lowness here, A heaviness here. Just start to, How does this actually feel? What emotion actually is this? And just don't let yourself answer in a very vague way. Be very precise. You're looking for an exact word for exactly what it is that you are feeling. And so it's like, Well, Yeah, I suppose just generally feeling bad, That's too vague. Let's really look at this. Am I feeling sadness? Am I feeling low? Am I feeling lonely? Am I feeling isolated? Am I feeling rejected? Am I feeling sorrow? Am I feeling grief? And it's that one that's far far more common than you might expect. It surprises a lot of people. But a lot of the time, If there's just been a persistent sadness. . . Persistent low mood. Persistent just feeling generally. Flat, Numb, Checked out. Just assess and ask yourself, Am I grieving? Is this grief? Now, Obviously, The mind then goes, Yeah, But why would I be grieving? I haven't lost anyone. But recognize that grief. Is actually about loss in general not just a person. So if there's been a big change for you recently, Like in your job or something or. This could be it could be related to something lost, The loss of health. A breakup, A relationship breakup. A changing job or losing job that could have actually happened quite a long time ago. But it's still trying to come to the surface in your conscious awareness. But because it's never had. It's time in the light of conscious awareness. It kind of just. . . It comes through in this way sometimes, Just general sadness, General lowness. But by applying emotional accuracy. All of a sudden, Oh, I see, It's actually grief. It's worth checking. And other times, Let's say. . . You feel like, I don't know why I just feel angry. I just feel angry all the time there's just this real anger that's here it's like why do i feel so angry recently And it's worth just bringing that forward. Don't try and push it away. This is something else that. . . We try to do with our emotional world that actually just makes things worse. Try to push it away. Try to repress it. Try to distract ourselves from it. Try to pretend it's not there. Try to ignore it. None of that helps. It's actually this emotional accuracy is the first step towards turning and facing it. Rather than running away from it, Turning and facing it and just being very open. Very open to this what am i actually feeling and it's a sense of just opening yourself open your awareness to just yes i want to feel this i want to feel this You can even talk to the emotion. Say, Reveal yourself to me. What is it? What are you trying to tell me? And doing this in a very loving and compassionate way. Let emotion be the teacher. You teach me emotion. What are you? What would you like me to know? And you might find it's not actually anger as such, Or that's a very broad term. You might then realize, Oh, Actually this is frustration. You've been trying to make things happen and things just aren't progressing right or things that you've tried to make work. You've tried to succeed in certain areas and it's failed or broken down. And it's frustrating. So what's built up is frustration, Not anger. And frustration is related to anger, But it's slightly different. Slightly different. Or this anger, Is it frustration? So you cycle through these words. Anger. Frustration. Irritability? Rage? Has there been some injustice against me recently? I mean, Anger is the emotion of boundaries. So it's worth just checking. Perhaps I feel a bit violated. Perhaps I feel taken for granted. Perhaps I feel unappreciated. Perhaps I feel unloved. Perhaps I feel uncared for. And then you realise, Ah, OK, So that's so anger. You start to see, Oh, That's what I'm actually feeling. That's the root of this. It's not just blanket anger towards the world and towards yourself, When you really narrow it down. Oh, The root of this is. . . I feel like I'm uncared for, Unloved, Ignored. Forgotten, Abandoned Something like that. Potentially, Or often a really, Really common one. Not far underneath the anger. The anger's actually fear. You're actually in a period of fear. You feel anxious, But it very quickly turns into anger. Because anger makes us feel quite powerful. And it kind of masks our fear. Anger in some ways is It's more palatable. Actually, We'd rather feel angry than afraid. Because feeling afraid makes us feel powerless. But to feel angry makes us feel powerful. But once we can see actually, So the driving force, The engine underneath my anger is actually fear, We can address the fear. This is why whatever you do, You can't address the anger. It's because it's not actually anger. That's an illusion. It's actually fear. So those are two examples. Feeling generally sad, Feeling generally low. It might be grief. Or you're just generally angry at the moment. It could be fear, Or it could be something to do with your boundaries, Something like that. All of this, Everything we're doing, This is what meditation and healing really is about. It's just becoming so much more conscious. Turning up the brightness, Turning up the vividness of your conscious awareness. Because once you're conscious of something, That's when healing happens. In exactly the same way that healing happens in the body when the body is aware of exactly what it is that's going on in the body that needs healing. That's when the natural healing mechanisms kick in. A lot of viruses and bacteria tries to hide. From the body's natural immune system. But as soon as the body is aware of it. . . That's when the healing begins. And it's exactly the same when it comes to our inner emotional world. Exactly the same So to practice this, It's as simple as that. It's just to ask, What am I actually feeling? And you can do this at any time throughout your day. And the more you do it, The more there will be this, The quicker the answer will come. Because another thing that can happen is it just, It seems to elude you. It seems to just evade your conscious awareness and that's quite fascinating in itself. So there's just this general feeling that's there. But when you turn to look at it, It disappears. That's so strange. And then it's just a case of just keep inquiring, Keep inquiring. A sense of just being very open, Very empty, Actually. And patience is key with emotions as well. Because if we treat emotions like life forms in themselves, They're only going to reveal themselves when they feel safe to. So if you're just very compassionate, Very patient, Very loving. And it's just it will reveal itself to you. So it's quite fascinating, Really. Never assume. Which is very very true when it comes to emotions. You might find that what you're actually feeling isn't what you assumed that you were feeling. Or you might find that actually, Although you would consider yourself to be very. . . Sort of in touch and in tune with your emotions. I mean, You probably are. If you're watching a video like this and you're on a platform like this, Naturally you will be a very. . . Very emotionally attuned sort of person so how curious it is that when you try to feel exactly what it is that you're feeling. Just tries to get away from your sight. Just quite amazing. Now there are two reasons, Two reasons why this practice is so powerful. The first is that awareness. Is the key exactly as i was saying about in the body It's once the immune system is aware of something, That's when it naturally kicks in and the healing can happen. No emotion actually is a bad emotion. So that's where that metaphor kind of breaks down a little bit because negative emotions aren't like a virus or like bacteria. They don't work like that. All emotions are natural, Healthy and innocent. They really are. What happens i suppose a better analogy would be You could only. . . Clean your room if the light is on. Like the brighter the light is in the room, The better you're able to organize the room. The better you're able to put things in their position. To get the room organised orderly, To get the room clean and tidy. If you're trying to do it in the dark, If there's no light in the room, You could have a go at it. But it's going to be very difficult. To organise, Clean and tidy the room. Because there's no light to see by. You don't know what it is that you're trying to organize. You don't know what it is that you're trying to put in its healthy place. So when we turn the light on, Turn up the conscious awareness of what's actually going on. In a messy room, The first thing is. . . You suddenly realise just how much you've got to do. But it's better. It's better to know that, Isn't it? And actually, That helps you. That feeling of. Well there's a lot to do isn't there? That's actually helping you. That's a good thing. It's good to know that because you're aware of what needs to be done. And that's exactly the same when it comes to turning the light on, Turning the conscious awareness up towards our own inner emotional world. You're better off seeing exactly what it is that you're actually dealing with. So in the example that I gave about you might feel like you're kind of sad, But it turns out it's actually grief. If we assume we're just feeling sad or low, Then that's what we're going to try and. . . Remedy that's what we're going to try and relieve Because you think you just feel sad or low. And so you do the things that would help if you're feeling sad or low. But that's because you've assumed that it's sadness. Just general sad, General numb, General low, General anhedonia. And so you're doing things to try and help that and nothing seems to work. Why is it not working? Because it's not actually sadness in the first place. It's grief. Grief. And if it's, Oh, I see. So if you begin the process of grieving, There's a different approach to grief than there is to just. . . Standard sadness. It's a different approach. So this is why it's so important to. . . To know the exact nature of what it is you're actually feeling. It's so that you can apply the appropriate process to healing that. To remedying that. To feeling better about that, To feeling at peace with that. You know, The solution to grief is to grieve. Grief, To accept the grief itself, To go through that process. And all of a sudden, Right, This isn't it. It's not pleasant. There's still a lot to go through, But at least we're actually in the process of. Really addressing this now. The same for when it's You might have that anger and it's you constantly trying to you're treating the problem like it's an anger problem. But upon doing the emotional accuracy, The affect labelling, You realise just underneath the surface of that anger is actually fear. When you put in place the process to remedy the fear treat it as an anxiety thing rather than an anger thing, The anger clears up. Because now you're addressing what's actually going on. Again, This is what I said at the start, It's so simple that it sounds kind of patronizing. But this tells us about the nature of the mind. The mind always weaves illusions and delusions. And it's those illusions and delusions that keep us from feeling the peace and happiness that we could be feeling. And this is why awareness is key. Consciousness is key. Because if we can return to the truth. The truth, The actual truth of what's exactly going on for you. That's when we can actually start to, Ah, I see, I see, No more illusions, No more delusions, No more running away, No more fighting, No more wrestling, No more distracting, No more repressing, No more burying, Just pure truth. And this is often uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to look under the bonnet and see exactly what we're working with. It's uncomfortable to turn the light on and see how much work there is to do in the room. It's uncomfortable, But it's necessary. If we want to be happy, We want to be at peace. In many ways, I think Your freedom and happiness is directly proportionate. To the level of your willingness to face the pain of the truth. So turn the light on and see exactly what it is you're dealing with. Be willing to be uncomfortable. And get to working on exactly what's going on. Now the second reason why this works This is fascinating. But the mind. . . The mind feels far less distressed. And is far less. . . Anxious about something. When it knows exactly what it is. This is kind of it. Quite a nuanced one to kind of. Kind of understand. So. . . That the mind naturally feels safer. When it knows what it's dealing with. It's when everything's vague and mysterious, That's when the mind is working overtime. The mind is in overdrive when there's a lot of unknowns and a lot of mysteries. But the mind feels far more settled and far more safe. When it's been able to categorize and name something. This is something they understand in. In the psychological sciences and they've understood it for a long time. That's why there's studies on affect labeling and how effective it is. Because you will feel far less distress relating to your inner emotional world. When you have a much more accurate picture of exactly what's going on. The mind can relax and you'll find your whole body. Your mind, Your consciousness, Everything just begins to relax. Because. . . It's almost like It's that the fear of the unknown thing. Your mind conjures up all kinds of things. When it doesn't know what it's dealing with. That's why the mind is afraid of the dark. Because it could contain an infinite number of things. That's why when we turn the light on and see there's no monster there. It's almost like checking for the monster under the bed. There's no monster under the bed. Then the mind can relax. So it's the same when we're. . . You're generally feeling just bad in some way, But you don't know exactly what it is that feels bad. That's mysterious. And that's when the mind starts to think, Oh, There must be a monster under the bed. There must be something wrong. There must be something bad or horrible happening. Because there's a very general but mysterious sense of I just don't feel right. So by doing emotional accuracy. You You develop, Ah, Okay, So that's exactly what it is that we're dealing with here. And just allowing yourself to really feel that and really know that. It's like, Oh, Okay, So this is worry. This is anxiety. This is grief. This is. . . It could be anger. This is rage. This is. . . Sorrow. By just knowing exactly what it is that you're dealing with, The mind naturally puts it into. . . A. An organized more understandable. Conceptual framework. And because it's there the brain feels a lot safer with it. Because it knows what's there. This goes a long way to you feeling a bit more settled and at peace. There's no more inner conflict. There's no more inner struggle. There's no more inner turmoil. It's fascinating, Really. Fascinating. You feel far more settled when you know exactly what it is that you're facing. And that's a big step. That's a big step towards your healing. It's a big step towards feeling more settled and more at peace, Feeling happier. And then this is the curious thing. There's more. So I'll do other talks on on steps beyond that, Because, Again, You're you're probably a very proactive person when it comes to your healing. You're very emotional. Person you're looking to So how do I heal that then? So I'm aware of it now. What's the next step? For a little while, Actually just practicing this on its own is enough. It's so powerful. Because you'll be surprised to find that. . . Your inner world already knows how to heal itself. A lot of it is about getting the mind out of the way. And allowing just with that very patient loving, Compassionate awareness. Just be aware of emotions and begin to let the emotion be the teacher. Let the emotion be the guide. You'll realize that It's like once the light is on, The room cleans itself. It's like a magic room that just organises itself, Just puts itself back into a healthy position. So when we're very aware, Very conscious of our inner emotional world. Each of those emotions starts to take its place. Within the human emotional spectrum, Its healthy position. You find that all emotions have their place, All of them. They're natural, Healthy innocence. So it's a good idea. I would suggest anyway, So others might say something different. Actually, Just practicing emotional accuracy in itself is very powerful for some time. You don't need to do anything beyond it. Because awareness, Once awareness is on something, It will do its own work. In the same way, Again, The analogy doesn't quite work because emotions aren't a sickness. No emotion is a sickness. No emotion is an illness. But it's quite a good analogy in the physical body. All that healing happens when the body's natural immune system can do its job. The worst illnesses are the ones where, For whatever reason, The immune system can't function. The way that it should be functioning. So in this approach, It's just like that. It's essentially the conscious awareness on the emotion is enough. Because now it will do its job. It was the mind getting in the way with all of its illusions and delusions, Distractions and misdirections. That's what was preventing the healing. Think that's everything this was a longer video than I was expecting to do today sorry if I've waffled on a little bit but I hope some of that's useful Um, Again, It's one of those ones where I wish I'd known that sooner. Because I'd started off doing all this healing, Quite complex stuff, Trying to heal anxiety, Depression. Get to the other side of my therapeutic journey and Coming out of, You know, I recovered from an addiction and everything. I was trying to do a lot of stuff. But I'd never actually come across this concept of actually just slow down. Just what actually are you actually feeling rather than assuming you know? Just double check. Anyway, Hope some of that is useful. Thank you so much for following. Thank you so much for listening. Hope some of that's useful. Take care. Be well. Stay present.

Reviews

Oh wow, just what I needed to hear right now. The discussion on anger was very helpful. “Anger is the emotion of barriers.” Looking deeper, naming. Honesty with myself. Thank you for lifting me up into the light, Corin! Hugs back at ya!