519: How To Process Negative Emotions Without Getting Stuck

In this episode, I’m talking about one of the questions I hear all the time: What do we do with negative emotions?

So many of us have been taught to push away, numb, judge, or “get rid of” emotions like anger, grief, sadness, fear, rage, and frustration. But the truth is, emotions are not bad. They are part of being human, and they are meant to move through us.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the adult share podcast. Where we talk all about how to live as healthy adults, Emotionally healthy adults. Yes, Indeed. Here we are. I am Michelle Chalfant, Happy to be here with you today. Speaking with you today about negative emotions. What do we do with our negative emotions? How do we get rid of negative emotions? That's a question I get all the time. Help me to get rid of my negative emotions. We're going to talk all about these things. I get a lot of messages on social media. My team will ask me questions when people email in and say, How do you want me to respond to this? And I get this question a lot. I'm stuck in anger. I'm stuck in grief. I'm stuck in rage. I'm stuck in, Negative emotions in general. What do I do with them? How do I work my way out of these negative emotions? I'm going to tell you how to do that today. Number 1. We are human. I've got lots of ideas for you, But that's the first one. We're human and humans were created to have emotions. We were created to have a range of emotions, Everything from love to fear and everything in between. If you think about babies or toddlers, Think about young children. They laugh and they cry and they're sad and they're hurt. All of the beautiful things. And it honestly, As children, Feels great to have these emotions. There's an energy to emotions that rises up and passes through us. And you know when you watch a child how they can turn off their emotions instantly, Right? They can shift emotions on and off so quickly because they're not tied to them. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that today. But children just freely have emotions and emotions are an energy that pass through the human body. We feel them, We process and metabolize them and they're out. They move through. Unfortunately though, As we grow up, We might hear from family, Friends, Coaches, Whatever it is, Teachers, Grandparent, Whoever it might be. We get messages about our emotions. We hear things like, You're a crybaby. You cry too much. You're too excited all the time. Bring your excitement down. Or why are you so happy? What's wrong with you? Or you got to get over it. Your dog died a month ago. Why are you still sad? Get out of it. You're so annoying. So we get judged for our emotions. So we learn to not feel. Not only do we learn not to feel because of what people say to us, But unfortunately, Most of our parents, Again, You know me, You guys, No judgment or blame to parents. Everyone is always doing the best they can. But if your parents don't know how to sit with and process and metabolize their emotions, How in the world are they supposed to teach you, Their child, To do that? It doesn't happen. And you've seen commercials, And you might have experienced this in your own home, Where when a child is crying, And then guess what? The parent says, Let's go out for ice cream, Or let's have cookies, Or we get spanked because we're crying too much. So again, All the programs are built around how not to feel emotions. So that's where the problems arise. So then we become adults, And it's like, What am I supposed to do? I'm having sadness. Let me reach for advice. Let me figure out how to numb myself out, Whether it be, As so many people say, Hey, Let's go out for a drink, Or let's get high, Or someone might turn on some porn or gamble or shop. Netflix or buy a bunch of stuff on Amazon, Like whatever your thing is, And you know what your thing is to numb out. It's a very automatic unconscious thing that we do. But the truth of the matter is humans are built to have a range of emotions and they don't have to get stuck. We don't have to block them. In fact, As you know, You've probably heard me and other people that we talk about the 92nd rule. You know, You really feel intense emotions for 90 seconds when we don't block them. Okay. So we want to find the courage to get in there, Feel the emotion and let it come through. It doesn't matter if you're angry, Doesn't matter if you're crying or anything in between. If you want to punch a pillow, Go for a run, Go chop wood, I don't care what you do, But get it through you. Because what happens is, If you think about a spectrum of emotion, Again, We're going love to fear. I don't even like to call emotions on the fear end of the spectrum negative because it gives those emotions, Again, A negative connotation as if they're bad. They're not bad. I want to feel my fear if I'm walking to my friend's house down the road and it's dark and a car starts driving up behind me slowly You better believe it. I want to feel my fear and I'm grateful for that fear so I can then run into a neighbor's house where I'm safe. So I'm sure you all will agree that would be a good time to feel fear, Right? If you're walking and you're in a big city or wherever you are and someone comes up behind you that you don't know, I hope that you feel fear and you start to run or you scream. So there are times when our emotions in the fear end of the spectrum are really good. What I find is we tend to have an allergy to. . . Again, These emotions where we have anger or frustration or sadness and all of the emotions we don't know what to do with. So today we're talking more about them, But we need to start out with the understanding that we're human and we're built to have emotions. You see babies cry. You see toddlers have temper tantrums. It's very normal and actually very healthy. Anger is a very, Very healthy emotion. It's where we wield our power from. But now, Explosive anger is a different story. I'm not saying to blob your anger all over other people, But to feel angry when someone says something to us that's not nice. Is a very healthy emotion to have. I was speaking with a friend of mine the other day, And she's been in an emotionally abusive marriage for many years now. And she said to me, I feel not great about myself because I'm feeling anger. And I said, Girl, You got to feel that anger. I'm so glad you're feeling anger because you're going to feel power when you start allowing the anger energy to rise up through you. Anger propels us forward. Anger can help us to speak up and maybe set a boundary for not doing that. I love anger. I have no problem with anger. So please start to embrace your anger. There is nothing wrong with it. Okay. So again, Humans have emotions from love to fear. And again, I'm not going to say positive to negative end of the spectrum, But that's how most humans relate is that they're negative. But let's just have a reframe around there and say they're from fear to love. And we feel everything in between. So that's the first truth around what we do with our negative emotions. So what do we do when we experience something? Here's the thing. So many of us may not even know like, Wait, What am I feeling? Something doesn't feel right. We don't have to label our emotions, But we may notice that deep inside of us is a not or a resistance inside of us. Like we're pushing something down or my stomach doesn't feel right or my heart is starting to close up. Those are emotions. Okay. So we don't have to label them, Is indicating that there's something going on inside. So what do we do with that, With those times? And again, Other times you might say, I'm really angry, Or I feel dissatisfied right now, Or I feel a lot of angst or sadness or grief. What do we do when we either feel a physical sensation to our emotions, Or we actually know what that emotion is? What do we do? Well, Like I said, We feel them. We go directly into them. We become conscious. We want to pull ourselves into our true self, Our conscious self, Our adult chair, Whatever you'd like to call it. Look at what is coming up, Feel what's coming up with curiosity. Like, What is this? Take it slow, But do allow it to come up and through you. What that also looks like is don't reach for the remote and turn on Netflix. Take a few moments. You know, If it's an overwhelming emotion, Just say, You know what, I'm just going to give myself a few minutes right now and I'm just going to see what comes up. I'm just going to feel or sense what's going on inside of my body because something feels really, Really unsettled right now. Okay, Let me sit with it. So you go directly into what doesn't feel good. And again, We're talking 90 seconds when you can go into it. Directly into it and feel it, Sit with it, Do some slow breathing, Get curious. So I'm telling you right now, I had a private practice for 25 years and I've done emotion work with people for most of that time. And what I noticed is when people would come in and they'd say to me, Oh, I can't feel that gives me a knot in my stomach. And I would always suggest, Go be with that knot in your stomach. 100% of the time, 100% I'm not exaggerating here. That person would say, Oh, Wait, It's morphing. It's moving. I don't feel the knot. I don't feel the sadness. It's changing. And it does because energy is always in motion and emotions are energy. It does not stay stuck. We have to give it our attention. It's like casting a light on it or imagine flashing a flashlight on something that's over there in the corner. Those are your emotions. So when you put light on it, Which is your attention, It starts to change. It will morph. 100% of the time. If it does not morph for you, I'd like to hear about it. Because I promise you, I've never had someone say, Oh, It just stayed the same for like the whole hour. No way, No way, No way. It will change. And what's beautiful is it gives you information. There's a lot of information in our emotions. We have a whole inner world that we really want to get to know. We want to get to know what's going on in Inside of us, We have all these parts that are working with us every single day to stay safe, To stay healthy, All the things. So we direct our attention inside when we're having emotions and we get to know what's coming up. So you direct your attention, You feel them and they will pass through. Something though that keeps emotions stuck is a story. When we tell ourselves a story, Around why we're having an emotion. Things get stuck. That's why people say, I can't move forward. We can't move forward when we're feeling an emotion because we go back up into our head. And it is in our head. Or our mind that we get on the hamster wheel, Where we try to figure out why we're having the emotion to begin with. And we go into judgment and we go into meaning and we try to blame. And maybe I'm having the emotion because my partner did this or my friend did that. Or, You know, I think it was because the way my mother talked to me, This is why I'm feeling so bad right now. And maybe if my mother would change and not talk to me in this way, Then I won't have the feeling I'm having right now. And it's all her fault. So we then direct our attention outside of self. On to mother. And get her to change so I stop feeling so bad. When the remedy for negative emotions or emotions in the fear end of the spectrum is simply get in there and feel it. Sit squarely in it. And feel it. What is going on inside? And be the best story buster you can. So when your brain kicks in and says, Oh, I bet you're feeling it because of this, You go, Uh-uh, I'm just going to sit here and feel. Thank you. Thank you for that commentary, But no. Thank you. And you let it go. Sit and focus on the sensation in the body. Same thing. There is no meaning. There's no story around it. Just let it go and be present with whatever's coming up. That is another way to work with what we call negative emotions. The next thing is that negative emotions or any emotions want to be witnessed. There's power when someone is witnessing what's going on in our inner world. One way to do that. Is with journaling. You know how much I love journaling because we take our inner world and we put it on paper out in front of us. It is. Cathartic. It is beautiful for us to do this. It's a beautiful process because we then can write about what we are feeling. Any of the negative emotions that we're feeling, You write about it. And when you put pen to paper, You're tapping into your unconscious world. And all these things will start coming out on paper right in front of you. When you journal, Do not worry about punctuation or what it looks like or if your handwriting is neat or not neat. If you feel better, Typing it on a computer, You can try that. Just the idea, Though, Is to get it out of you. Because when you get it out of you and through you from writing, You're processing it. You gain clarity about what's going on. The problem is, Is we block these emotions and we don't have clarity around them. We gain the clarity that we need when we process them. So whether it be that you're feeling them, Or journaling them. You are in process and you gain that clarity. And when you journal, When you're done journaling, You then look at the journal, Read what you wrote, And oftentimes right then and there, You gain a brand new perspective of what's going on. Just by journaling and then reading through your journal. You can do a beautiful ceremony, You can tear the pages out of the journal or just get some loose leaf paper and burn what you wrote. You can say, I release these emotions. Ashes to ashes, Let them go, Put them into the ground after you burn them. But journaling is powerful. We're just getting, It's another way to express the energy of these emotions, Okay? Another thing is, Is like I said, To feel witnessed is powerful. So something we can do when we're having negative emotions is we ask someone to sit and witness us. To just be with us and let us express whatever's going on inside. Okay, But I want to remind you And this is powerful work, By the way, Like just to have someone witness us is powerful. And again, It helps us to gain clarity because once we express Can we get it out? Our truth is underneath all of this. It's like, It's like there's a diamond in the rough. There's like a needle in the haystack. It's like in the middle of all these emotions is beautiful wisdom, But you've got to offload or unload all this stuff on top. So sometimes that looks like I need to just sit with someone and speak and speak and speak, Cry, Yell, Whatever it might be. And I just need them to witness. That's it. That's it. But what I want to remind you is you need to set up the experience that you need and only you know what you need while you're expressing. So that means you might invite your parent, Family member, Friend, Therapist, Coach, I don't care who it is, To sit with you and say, Listen, I'm going through something. I need to be witnessed. Could you be that person for me? That person says yes. Of course I can. Great. OK. This is what I need from you. Can you please sit with me? I may cry, Yell, Say some things that make absolutely no sense. Whatever I say, I just want you to sit with presence for me. That means please don't get on your phone. Please don't correct anything that I say. Please don't do anything other than give me your full attention. I just want to feel really heard and seen right now. Can you do that for me? And I know you're going to be tempted to maybe chime in if I say things like I hate myself or I'm not a good person. Please don't. And at the very end, If I need your input, I will ask you, But I really, The most powerful thing you can do for me is to witness what I'm going through. Can you do that for me? And guess what? People will say, Yep. Okay, Great. Now, If you're doing this purging, You may find that that person will chime in, Even though you ask them not to, And you just very politely remind them and go, Wait, Remember, Please don't say anything. Just stay present. You're doing a great job. And they'll go, Oh, Yeah, OK, Sure. So what we don't want them to do is to make it about, You know, Them. The other person. So just gently remind them, But this is a wonderful way to offload and transform these negative emotions. They just need to be felt and processed through you somehow, Some way. So whether it be you're feeling them, In your story busting, Right? And not giving them meaning. Or your journaling, Or your sharing. You've got to move them through you in order to bring yourself back to peace. I strive for peace every day. Peace, If you feel the energy of peace, It's neutral. It's rather boring, Honestly, But it's neutral. It's not high, Like happiness, And it's not low, Like grief, Sadness, Right? So it's somewhere in the middle. And we absolutely can maintain this place when we allow our emotions to flow through us. And by the way, Even our more positive emotions, And that end of the spectrum. When you feel happy, Joy, Love. Let it flow through you and then rest in peace. Okay? We want to stay in this peaceful energy state. All right. So these are our ideas for getting in to peace and really letting these negative emotions flow through us. And this is how we to answer the questions that come in, Quote unquote, Get rid of. I'm going to use the words instead process. Okay. Cause I like that word better. That's really all that we're doing. It's an energy. Emotions are energy. Some are moving faster, Which are more joyful and some are moving slower. The really slow dense ones are the ones that fall in the negative end of that spectrum, But they're all beautiful. They're all good. And they're gifts that we have as humans. We want to embrace all of them. This is why we come down here and take on these bodies. We want it. Feel and experience emotions in a range of emotions. It's a true gift. It's a true gift. But we absolutely do not have to be stuck in them. If we follow the steps or the ideas that I have for you today, There's no reason to be stuck in them. And I, As always, Speak from experience on this one. I was someone way back when in my 20s with a lot of highs and lows and highs and lows. It's like, I don't do that anymore. And also blocked a ton of my emotions. Once I learned how to feel my emotions, Oh my goodness, The highs and lows. They went away. Now, It's not to say I'm like in this neutral state, This peaceful state every single day. I absolutely have joy, But I also have some sadness. That's about being human. That's what humans are here to do. There you have it. Okay, Everybody, That's all I've got for you. Have a beautiful week. And as always, Let me know how you like the show. I love hearing from you all. Have a beautiful rest of your day and week. I'll see you seated right here next week in the adult chair.

Reviews

Love this- thank you☀️☀️