Honoring Your Emotions and Setting Boundaries

Do you ever feel like your emotions are just nuisances getting in the way? What if I told you they are actually valuable data that can transform your life? In this episode, I explore how acknowledging our emotions, honoring our feelings, and respecting our boundaries can lead to better self-understanding and emotional regulation.

I recount a recent medical procedure where I failed to acknowledge my frustration and anger, missing an opportunity to honor my feelings and boundaries. I'll discuss practical steps for managing anxiety and emotional responses, including how to stop the habit of replaying interactions, fearing mistakes, imagining worst-case scenarios, and constantly worrying.

In this episode, I cover the following:
1. Understanding and leveraging emotions as neutral messengers.
2. The importance of recognizing and validating your emotions.
3. Tips on how to tune into and address your emotions effectively.

______________________________________

[FREE TRAINING]
How high-achieving women can
DITCH anxiety in as little as five minutes a day
www.brave-method.com/anxiety

Which of these results do you want and inspire you the most?
www.brave-method.com/testimonials

💗 Dr. Steph
@DrStephanieLopez
www.brave-method.com

Chapters

• 0:03 Mastering Emotional Control and Self-Honor
• 11:20 Taking Action After Podcast Episode

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

I'm Dr Steph and I want you to know that you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You are not in fact, broken and I'm going to show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back. I hope you're having a wonderful summer. Can you believe it's already August? My mind is blown because I feel, I truly feel like the year just started. But now I'm sitting here and like, oh my gosh, it's almost over, or at least it will be over soon. Let's not rush it. It's only August, but you know what I mean. And now that it is August, it is officially the month that we are going to do another embryo transfer, which I'm excited about. The last seven months has been a wild ride and we have had more hiccups this summer during any other part of the process. So I am just hoping that the rest of this cycle is smooth sailing and that it results in a healthy baby. If you pray, please keep us in your prayers. If not, please keep us in your thoughts. You know me and the intended parents and the baby, the embryo, for now. Anyways, thank you so much for following along on that journey and I just appreciate you being here this week.

Speaker 1: 1:43

What I want to do is I want to talk about how you can use your emotions as data, and if you're not, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. To what extent do you think of your emotions as a nuisance, or to what extent have you thought of them as a nuisance in the past and as something that sort of just gets in the way and you just wish you could make it go away? When I'm saying this, I'm really thinking about negative emotions, or even the sensations that come up in your body, or even the sensations that come up in your body like built up energy fast beating heart pit in your stomach. All of that. How many times have you said I don't want to feel this way? And then, how many times have you spent energy, time and effort to try to stop from feeling those things? How many times? What if I told you that your emotions have a purpose? Have you considered that before? Your emotions are actually neutral messengers with the purpose of providing you data, and I usually have a fair number of people in my audience who are data junkies, given that I worked at NASA for eight years. I, you know, tend to attract those. So, truly, I'm serious. Your emotions provide you data or information about what is going on for you and about what you need and about what you want, but a lot of people have no idea that's the case. A lot of people have never been told that, so they just gloss over it. Inside Brave Academy, we dive deep into this so that it's clear what each of your emotions mean and how they are there to actually serve you. And what is this going to do? It's going to aid you in understanding yourself more.

Speaker 1: 3:49

I have a question have you ever walked away from a situation and not understood why you were upset or what was happening for you? I know, before I started my inner work journey, and the beginning of it as well, that experience happened to me over and over and over again, where I would be in a conversation with somebody and I would just feel so upset so I wouldn't have used this term back then but so activated, so triggered, so dysregulated, and then I'd walk away and I'm like I don't even know why. I'm mad. No-transcript. I want to share a recent experience that I had when I had an emotional response, but I just lost over it, and the reason why I want to share this with you is so that you know that it isn't about perfection. This is actually where I might say like I messed up and I didn't use my own tools. Sometimes I fall off the bandwagon, sometimes I don't use the tools and the things that I'm recommending for you, and that's okay. It is safe to be human, it is safe to make mistakes, it is safe to be imperfect. So what happened to me In June?

Speaker 1: 5:22

I was told that I would be having an endometrial biopsy and hysteroscopy. An endometrial biopsy is where they go in through your cervix and they scrape the wall of the uterus, and a hysteroscopy is where they insert a camera through your cervix and look around and see if there's any polyps or anything that shouldn't be there. I have to tell you my immediate reaction was frustration and anger. But you know what. You know what I did. I glossed over it, I talked myself into it. I told myself well, it just makes sense that they want to control all the variables through this surrogacy process and it makes sense that they want to make sure that nothing about my body or me caused the miscarriage, and I went forward and did the procedures. Now, there's not technically anything wrong with what I told myself, and there's not anything wrong with the next steps that I took, because in all relationships there's give and there's take. We're not going to get our way all the time, and that's okay, but what I want you to learn from this and from me here kind of glossing over this situation, this and from me here, kind of glossing over this situation is I had the opportunity to tune in to my anger, and I missed it. I glossed over it. I had an opportunity to honor myself that I missed and that I glossed over.

Speaker 1: 7:01

What data do you think was behind the anger in this situation? I'll tell you A boundary was being crossed. That's not always the meaning of anger, but it often is. A boundary was being crossed. I didn't want the procedure, but I went forward with it. Now, if I were to relive that experience, I would have made one change. I would have tuned in to the anger and paused long enough to recognize what was happening for me, and after that I would have said something. I want to be clear, though Even if I said something, I likely would have still moved forward with the procedures, because I get what they want to do and I get that they want to. You know, make sure all variables are considered.

Speaker 1: 8:01

And if you hear that and you're thinking, well, then, steph, why even bother to say something if you're just going to do it anyways? And this matters. What I'm about to say next matters, because simply saying something is honoring yourself. If you have, like, all of these little micro humans or different parts inside of you and imagine you might not have to imagine you might be like Steph, this is my reality, I get it If you chose to ignore those parts, or if you chose to tune into them, to listen to them, to honor them. Okay, let's slow down here, because I want to make sure that I'm making sense. So I have this part that's angry, that's like I don't want to do this, like there's nothing wrong, let's just keep going, let's not do this. And I just glossed over that. But what it looks like is maybe and this is just one tool is to sit down with a journal and to say anger, you're safe with me, what do you need me to know? And then literally just letting everything flow, anything that comes to mind, writing it down on paper just to give that part of me the chance to feel heard.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Too often, people will say to me I feel like I don't matter, I feel like I'm being ignored. And one of my first questions is how often are you ignoring yourself? This is what I'm talking about and this is what I did. I made the mistake and I ignored myself. If I had a chance and relive this, I would not ignore myself and I would say something. Not ignore myself and I would say something, just so I'm honoring myself.

Speaker 1: 9:58

What I've noticed for myself and my clients is that the more that you honor these parts, the more that you will feel at ease, even if the outcome is exactly the same, just because that part of you isn't throwing a temper tantrum because it's not heard. And you'll also notice, the more that you honor yourself, the less you will feel like other people ignore you. If you don't ignore you, others will be less likely to ignore you and that will be less likely to be your perception that they're ignoring you. Now, what if you came back to yourself in this way today, tomorrow and over and over and over again? And what if coming back to yourself is actually one of the points of life. I believe that it is as we grow up. Most of us tend to disconnect from what we want, tend to stop honoring ourselves, tend to start doing for others, putting ourselves last, putting ourselves at the bottom of our to-do list, and so much of life is. Can I come back to myself and honor myself? And the beauty of it is that it actually makes life feel a whole lot easier when you start to honor yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:20

I want to know what's coming up for you after hearing all of this. What are you going to use from this episode and apply to your life? Episode and apply to your life? What are you going to start doing today? If you feel up for it, send me a DM on Instagram and let me know what stood out most to you when listening to this episode or listening to this podcast. I love chatting with you in the DMs and I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening today. Are you ready to finally heal and break free from anxiety, including symptoms like replaying interactions, fearing, making mistakes, imagining worst case scenarios and constant worrying? If so, dm me the word free on Instagram at Dr Stephanie Lopez and I will send you a link to my completely free class to officially ditch anxiety.