Six Essential Steps to Deal with Your Emotions

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by emotions or unsure what to do when they arise? In this episode, I dive into why learning to process emotions is crucial for your well-being and resilience. I'll share a personal journey from suppressing feelings to thriving emotionally, and guide you through six actionable steps to understand, embrace, and release emotions effectively. Whether you're battling anxiety or simply seeking to grow emotionally, this conversation offers tools to help you transform your relationship with feelings. Get ready to unlock a calmer, more grounded version of yourself!

In this episode, I cover the following:
1. The importance of recognizing and understanding your emotions.
2. Six practical steps to process and release feelings constructively.
3. The connection between emotional health and physical well-being.

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

Chapters

• 0:03 Embracing and Honoring Your Emotions
• 13:21 Navigating Intense Emotions

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 If you live in the US. I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1: 0:36

One of the ways that anxiety can show up is actually picking cuticles and I'm curious is that something that you do? Recently, inside of Brave Academy, a client shared that before working together, she had a really bad habit of picking her fingers to the point of them bleeding and scabbing, and since subconscious reprogramming that we did five weeks ago, she hasn't been picking them and they are about 90% healed, and I will say that's not even what we were tackling with subconscious reprogramming. So this is just a really big win about how her fingers are, a physical reflection of how much calmer she is feeling inside. I'm curious how you've been enjoying the podcast. Is it something that has been helpful for you? Have you learned? What have you learned? I would love if you would share a review and let me know, because it inspires me to keep going and it also helps women just like you find the podcast and get the support that they need, because when the podcast host gets that review, it reads that as oh, people like this, let's push it to more people. I 'd greatly appreciate if you pause the episode right now and just do a quick review. Thank you so, so much for taking your time to do that.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Now I have a question for you. Did you grow up in a home where emotions were never or rarely discussed? Were you raised to hide your emotions, or were you raised to try to not have emotions and have you found yourself avoiding feeling certain ways, like feeling embarrassed or rejected or ashamed, and do you feel unsure what to do with emotions, so you just try to avoid them? If so, just know that you are not alone and that it is possible to show up differently if you want to. Today, I want to talk about why dealing with emotions is essential and six steps that you can take in how to go about doing that. Now, just know ahead of time that we go much deeper into all of this inside Academy, and if you want that support to guide you, I'm here, just send me a quick DM, and I also know I don't need to tell you that everyone has emotions and feels them to some extent, but not everyone knows what to do with them when they show up, and I've found that that's rather common. And I'm curious if it feels true for you Allowing yourself to feel all of your emotions, even things like embarrassment, shame, rejection. It's essential for your well-being.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Many people are stuck in this cycle of suppressing their emotions, but here's the thing when you suppress them, they don't just disappear, they don't just go away. They show up in other ways, like anxiety, rumination, emotional breakdowns, autoimmune diseases, rage, physical pain, and I'll just share. Personally, I was raised that emotions should be suppressed and shut down. If I cried as a child or was upset as a teenager, my mom did everything she could to make it stop. Now I think that she thought that that was the best thing to do, because I'm sure that's how she was raised as well. However, I grew up with a belief that I should try to prevent my emotions from happening. I should try to cut them off, I should try to make them stop and I would do everything in my power to control them. I would pretend to feel ways that I didn't actually feel and I thought that was normal and what I was supposed to do. But at the same time, I was struggling with daily anxiety. I was also struggling with reoccurring emotional breakdowns, like every three months or so, with crying occasionally at work between those breakdowns, and people thought that I wasn't resilient. But because of that and I didn't see any tie between suppressing my emotions and the emotional issues I was having that daily anxiety, those reoccurring emotional breakdowns. I didn't see the tie, but I'm here to tell you that they're absolutely correlated Absolutely. And as I began to allow myself to actually feel my emotions rather than trying to control everything, the results have been incredible. I'm not having those reoccurring emotional breakdowns. I'm not dealing with the anxiety every day. It's a world of difference. Now, if my previous experience resonates with you, don't gloss over this today, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Feeling your emotions is critical for your well-being and your resilience. And emotions are not just problems. They are neutral messengers with the purpose of providing you with data. So when you tune into them and you honor them rather than turning away from them and rather than trying to control them, that is the very thing that unlocks the results that you want. So what I'm going to do today is just dive into six steps to deal with your emotions.

Speaker 1: 6:30

The first step is recognizing the emotion. Some are stuck in a deep pattern of numbing that they don't even consciously realize they're feeling something emotionally or physically, and by physically I mean things like tight chest, clenched jaw, etc. Now what are some signs that you may be numbing your emotions and not even consciously registering what's happening? Keeping yourself constantly busy without rest other than sleep, smoking, overeating or binge eating, over drinking, over using drugs, over shopping your list goes on and on. Slow down enough to notice what's coming up for you. That can be a great starting point, and it might feel really uncomfortable, and that's perfect. Let it be uncomfortable and notice what happens for me when I don't do the thing that I've been automatically doing, like keeping yourself constantly busy, smoking, overeating or binge eating.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Step number two is name the emotion. Simply naming it can lower the intensity, because doing so does a couple things. First, it activates the logical part of your brain and it also helps the part of you that feels that way, feel seen and understood. So I'm going to say that in another way. Let's imagine that part of you feels worried. There's another part of you that doesn't feel worried. But when you recognize, oh, part of me feels worried and you name it, that part of you feels seen and understood. Think about it. When you're describing something tough that you're going through and someone responds in a way that you feel like they get it, do you feel more or less of the negative emotion Typically less of the negative emotion, with a bit of relief and possibly a bit of hope. This is especially true when you get granular. So what I mean by that is, instead of saying something like I feel stressed or I'm so stressed out, you might say part of me feels stressed, or you might even get more granular than that. Maybe it's not even stress at all. Part of me feels disappointed, and not only did I get more specific with the emotion, but I made a shift in language so that you highlight that it's only part of your experience and that there's that other part that observes it.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Step number three is allowing yourself to feel it. Now, earlier in the episode, I dove into several reasons as well as a personal example about the importance of allowing yourself to feel your emotions rather than suppressing them, and I have some new clients who are afraid to allow themselves to feel their emotions because they fear that they won't be able to stop it, that it'll just like be this overwhelming experience that doesn't stop, and or that they'll fall into a deep depression. It makes sense that you have that fear that you're not, that you're going to be able to not let it stop or that you're going to fall into that deep depression, especially if you're not used to allowing yourself to feel your emotions. But when you have the proper tools and support, like inside of Brave Academy, your emotions can be just a blip, even if you have spent a lifetime trying to stop them.

Speaker 1: 10:19

Step number four is identify the message. It really tends to surprise people when I share that your emotions exist to provide you with data and to communicate something important. So, for example, anger could indicate that a boundary has been crossed, and overwhelm may indicate that you've set unrealistic expectations for yourself and or that you need set unrealistic expectations for yourself, and or that you need to ask for help. Rather than getting frustrated with your emotions, which can be the natural tendency, I encourage you to ask yourself what is this emotion trying to tell me? Tell me. Step number five is respond and honor the emotion. If you stop at step four with identifying the message, you miss the point. Emotions are there to provide you with data to act on, and so when I say honor them, I'm really talking about acting on them. Now there's an important asterisk that I'll add here Reacting to emotions is often coming from a defensive place, and so that's not what I'm referring to.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I'm referring to responding, and that's giving yourself time to sit with the emotion and respond from a grounded place. I'm going to give you an example. Let's say you feel overwhelmed. If you quickly identify, oh, that means I need help, but you're feeling defensive and you're reacting to it. You might start criticizing your partner for not helping enough, putting your partner down. I'm sure you can relate to what I'm saying right now, but if you use the data and respond from a grounded place, you can do so non-defensively and ask for help when you desire, and how to do that is nuance, and how to make that your automatic way that you respond is something that I dive into inside of Brave Academy as well.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Finally, step number six is to release the emotion. No-transcript it to step six. And they hold on to things for years or even decades. Can you relate to that. All right, we dove into six steps to process your emotions recognize it, name it, allow yourself to feel it, identify the message underneath of the emotion, respond and honor the emotion and release it. To what extent are you moving through each of these six steps and where are you falling short or trying to bypass that step completely?

Speaker 1: 13:21

Over the coming weeks, here's what I want you to do Just take one step and practice when you feel an intense emotion arise. And remember dealing with emotions is a skill. You heard how ineffective I used to be at dealing with my emotions and, like any skill, it gets easier with practice and with the right support and guidance, and I didn't learn how to do what I can do without investing, without getting support and guidance, and you don't have to either. You've got this All right. That's it for today. I will see you on the next episode. You on the next episode. 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.