You're listening to Take Out Therapy with your host, Rebecca Hunter. If you're into personal growth and fascinated by the human condition like I am, stick with me. In the next few minutes, I'll break down a common personal growth topic and give you some straightforward ideas for change.
I'm a private practice therapist and online mental health educator, so I see a lot of popular topics both in and out of the therapy office that we all struggle with. I'm here to help with that. This podcast is not a substitute for therapy, but rather the musings of a therapist and an opportunity for information and a little bit of help.
Okay, let's get to work. Hello, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me today.
My biggest news to report today is that it's sunny in Oregon, so how about that? Happy spring. I hope it's sunny where you are. I hope it's sunny in your neighborhood too, my friend.
Today we're going to talk about our feelings. Yeah, I'm going there because we need to. That's why.
You know what I'd like for you to get out of this episode actually? I'm feeling very snarky this afternoon, but what I'd really like for you to get out of this episode is just like this understanding that you get to have feelings and you get to feel your feelings and you need to own them. You need to take responsibility for them and you need to feel them because otherwise, they're just going to get all stuck up in you and you do not want that. You know, what we know is that unexpressed emotion, it turns into not good things.
It turns into unhealthy dynamics in relationships. It turns into pain and sickness. Unexpressed emotion is basically like not living on the full spectrum of the human experience.
I'm not interested in that. Are you? I'm totally down with feeling my feelings, but I see where it gets hard because some feelings feel terrible, right? And there's a lot of stigma out there. There's toxic positivity.
There's people that are like, well, you shouldn't feel that way. Like just be happy. Just focus somewhere else, right? If you're angry or you're grieving or you're anxiety or depression, you know, if you're just feeling like crap, people are like, well, just raise your vibe.
No, no, no. That's not a thing. So I just want to be real clear that like it's not the goal to be happy all the time, my friend.
If that's your goal, you're going to be so disappointed so much of the time and then you're going to have negative emotion because like disappointment, that's not positive. So stick with me because I'll help you to figure out like that. It's okay to have emotions and how to have them in a way that's really functional.
We do a lot of shitting too. And I hear this in the office a lot of the time and it's basically like, why do I feel this way? I shouldn't feel this way. Why am I mad about this? This is so silly.
I shouldn't have feelings about this. I should be over this by now. I hear this a lot in breakups or grief and the shoulds have got to go.
I had this client one time that taught me the expression, don't should all over yourself, right? And I agree with that. We have to feel our feelings and there's no rules around that except for try to do it functionally, my friend. The other thing is like we blame our feelings on people a lot of the time.
And that's a very, very common thing that I see a lot in that therapy office and my own life. Frankly, I used to always blame John for my emotions and lucky for me, I partnered with somebody who'd already done some personal growth work. I was young when I met him.
And so he was really helpful in helping me to understand that he would most certainly not be taking responsibility for my emotion and nor solving it for me, which has been very helpful over time, although a little annoying. I will give him that. I've learned a lot about feelings through the years because I didn't learn it growing up.
Did you? You know, the way we got here, my friends, is that many of us were raised by people who were either on emotionally unregulated, you know, I'm talking about like a lot of feelings all the time or big, big feelings that were kind of scary in the house or raised by people who basically like didn't really express their feelings and didn't really encourage that type of behavior and didn't really make any space for that. So those two kind of setups will lead people to not really knowing how to handle some of the bigger, more difficult emotions. You know, it's funny, we can handle joy just fine, can't we? Although some of us can't, you know, there's always that idea about being too happy, right? So it's like it's this weird dynamic where it's like, well, you get to have feelings, but not too many and only good ones.
And can you keep it under control, please? So let's talk about feeling our feelings in a way that makes way more sense in reality-based land. You know, the first thing that we need to do as a commitment, just as humans, is to acknowledge our feelings and accept them. Meaning there is no right or wrong way to feel about any situation.
How you feel is totally valid, period, game over. But it needs to be acknowledged. And what that looks like is just kind of being able to say, I really have my feelings hurt, or I'm feeling really lonely and disconnected, or I'm feeling super frustrated and invalidated, right? It's all about kind of making a little bit more space to just kind of deal with feelings.
Because I know, like, we don't want to talk about it. It's already enough just to feel so many feelings all the time. We start talking about it, isn't it just going to take over? And my answer to that is no.
If we are able to acknowledge our feelings, that's part of processing them, which helps them go away. So people get very stuck in these very emotional states because we're not processing our emotions. Emotions come and go all day long.
Like, how many have you had today, my friend? I've had 1 million today, right? And that is totally appropriate. It's what you do with it that matters. So can we all just agree that you get to have feelings? Whatever feelings you have, you get to have them.
If you come at that with acceptance, get rid of the shoulds, stop being frustrated that you have the feeling in the first place, stop avoiding even feeling the feeling or looking at it, then you can deal with it. You can own it, right? It helps if you have a little bit of curiosity about it, right? Like, what's going on for me right now? What's happening here emotionally for me? It's very imperative that you own your feelings, take responsibility for them. There's a lot of things going on within relationship dynamics in which people blame each other for their feelings.
Well, I wouldn't drink so much if you weren't so annoying. Or you're making me really angry right now, and I'm going to throw something. Or just like all this idea about like, you're making me feel this way.
No, that's not helpful. Because if you put the responsibility of your feelings in somebody else's hands, oh, friend, that's just topsy-turvy behavior. Don't do that.
Instead, just take responsibility. Take accountability for your own feelings. Acknowledge what you're feeling and understand that those are yours.
Feelings are our way of experiencing life. They're important. They're meaningful.
They have a lot of information if we're not too busy ignoring them and blaming them on somebody else. So come on in with some curiosity, right? And if you own your feelings, then you can go, well, what's going on for me right now? Like, am I feeling this way because of something in the present moment? Or am I feeling this way because of something in the past, right? This is your work to do. When you don't own your feelings and you blame other people because you have negative feelings, you're not doing your work, frankly.
I've been there. I've been stuck there. It is so, it's just a dead-end road because nobody else can solve our feelings for us and we have feelings.
And whether we like the feelings or we don't like the feelings, they're still there, my friend. It's like someone showed up to our house that we didn't invite there. We can basically pretend that they're not standing there knocking at the door or we can be like, okay, Aunt Linda's here.
I'm going to let her in and see what the hell she wants. That's what I'm talking about. So this helps us to gain insight, right? When we can acknowledge our feelings and own that they're ours and just take the focus off of the other person, we can figure out what's going on for ourselves.
And then we can feel our feelings. And I say it like this because feelings are a felt thing. And we are in this perpetually brain-based society where we think and think and think and figure things out and solve problems and do all the thinking things, but we're not so much big on the feeling things.
So when we have a negative emotion, it feels really intense physically. We need to learn to feel our feelings physically and watch as they move through the body is the best way I can explain it. So when you have a feeling, say you're like somebody said something that you interpreted to be very rude and it really poked a wound that you have within yourself.
See how I'm owning that? You have to say, this is mine. You poked me, yes, but it is mine and I own it. You can notice that in your body and see what it feels like to have your feelings hurt.
It's a little painful. It's kind of tight. It's got some features to it.
It's kind of wavy. It feels sometimes like muscles tighten and the blood comes to the face. It's hot, right? So just start to get into the habit of when you have an emotion, just notice what it feels like in your body.
You don't have to do anything about it at this point. You just need to notice, right? And then once you notice it and you kind of practice this idea, which is a mindfulness technique, by the way, of feeling your feelings. I know.
It always is so comical to me that what is trending right now is being in our experience. What does that tell you, my friend? Tune into yourself. Get into your life.
Feel your feelings. We got to get into our own experience here. And then once we do that, it's a very simple question that we can ask.
We can do one of two things. We can ask, what do you need? Right? Like, what do I need? I'm feeling really lonely right now. Right? And so what does that feel like in my body? Well, it's like this kind of tight, constricted feeling and my eyes feel super tight.
And God, it just feels like so wavy in my chest, right? I'm trying to like conjure up the feeling of lonely. Because P.S. Like, by the way, we can conjure up feelings. We can make ourselves feel any which way we want to.
Right? I mean, like, not trying to be rude, but if I start talking about dead puppies, like, we're all going to feel a little sad. Am I right? Yes. So understand that like you can practice bringing feelings up and feeling them.
And then, right, after you're feeling them to just be kind and ask yourself a nice question of like, well, what do you need right now? Right? That you can't get it from others. You cannot modify other people's behavior to make yourself feel better, my friend. You just can't.
But maybe you need something, right? Maybe you need to sort of wrap your arms around yourself. Maybe you need to talk to yourself in a really kind way. So once you feel your feelings, by the way, I read somewhere.
I don't know where, but it was somewhere repeat. Oh, no, it was in it was in the book. Oh, such a good book.
I might do a book review on it. How to do the work by Nicole Lepera. I read in that book that we have.
She's a psychologist. Absolutely fabulous. Anyways, she said that basically reach the research shows that we feel feelings for an average of 90 seconds.
Right. And I always say to people, you know, feelings come and go, but like, they really do come and go. How many emotions have you had today? Right.
They come and they go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I'm on to this. And maybe there's still an underlying feeling of this over here.
But I also have this, this, this and this. Right. So feeling all that is really important.
Identifying what it is, owning it, and then moving on along his part is like the obviously you don't want to stay in your feelings. And I think we we do tend to get stuck in our feelings because we're so flipping resistant to them. Like, why do I feel so depressed? Why do I feel so anxious? I'm so frustrated that I'm so anxious.
I'm so anxious that I might be anxious later. Well, we waste a lot of time and energy sort of resisting our feelings. Whereas if we were to just feel them and acknowledge them and exercise some kindness and ask ourselves, well, what do you need? We could under we could sort of have this greater understanding of like feelings are very temporary.
Much like Aunt Linda, we can dismiss them. We can ask them to leave. We have the ability to both create and dismiss feelings.
Now, here's the thing. Some feelings are very, very difficult. And I know like we don't like to feel them.
I did an episode on anger. If you heard that one, if you are interested in learning a little bit deeper information about anger, that's back in the queue. But anger is an emotion that people do not like to feel.
And they either avoid it or they just can't express it appropriately. Are you picking up what I'm putting down here? We can invite and dismiss all feelings, but it's a practice. And frankly, some feelings go when they're damn good and ready.
And so, but you can sort of by being in a really nice reciprocal relationship with yourself by noticing what's happening in the body, by picturing emotion moving through, right? When we're just really like, doesn't that tightness just dissipate, right? You can then create different feelings, right? Like if I'm feeling really lonely, I can create a different feeling there. I can definitely like when I'm lonely, what do I need? I'm weird. I am so weird.
I don't know if you guys have this experience, but sometimes I feel really lonely and disconnected. And then it's like, well, I should call a friend. And I'm like, no, I don't want to be with anybody right now.
It's like so bizarre being a human, isn't it? But that's kind of how it goes. And so it's like, well, what do you need? Okay, well, I was feeling this way the other day. So I'm like, well, I just, I need to get out in nature.
Like I'm not disconnected. I am feeling lonely, but like maybe I need to connect with myself. Does that make sense? Like I think when we get lonely, we think, oh, I need to be with somebody.
Well, yeah, maybe it needs to be with you, right? And so that's kind of where I go with that. And that's all about owning your feelings, right? Like no one else was involved in that whole process. So just understand that you get to have feelings.
They're temporary. We can move through them. You can invite and dismiss feelings.
You can notice them in your body. Definitely always own your feelings. And then just understand that you can actually cultivate different feelings if you want to, if you decide to, whether it's for the evening or the rest of your life or just a week, right? You can cultivate a different emotional state from moment to moment, frankly, if you get good at this.
But what's most important, my friend, is that you feel your feelings and understand that it doesn't matter how you feel. If you have an emotion, it's valid. And I want you to just stop and let it come and just see how it feels and comfort yourself and do what's needed to help you feel supported by yourself and then ask it to move along in whatever way you choose to do.
I tend to go outside. I tend to dance. I tend to meditate.
I'm burning some serious sage up in here from time to time. Those are all the things that I do to just help get into a different space. But what I'm not trying to do is be happy all the time.
What I really think is so important is that we understand that life isn't happy all the time and it's super unrealistic to try to get happy all the time. So it's okay if your vibe's a little low. Make some room for that.
Respect yourself enough to respect your emotional experience and just be willing to have it. And I will be over here on my side having emotions right alongside you, my friend. I'm glad you joined me today.
I hope this was helpful. I'll see you next week. I hope you found today's episode helpful.
Here's the deal. I'd like to get rid of some of the stigma around mental health, and this is how I'm doing it. You can join me by leaving a review, sending an episode along to a struggling friend, or even subscribing, my friend.
Any of those choices would be exciting because then we would be helping more people. If you want to dig in further with me, I have spots open in my monthly online anxiety group. It's going to fill up fast, so get in touch.
Or you can join my free private group for daily tools, journal prompts, and information to help move you from struggling with anxiety to healing it. It's the Anxiety Recovery Club, and I'm not messing around over here. Head to the link in the show notes at rebeccahuntermsw.com. Way to show up today.
