How to actually feel your emotions

Decades of studying and teaching emotional intelligence, condensed into a single piece

Intro

Every emotion is like a young child.

Ignore it, and it will find a louder way to be known. Treat it like it’s bad, and it grows defiant and confrontational. Shun its nature and it turns stagnant, then sinks into depression. Let it go unchecked, and it will act wild until it runs the home.

Give it attention and connection and it will always, eventually, turn back to you in love.

#1 If you’re scared of feeling an emotion, you’re already in it

Fear of sadness is sadness. Fear of anger is anger. Fear of shame is shame. Avoidance doesn’t protect you from the feeling. And what most people don’t realize is that the emotion itself isn’t what’s painful, it’s your resistance to it that makes it painful.

#2 The Golden Algorithm

You unconsciously sabotage yourself everyday, when you repress your negative emotions. I’ve noticed this phenomenon again and again. When you avoid an emotion, you actually invite more of it in the exact way you try to avoid it. For example:

Avoid failure → Play it safe → Feel like a failure

Avoid conflict → People-please → Inner conflict

Avoid losing → Dominates people → Loses trust

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Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions. She won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome.

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#3 How to find your emotional blind spots

1. Overthinking: When your thoughts keep looping, you’re avoiding an emotion. 95% of “overthinking” is unprocessed emotion wearing a rational disguise.

2. Judgements: Every time you judge somebody or yourself, there’s an emotional experience you’re avoiding. (i.e. Judging others for showing off often means you’re struggling with a desire to be seen)

3. ‘Hard’ Decisions: A choice happens automatically. A decision is where you think about it. Every time you think you have to make a big decision, there’s an emotion you don’t want to feel (i.e. Wrestling with whether to end a relationship usually means avoiding your own pain and/or your partner’s pain).

#4 How to actually feel your emotions

1. Don’t believe your emotions.

Your emotions control you when you believe their stories. And when you’re triggered, your nervous system isn’t reacting to what’s actually happening. It’s reacting to what it expects based on old emotional data. This data, which is encoded in your limbic system, hijacks your rational brain under stress.

2. Take your emotions seriously, not literally.

It took me decades to learn how to take my emotions seriously without believing them. I figured out how to do this when I was giving unconditional love to my 3-year old, who was yelling “I hate you daddy.”

Because even when your emotions aren’t responding to reality, your body thinks it’s real. Your heart rate increases, your muscles tense, your gut tightens. The trick is to welcome them without identifying with them.

3. Use the Actor Method.

An actor always knows it’s not their emotion. Even if they fully embody the feeling of hurt, anger, etc... they know they’re playing a part. They’re not identified with the emotion.

Use this guided meditation for some help with this:

#6 If you can’t welcome the emotion, welcome the resistance

Resisting your resistance is just more resistance. Try this instead:

1. Put your attention on the part of you that’s resisting

2. Be in wonder, not judgment

3. Allow it to express itself without judgement

4. Be with the resistance the way you’d sit with a scared child: Patiently, lovingly, without rushing it to change or “not” be resistant.

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Here’s the full guide on one page:

Big Love,

Joe