Noticing Your Emotions

Join me as I discuss how our bodies hold and remember emotions and what we can do to process emotions, ending with a short visualization.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Life After podcast. The podcast is back after an unplanned two-week break.

 The experiences I've had over the last two weeks are not unique to me, and one, you can probably have a good laugh about some of the things that occurred over the last two weeks with me. It's good for your mental health. And two, it's important to understand for ourselves. The more self-awareness and self-understanding we have of how we react to certain things and how things come up in cycles or at certain times of the year.  It gives you the ability to self-coach and seek additional outside support if you need to. 

Anyways, over the last couple of weeks, I've been without internet for seven days.

 Consolidated couldn't figure out what was wrong with the internet, and it magically fixed itself after about three days. I was traveling out of town for whatever reason. I could not connect to the hotel wifi. We also had no power for two half days.  It was wild. I really think some of that was the universe creating some space for me because I've experienced multiple. Big T, hairy, scary, traumatic events particularly during the month of May.

Several serious, serious health issues. There was a car accident thrown in there. I've had relationships end at that time. Everything kind of feels like it's scrunched up right around this time of year. I've worked through this for many years in therapy. It's layers though, right? You grow, you process these come up again, you process again.

The Body Keeps the Score is a fantastic book if you've never read it. It really explains how our whole being experiences traumatic events.  We're not able to isolate it into one part of our being because we are deeply connected.

So part of my body just knows that this time of year has been big hair, scary traumas and it's seeking to process those again because I'm in a different place. I'm probably several versions of myself ahead of where I was even six months ago having worked on my own self-coaching, therapy, journaling, processing, all those things.

Some of it, it just is, and we process and it gets better.  Sometimes our emotions get stuck. Our bodies have this beautiful cycle where when we do experience big, hairy, scary trauma our body comes in, throws out all these chemicals, our body decides, do we need to fight? Do we need to flee? Do we need to freeze? Do we need to fawn, which is people pleasing? 

Once the situation is resolved and  if safety is reestablished then our parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, says it's cool. Very scary thing's not gonna harm us anymore. We can process this. We can deal with it.  When you return to safety after a big event  that kicks up your adrenaline, anything that kicks up your cortisol. Oftentimes there's movement, right? It's shaking, it's moving, it's crying because those hormones need to move out of our bodies.

That very beautiful natural cycle can  easily be interrupted if we're in a situation where we can't return to safety, where we can't release those hormones for whatever reason. Then we can't get to the place where our body feels safe enough to let our parasympathetic nervous system activate. It just builds if we didn't have that ability to return to safety. The other thing that can happen is we can  get in our own way. Our logical brain is very powerful and it can say to us, "Dude, that's over. What are you doing? Why are you trying to cry about this? We've gotta make dinner?"

Which is  normal  for our brain to do, and it interrupts that cycle. So  those emotions get stuck . They come out again. For me it's very seasonal. Think about it. If there's a time of year where you just don't feel yourself reflect back and think about" what have I experienced around this time of year?"

If you've ever watched the Gilmore Girls, Luke had his dark day where he'd go hide on the day of his dad's death. It's kind of like that. Our bodies know, even if we don't remember, even if it's not on the calendar. 

Notice, be curious about yourself.

Your body wants to process those things and your body wants to help you, and your intuition's gonna guide you and your inner self is gonna gonna guide you through that. 

The other times that this can come up is situational, anything that subconsciously sends you back to that event, it might not be anything bad. It might be a smell it might be the way a person looks. It might even be certain sounds where you get thrown back into that feeling.  It is is an opportunity to process. I'm not taking away from  serious conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, where there's very deep impacts.

I want to take the shame off of it. I want to remind you that your body is trying to  get you back to a whole state.

 I know these last couple weeks for me, the combination of completely random power outages, internet outages. Other things going haywire and sideways because I was in a more activated state where my body was looking to process some of these prior events. I wasn't on my A-game. A lot of those things I could have easily figured out any other time of the year.

Also, probably if I was more aware and had scheduled more space in my schedule.  It's a learning experience. I'm still figuring my body out and I just take it as it is and work with it.

Some things you can do to help yourself outside of professional help if you're feeling some kind of way, if you know that there are some emotions hanging out that need to be processed or this is a difficult time of year:

Movement is great.

Moving those things through our body. Walks in nature literally changes your brain. The science to that is super cool. If you can manage to not take any technology with you gives a little more benefit. Don't let that be a hangup. If you have a doggo that can go along, that's an even greater benefit. Any movement is good- a dance party in your living room, some yoga, anything. Give your body chance to move. 

The other thing that can be really helpful is journaling or art. If you can't find the words, draw, paint something, do anything that just lets you put some pen to the paper and let some things move. That's been helpful for me when I've been processing some of my pre-verbal trauma is to use art.

No wrong way here. It's finding the way that works for you, works with your body, works,  within your preferences.

The other thing is to be very aware and without judgment, notice what you're feeling and notice where you feel it in your body. It's really cool because they've done different body scans and on a thermograph, our emotions show up differently.  Be curious. If you're feeling sad. Where does it feel sad in your body? If you're feeling angry, where does it feel angry? Be really curious and just notice. Notice how you feel and let that emotion just be there. They don't last forever.

If it's really painful and it's not something that you can sit with yourself, please find a person. Find a trauma-informed therapist. Find a trauma-informed coach. Let them sit with you as you're working through those things.

The other thing that I do is pull back my schedule as much as I can. I'll really get simple on the meals. I'll really get simple on what is a has to for that day, and really just give some space. Our parasympathetic nervous system is all about rest and digest, right?  If we're giving ourselves a space where we're not, go, go, go, and do, do, do we're giving our bodies a signal that, hey, we're safe. We can digest, whether it's food or  it's emotions. We're good. We can work through those things. It's just a signal for your body.

 The other thing I would really encourage you to do- is to have fun . Intentionally do something for the sake of fun. If you have kids or a partner or friends, make good memories with them.  This was some of the most impactful homework therapists has ever given me.

There's a lot of power to that. You have to be safe in order to do that, right? It's another reminder to your brain and it gives you an opportunity to experience a different set of emotions. For me, this is seasonal. I can be more intentional about what I do this time of year.  I'm building new memories so that my brain doesn't always go back to the big, hairy scary things that happened this time of year. I'm giving myself some space to process and I'm putting some new things in there so that there's a little bit of balance.

I am totally doing this episode off the cuff. It feels appropriate to end this podcast with a visualization. It's a hodgepodge of different ones that I've listened to through the years. 

So couple good deep breaths.

If you're not doing something that requires your eyeballs, close your eyes, if that works for you. Doodling is usually better for me. My brain is busy, keeping my hands busy helps. 

 I want you to picture that it's this warm, perfect spring day. You can hear the birds. You're outside. There's flowers.

You're in this grassy field barefoot,

the sky is a perfect shade of blue. The temperature is exactly right. There's a light breeze. You lay down in the grass, you close your eyes, you feel the sun hitting you,

and you imagine that the sunlight that's hitting you is going in the top of your head and it's pushing through your entire body slowly. It's slowly working your way down your head, and if there's any emotions picture them as busy little balls of light. Maybe they're blue, maybe they're red, maybe they're yellow. They all have their own color. But as this light is coming down and it's filling you from your head all the way down slowly, slowly through your ears, this white light, it's filling you up. It's slowly moving all those colored balls down,   as this light is slowly filling your body, your neck, your shoulders, your chest, down through your arms, your stomach, your pelvis, down through your legs, down through your feet. All of those colored balls are going back into the earth, coming back to you, as that white light. 

You notice that you're completely filled with that white light. You slowly take a few more deep breaths.  You slowly get up. You notice the flowers and you hear the birds,  you feel the breeze, and you come back to full awareness so that you can return to your day.

 I  hope that visualization helps you to just notice, pay attention to your body and let those things move through you, and trust the universe to transmute them and bring them back to you as good things. 

Next week on the schedule is a trauma-informed foster parent that has fantastic things to say about working with kids who have trauma and understanding some of those lines between ADHD and trauma.