Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / why your feelings don't let you sleep

Transcript

why your feelings don't let you sleep · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  How do you process your emotions?
• 0:03
  Do you sit with them and try to understand them, or do you
• 0:06
  distract? Was Processing ever modeled for
• 0:09
  you by a parent when you were a child?
• 0:12
  Do you tend to stay up sleepless, troubled by your
• 0:15
  anxieties, worries, and traumas? Let's talk about the hidden
• 0:19
  problem of not resolving trauma and difficult feelings.
• 0:23
  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome to episode 50 of Feel
• 0:28
  Your Feelings. I think we can all accept and
• 0:33
  agree that trauma causes problems.
• 0:36
  Most mental health issues can be rooted back to some sort of
• 0:39
  trauma. However, how many of us show of
• 0:42
  hands are actually processing our traumas?
• 0:46
  How many of us are putting in the exertion to work through
• 0:49
  these difficult experiences or emotions?
• 0:52
  On top of this, what can unprocessed trauma actually do?
• 0:57
  So join me and let's focus in on the topic of today's episode,
• 1:01
  which is what unprocessed trauma does to our nervous system and
• 1:05
  to our sleep. One of the immediate effects
• 1:08
  that unprocessed trauma has is high alertness.
• 1:12
  When unprocessed trauma sits with us, our nervous system gets
• 1:15
  pushed outside of its ability to regulate itself.
• 1:18
  According to mhsdashdbt.com, For some, the system gets stuck in
• 1:23
  the on position and the person is overstimulated and unable to
• 1:27
  calm. Anxiety, anger, restlessness,
• 1:31
  panic, and hyperactivity can all result when you stay in this
• 1:35
  ready to react mode. This physical state of
• 1:38
  hyperarousal is stressful for every system in the body.
• 1:42
  When you experience trauma, not only is your emotional state
• 1:45
  affected, but your physical state is as well.
• 1:49
  Trauma will attempt to attack your nervous system and send you
• 1:52
  into the state of hyper awareness.
• 1:54
  Your mind and body are constantly on high alert as a
• 1:57
  defense mechanism to prevent you from further trauma.
• 2:00
  Think of it like a security system.
• 2:02
  You're hyper alert, so you can detect anything potentially
• 2:05
  harmful to you. Then if there's a trigger, the
• 2:10
  alarm rings. Being in this hyper aware state
• 2:13
  of mind can lead to a heightened sensitivity to triggers.
• 2:17
  This can lead you to only focus on the potential negatives that
• 2:20
  could happen to you and completely ruin your mental
• 2:23
  health. This can then cause anxiety,
• 2:26
  depression, or other mental health issues.
• 2:29
  This can be harmful for many reasons, as I'm sure you've
• 2:33
  either learned through personal experience or by hearing from
• 2:36
  others. Unprocessed trauma can attack
• 2:39
  the nervous system and attack our mental well-being, but
• 2:43
  actually not processing trauma can also affect your sleep and
• 2:48
  that is something that I think is not talked about enough and
• 2:51
  that we need to address. Emotional processing is often
• 2:55
  done in moments of quiet or through some sort of healthy
• 2:58
  outward projection such as art or talking.
• 3:01
  This processing of feelings does not come pre built into the
• 3:05
  human experience. No, we must learn how to do it.
• 3:09
  It's like any skill with practice you improve with time.
• 3:14
  You will learn every in and out of yourself and what you can do
• 3:17
  to better understand the feelings you feel.
• 3:20
  Unfortunately, many people are never nurtured into learning
• 3:24
  this process. They grow up with parents who
• 3:26
  didn't pay attention to mental health, who pushed down the
• 3:29
  things that they needed to process.
• 3:31
  They buried these feelings, and so the kids that they were
• 3:34
  raising buried their feelings as well.
• 3:38
  Maybe this is what you have experienced.
• 3:41
  Maybe when you have feelings, anxieties, worries about life,
• 3:45
  work, relationships, finances, or friends, you bury them
• 3:50
  because that's all that you were shown how to do.
• 3:54
  This then can make you try to run away from your feelings and
• 3:57
  enter an almost dissociated state of productivity, trying to
• 4:00
  escape your own mind. But then, when everything gets
• 4:04
  quiet at night, those feelings demand your attention.
• 4:09
  And that's the only time you allow yourself to think.
• 4:13
  It's not that you're an overthinker or that anything's
• 4:16
  wrong with you. It's just that this is the only
• 4:19
  time your brain is given a rest to process.
• 4:23
  And then it all crashes down. It overwhelms you.
• 4:26
  Your emotional state is flooded with sadness, worries, or
• 4:30
  anxieties that have been plaguing you, and this leads you
• 4:33
  into sleeplessness. This may be the reason that you
• 4:37
  struggle with sleep. This may be the reason that you
• 4:39
  find yourself up at 2:00 in the morning thinking your brain
• 4:43
  racing, unable to fall asleep. Most people write it off as
• 4:49
  insomnia, that something's wrong with them, that they're simply a
• 4:52
  chronic overthinker. If you do not process traumas
• 4:55
  and feelings, they are going to come up whenever you are
• 4:59
  vulnerable and in moments of quiet.
• 5:02
  In moments of calm, especially when you have been too busy
• 5:05
  distracting yourself, that is when they will strike and that
• 5:09
  is when they will take over the time that you have allocated for
• 5:12
  yourself and the time that you have allocated for sleep.
• 5:16
  Sleep is incredibly important and we must do what we can to
• 5:20
  defend it. This is a difficult cycle that
• 5:22
  is all too easy to fall into. After all, distractions and
• 5:26
  running from traumas or feelings is much easier than
• 5:29
  understanding them. But a crucial part of the human
• 5:31
  experience is dissecting our own brains and getting to know all
• 5:35
  of ourselves, even the unpleasant bits.
• 5:38
  And as it turns out, that processing can lead to better
• 5:43
  sleep. So how can we process our
• 5:45
  feelings and in turn, seek better rest?
• 5:48
  Seek better sleep? Well, I bet you can guess what
• 5:51
  I'm about to say. We have to feel our feelings and
• 5:57
  we have to process any remaining trauma.
• 6:00
  This can look different for everyone.
• 6:01
  I want to remind you, I'm not a mental health professional.
• 6:04
  I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a
• 6:07
  psychiatrist. So I struggle to give out solid
• 6:09
  advice because I don't have any background.
• 6:11
  I only have my personal experience.
• 6:14
  But what that does mean is I can tell you what has worked for me
• 6:18
  and that is actively paying attention to and addressing
• 6:21
  these feelings in a very literal way, almost comically.
• 6:25
  So I call it my feeling conversations.
• 6:29
  If I find myself in moments of calm or quiet, overthinking or
• 6:33
  feeling a difficult emotion, I literally call the emotion out
• 6:38
  out loud and address exactly what it wants or needs.
• 6:42
  For example, if I'm falling asleep and I start having some
• 6:46
  kind of anxiety, I'll address it out loud what the anxiety is,
• 6:50
  where I feel it, such as in my chest, my stomach, or my throat,
• 6:54
  and then I identify what it's asking of me.
• 6:57
  After I've done all of that, I'll challenge that anxiety by
• 7:00
  asking it. So what?
• 7:03
  So what if something goes wrong? So what if my next podcast or
• 7:07
  song doesn't do that? Well?
• 7:09
  So what? This leads me down a path of
• 7:12
  very literally and comprehensively breaking down
• 7:15
  that feeling and having a conversation with it.
• 7:18
  Call me crazy for talking to myself, but that's much easier
• 7:21
  to understand than most meditation I've experienced.
• 7:24
  I guess in some ways that is kind of a form of meditation,
• 7:28
  but this works wonders. It forces your emotions into the
• 7:31
  light and doesn't allow them to continue hiding in the darkness,
• 7:35
  ebbing away at your life force. You call these feelings out
• 7:38
  right where they are and address their wants and needs.
• 7:42
  Your life force is a very important thing and there are
• 7:44
  many things that eat away at it. One of the biggest is
• 7:48
  unprocessed feelings or trauma, and that can affect your sleep.
• 7:52
  It can affect your well-being. I highly recommend seeking
• 7:55
  professional help if you are dealing with any sort of serious
• 7:59
  trauma. I can give you advice through my
• 8:01
  own personal experiences, but some things are simply deeper
• 8:05
  than that. I can personally testify to the
• 8:07
  wonders that professional help can do for you, so I encourage
• 8:10
  you create moments of calm. Create moments of quiet.
• 8:14
  Sit with your feelings and talk to them.
• 8:16
  By doing this, you'll avoid being in a state of avoidance
• 8:20
  and stop these thoughts from crashing down.
• 8:22
  When you're trying to sleep, allow yourself calm and quiet to
• 8:26
  get rest. We need sleep in order to thrive
• 8:29
  as people. Without it, we can't develop and
• 8:32
  grow. Our mental health can't improve.
• 8:34
  I mean, some mental illnesses are literally made worse by lack
• 8:37
  of sleep. Lack of sleep can lead us into a
• 8:40
  heightened sense of arousal. It can all lead into a repeating
• 8:44
  cycle. So please get serious about your
• 8:47
  sleep and get serious about the things you need to process.
• 8:52
  Address those feelings, address those traumas and together let's
• 8:56
  get rest and grow as people. That's gonna wrap it up for
• 9:01
  today's episode. If you need any help feeling
• 9:03
  your feelings, check out my music on all platforms under the
• 9:06
  name of Ethan Jewell and I almost guarantee it'll make you
• 9:08
  cry. I'm actually coming out with new
• 9:10
  music. I spent the last year learning
• 9:13
  how to sing and I have a new song coming out February 2nd.
• 9:16
  You can listen to a snippet and pre save it on my website
• 9:19
  www.ethanjewell.com and also shoot me a message on my
• 9:24
  Instagram at Jewel Boy with an I under score and let me know what
• 9:28
  you thought about today's episode.
• 9:30
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 9:32
  Thank you for understanding the importance of processing trauma
• 9:35
  and the importance of rest. And as always thank you for
• 9:39
  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.