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118 Emotional Self-Care: How to Process Your Feelings Instead of Suppressing Them · Stacked Intent: Your Guide to Authentic, Intentional Living

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my name is Becca Stackhouse Morton, and I am ready for you to tune in each episode to hear ways to become you.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at ways you can be your authentic and intentional self, you'll finish each episode motivated to live life more authentically.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to be truly me through relationships, chronic disease, finances, and taking each journey along the way.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about the real aspects of life?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Relationships, finance, nutrition, hardships, exercise are all topics that we will discuss.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Pull up a seat, drive safely down the road, or get into that workout group to be challenged, motivated, and encouraged to be you.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Stacked Intent Podcast.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Becca here! We're on episode 3 of our self-care arc, and we are going into territories that we all might be avoiding a little bit.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to start with a question.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you let yourself fully feel something?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not pushed it down, not distracted yourself out of it, not told yourself to get over it, but actually felt with it, set with it, named it, let it move through you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're having to think hard about that, you're not alone.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture that doesn't have a lot of patience for feelings.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're told to stay positive, push through, be strong, handle it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we develop this incredible ability to suppress, avoid, or bypass our emotions altogether.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it works in the short term, but over time, those unfelt feelings create backlog.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that backlog shows up as anxiety, as irritability, you can't explain, numbness, or reactions that feel out of proportion for what might be happening in the moment.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care is about moving out of that pattern.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're gonna talk about what it means actually involves.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: How you might be able to recognize your own emotional patterns and some real tools for doing this work.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care is a practice of acknowledging the processing and regulating your emotional experience in a healthy way.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about being happy all the time, but it's not about being in touch with your feelings in the same performative, always way.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's about having a relationship with your inner world that isn't built on avoidance.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care includes things like allowing yourself to feel difficult emotions without judgment, having the tools to process, whether you journal, talk, move your body, setting limits with people or situations that drain your emotional energy consistently, and knowing when you need more support than you can give.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It means being honest with yourself about how you're actually doing.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not the I'm fine you give people when they ask, but the real answer.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care is not a weakness, it is a foundation of emotional intelligence, healthy relationships, and sustainable life.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You before you change a pattern, you have to see it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about emotional patterns, the default way that we tend to respond to difficult feelings.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some common ones might be that you suppress them, you push your feelings down and pretend they're not there.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You project them, you display your emotions onto other people or situations.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Avoidance.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You stay busy, scroll, eat, watch, do anything to not feel.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: None of these character are characteristic flaws.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're coping strategies that you learned probably when we were younger, probably because they helped in that situation.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is they may not serve you forever.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just start seeing these patterns, try this next time, you feel a strong emotion or reaction, irritation, anxiety, sadness, or the urge to shut down.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Pause and ask yourself.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: What am I actually feeling right now?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not what am I doing, not what am I thinking, what am I feeling?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Name the specifics as you can.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's research on something called emotional granularity, the ability to name your emotions with specificity.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out the more precise you can name your feelings, the better your brain can regulate it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of bad, are you sad, disappointed, embarrassed, lonely, frustrated?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The word here matters.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here are five tools for processing.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you've named what you're feeling.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now what?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here are five tools that might actually work in your emotional processing.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tool one, journaling.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean a gratitude journal, though I love me a good gratitude journal.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean something that you are expressively writing just to get it out.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: What happens, how it made you feel, what it brought up.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Don't edit, don't filter.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Research by psychologist James Pennebaker shows that even five not five, fifteen minutes of this expressive writing can significantly reduce emotional distress over time.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tool number two, movement.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Emotions are stored in the body.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't just a concept, it is psychological.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Movement helps discharge emotional energy, and that's why a hard run can clear your head.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it could be a hard swim or hard jujitsu class roll.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or how you might feel like crying during a yoga class.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Moving your body after emotional experience can be one of the fastest ways to process it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tool three, talking about it or talking it through with someone you trust, not to get advice, but just to witness.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's something powerful about saying something out loud to another person that makes it more real and more manageable at the same time.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tool four, breath work.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in an emotional state, your nervous system is active.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You breathe is one of the only ways to directly influence that activity.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: A simple technique of breathe in for four counts, hold it for four, and breathe out for six to eight.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So breathe in for one, two, three, four.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hold it.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, four.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe out.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, four, five, six.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: The long exhale activates your parasynthetic nervous system.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: You rest and respond.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It signals to your body that you're safe.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tool five, creative expression.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whether this is art, music, cooking, gardening, any form of creativity that lets you express something without words.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: For people who struggle with verbalizing their emotions, this can be one of those doorways.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional self-care can require being protective of your emotional energy.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where limits might come in.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: What some people call emotional boundaries.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: An emotional limit is a decision of what you will and won't allow into your emotional space.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's deciding that you are not available to absorb someone else's chronic negativity.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's deciding that you won't engage in conversations that leave you feeling worse about yourself.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's deciding that you need quiet time to recover after an emotional tense interaction.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Setting these limits isn't selfish, but it is an act of self-preservation.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also indirect and an act of self-respect for others.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're emotionally depleted, you can't show up for anyone fully.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the areas where the work of emotional self-care gets hard because the limits often require disappointing other people.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And many of us were taught to that disappointing someone was acceptable.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But your emotional health requires it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when should you seek her support?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to briefly talk about what emotional self-care means bringing in some professional help.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because these limits to what self-care can do and recognize these limits, it is self-care, an act of self-care.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you are experiencing persistent sadness that doesn't lift anxiety that is significantly affecting your daily functioning emotional numbness or reactions that feel completely out of control, those are signals that your nervous system or mental health needs more than journaling and breathing exercises can provide.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Therapy shouldn't be a last resort, but it is not for people who are broken.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is a resource with professional trainers for your emotional health.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And finding a therapist who is a good fit for you can change your overall life.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to be in crisis to deserve support.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the emotional self-care too.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here are your action steps.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: A daily emotional check-in.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Once a day, morning, mid-morning, before bed.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever works best for you to pause and ask yourself these three questions.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing right now?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Name it specifically.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I feel it in my body?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And three, what does this feeling need from me?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: The last question is your powerful one.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not how do I make these feelings go away, but what does it need?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the answer is just acknowledgement.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's expression.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's rest.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's talk to someone.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do this for seven days, and I promise that you'll start to see a pattern that you couldn't see before.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the work, friends.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is not pretty, but I promise that it's worth it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we're gonna close out the self-care arc and we're gonna talk about spiritual self-care and how to build a grounding practice that connects you to yourself and something bigger than the day-to-day voice.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Take this episode and share it with someone who needs permission to feel.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll catch you guys next week.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That brings us to the end of this episode of Stacked Int.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you will never miss an episode.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes are gonna be dropped on Thursdays.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, this is Becca, and don't forget, enrich your life by being intentional.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast was created, produced, and recorded, and edited by Stacked Intens.