Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / are you healing or distracting?

Transcript

are you healing or distracting? · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  When I began my mental health journey several years ago, I
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  felt as though I was making big progress quickly.
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  I didn't feel sad, as often I felt more functional.
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  It was like I was sprinting straight out of the gate.
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  However, after a few months, I suddenly fell back into old
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  habits and old feelings hard. I started having to face
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  difficult feelings out of nowhere that I didn't feel
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  prepared to face. That was when I had to ask
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  myself, was I really healing or was I just distracting?
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  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to feel Your
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  Feelings. Now, I'm not a therapist, I'm
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  not a psychologist, I'm not a professional in the mental
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  health industry whatsoever. However, I have felt some very
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  big feelings and I'm super passionate about mental health
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  and I want to share my own personal experience with all of
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  you and something that I experienced that I feel like is
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  very common. It's trying to find the
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  difference between distracting and healing.
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  You see, doing the work in healing isn't an easy process.
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  It takes time and dedicated focus in order to piece together
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  the parts of you that have fallen apart.
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  I like to think of it like a puzzle.
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  With a puzzle, you have to sit down, sort through all the
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  pieces, figure out where they go, and slowly start piercing it
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  back together. Our mental health is the same.
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  If you've fallen apart or started to struggle, it takes an
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  active effort of sitting down with all of your feelings and
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  determining where they go. You have to start slowly with
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  the edge pieces like in a puzzle, and figure out kind of
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  an outline of how you need to heal.
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  And then slowly, piece by piece, you can figure out how to feel
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  better. However, there is another layer
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  to it. It isn't always as
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  straightforward as that. There's a lot of things that
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  feel like healing that aren't a trap that I've fallen in far too
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  many times is distracting instead of healing, I'll think
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  to myself, oh, I'm feeling sad, I'll do something fun.
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  This sometimes works. Sometimes when you're feeling
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  bad and you do something that makes you feel good, it can get
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  rid of the bad feeling entirely. However, a majority of the time
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  it's just simply going to push that feeling down, and that's
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  what I want to talk about today. I believe that this is very
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  detrimental to our mental health.
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  I believe it is very detrimental to our mental health journeys
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  and it's something that I want you to be aware of because I
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  thought I was doing great on my mental health journey for months
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  before I realized that I had just been distracting myself.
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  Every time I felt bad I would get on my phone or I would go
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  and see a friend and yes, sometimes that's good.
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  However, there was work that I needed to do, and there might be
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  work that you need to do, so let's talk about it.
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  When you distract instead of feel, you are simply pushing
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  emotions down to be felt at another time.
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  I sometimes think about emotions as a soup, as silly as it may
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  be, you could eat the soup right now and you could deal with
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  those feelings. Or you could leave the soup
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  sitting out and after a while that soup It's going to get cold
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  and it's going to taste worse later.
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  When you push feelings down, they marinate and often they
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  grow stronger. As you then experience other
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  things that may trigger those same feelings, they grow more
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  powerful and more difficult to deal with.
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  This is one of the dangers of distracting.
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  This is why it can be bad to just scroll on your phone or
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  mindlessly distract yourself from feeling feelings.
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  Trust me, I get it. Feeling your feelings is
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  difficult, and often it's uncomfortable and it's not
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  pleasant, and it has to take priority over other things.
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  But it's necessary to do the work in order to see results.
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  Improving our mental health is not a passive action.
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  It can't just passively be done. You can't just expect your
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  mental health to get better, and that is a harsh reality that I
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  had to accept. I do want to point out the fact
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  that distracting isn't always bad.
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  There is a flip side to this. There needs to be balance,
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  frankly. Sometimes feeling feelings and
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  doing the work is exhausting and you don't have the emotional
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  capacity for it. Some days it's just too much and
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  you don't have the room in order to feel those feelings.
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  If you force yourself to keep feeling feelings when you're
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  already drained, you can reach emotional burnout.
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  Emotional burnout occurs when you try to force growth when
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  there's no room to grow into. When you're drained and unable
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  to properly process, it's like trying to build a house with two
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  broken arms. It's never going to work, so you
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  have to give yourself time before you're able to properly
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  heal. Houses aren't built in a day,
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  and neither is your emotional security.
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  In health, you have to be able to find your balance, and this
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  is a difficult process and one where the real only way forward
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  is to become more comfortable with your emotions, to become
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  comfortable with your feelings and be able to identify when
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  it's time to heal and when it's time to distract a little bit.
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  You can always at least acknowledge those feelings.
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  You can always at least acknowledge that they're there
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  and need to be felt and then move forward.
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  So how do we move forward? How do we find our balance and
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  how do we work towards healing? Well, there's many ways to do
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  it, but the two that have helped me the most are therapy and
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  meditation, so I would like to highlight those now.
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  One of the best ways to work through emotions and to heal is
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  through therapy, which is why I'm happy to say that this show
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  is sponsored by better help. Whenever I'm trying to heal, I
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  often find my racing thoughts just getting in the way and I'm
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  trying to identify what I need to heal or I'm trying to figure
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  out if I'm just distracting myself from the healing.
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  I can't shut off all of these racing distracting thoughts.
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  If you've ever felt this way, therapy is a healthy way to
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  approach this. Therapy gives you a calm and
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  safe place to sort out these feelings and thoughts and
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  properly figure them out. I personally went to therapy for
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  several years and it helped me so much identifying whether I
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  was healing or distracting. Free from all of these racing
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  thoughts, Better Help is a great platform to start on therapy.
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  It's entirely online, allowing you to start doing the work from
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  the comfort of your own home. All you have to do is fill out a
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  questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist.
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  Get a break from your thoughts with better help.
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  Visit betterhelp.com/feel It today to get 10% off your first
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  month. That's better help help.com feel
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  it. Another highly effective way to
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  help yourself heal and not keep distracting, which I actually
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  learned in therapy, is meditation.
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  Now, I always thought of meditation as some sort of
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  gimmick, something that wouldn't actually help me long term.
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  But as I've implemented it into my routine, and as I've done
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  more meditating, as more and more feelings have come up in my
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  mental health journey, I've realized it is actually crucial.
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  You see, in order to stop distracting yourself, you need
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  to have a healthier relationship with your feelings.
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  You need to be able to talk with them.
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  You need to be able to understand them and process them
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  fully. That's a difficult thing to do
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  if you don't have a relationship established with them.
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  If you don't have good emotional intelligence, it's something
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  that I'm still working on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not
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  claiming to be some pro or to be fully healed.
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  It's a difficult thing to do. But I strongly recommend a form
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  of meditation in order to better sort through your healing
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  journey. So it goes like this, if
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  possible. When a feeling comes up, give
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  yourself literally 2 minutes to just acknowledge that feeling,
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  to sit with it. Notice where it is.
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  Maybe it's in your chest, a tightness in your stomach.
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  Maybe it's just a heaviness, A clouded mind and itching at the
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  back of your head, some anxiety that hasn't been addressed.
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  Identify it. Notice where it is physically.
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  Notice where it is mentally. Notice what it's asking of you,
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  what it's telling you. If it's something you are
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  stressed out about, if it's a situation, if it has to do with
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  a person, whatever it is, notice it and then tell it it can exist
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  within you. I talked about this a couple of
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  podcast episodes ago. This is an incredible way to
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  become more aware of your feelings.
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  Take a moment to ask yourself if you have the emotional
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  availability to feel that feeling.
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  If so, maybe spend a little bit more time with it.
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  But if not, just acknowledge that it's there and allow it to
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  run its course. You see, healing does not have
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  to be the scary thing that we take in leaps and bounds.
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  I feel as though a lot of people avoid healing and avoid starting
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  their journey because it's scary.
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  We expect ourselves to heal so quickly.
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  We expect it to be this grand thing.
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  We expect to take it in leaps and bounds to be sprinting out
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  of the gate. And if we don't, we're
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  disappointed. This is why so many people
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  continue to simply distract from their feelings because they
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  don't even understand that healing is an option.
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  I know for a long time I went, well, I have to do this before,
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  you know. I have to get a little older.
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  I need to experience more things.
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  I need to be in therapy in order to start.
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  I need to do this in order to start my mental health journey.
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  However, healing can simply be developing a healthy
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  relationship with your emotions. Start small.
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  Don't overwhelm yourself. When you overwhelm yourself,
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  you're going to want to distract.
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  You're going to want to run away from the feelings and never
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  properly face them. Remember, it's okay temporarily
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  to distract. It's okay if one or two days you
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  need to take a break from your feelings.
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  But if you do that forever, they will eventually catch up with
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  you. And once they grow strong after
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  they've been pushed down so many times, they can become
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  completely overwhelming. So please understand, healing
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  does not have to be this incredibly difficult, incredibly
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  long journey. It can simply be you starting a
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  better relationship with your feelings.
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  And you can do this today. You can start today by
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  meditating with your feelings, by sitting with them, by
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  understanding them, by processing them, by feeling
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  them. You are allowed to face these
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  feelings head on and you deserve to.
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  It's freeing. It feels amazing to be able to
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  feel those feelings. Distracting doesn't feel good
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  scrolling on your phone and trying to get away from these
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  feelings. It doesn't feel good and it will
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  eventually haunt you long term. So please feel your feelings.
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  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
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  If you need help feeling your feelings, check out my music on
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  all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell and I almost
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  guarantee it'll make you cry. Also, shoot me a message on my
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  Instagram at Jewel Boy with an I under score and let me know what
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  you thought about today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding the difference between healing and
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  distracting. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.