Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #17| How to Feel Your Feelings (& Why You Should), To Find Your Calm & Stop People Pleasing

Transcript

#17| How to Feel Your Feelings (& Why You Should), To Find Your Calm & Stop People Pleasing · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

• 0:04
  Michelle Gauthier: Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 0:09
  Michelle Gauthier: Hey, friends, I'm so glad you're here with me today.
• 0:14
  Michelle Gauthier: Today, we're going to be talking about feelings.
• 0:17
  Michelle Gauthier: If the idea of talking about that makes you want to run and hide, go ahead and stay, because that means this episode is probably just especially for you.
• 0:24
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to tell you why it's important to feel all of our emotions and how to do that if that's something that doesn't come naturally to you, like it used to not come naturally to me.
• 0:34
  Michelle Gauthier: Before we jump into that, though, I have a couple of things to share.
• 0:37
  Michelle Gauthier: One is that I currently have one-on-one coaching spots open.
• 0:41
  Michelle Gauthier: If you have been thinking about it and have gotten good results in your life just from listening to this podcast, coaching with me is like that on steroids.
• 0:50
  Michelle Gauthier: There's a link in the show notes where you can set up a consultation with me to learn more about coaching.
• 0:54
  Michelle Gauthier: Let me tell you a little bit about what we do in that consultation, because people often say to me I'm nervous to set up a time to meet with you because I want to get my life together before I start coaching.
• 1:05
  Michelle Gauthier: That's like getting in shape before you join a gym, or they also get nervous because I think it's going to be a really high-pressure situation.
• 1:14
  Michelle Gauthier: Here's what I can say: Just come as you are right now.
• 1:18
  Michelle Gauthier: We will have a zero-pressure conversation where you can tell me about your life and I'll tell you about how we would approach what's going on with you in coaching.
• 1:26
  Michelle Gauthier: I'll tell you about some of the tools I would use and how we would work together to make your life feel much less stressful and overwhelming so that you can enjoy it more.
• 1:34
  Michelle Gauthier: That's it no pressure, no need to be together for it.
• 1:37
  Michelle Gauthier: If you are overwhelmed, I would love to talk to you.
• 1:40
  Michelle Gauthier: The link is in the show notes.
• 1:42
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, next I'm going to read this review for the podcast that came from a therapist.
• 1:46
  Michelle Gauthier: This made me really happy, because sometimes life coaches talk smack about therapists and vice versa.
• 1:53
  Michelle Gauthier: My opinion is that they can be the perfect combination.
• 1:56
  Michelle Gauthier: Anyway, here's what she said: " I'm a therapist and I'm always looking for great ideas to pass along to clients, and this show provides that.
• 2:03
  Michelle Gauthier: I always walk away with something to implement in my own life or with a client.
• 2:08
  Michelle Gauthier: I love that she gives examples from her life, as it helps me jumpstart ideas for my own life.
• 2:13
  Michelle Gauthier: I read a lot of self-help books and to be able to pass good info on to clients, but this is quicker, practical and bite-sized nuggets of wisdom - tools that can be immediately implemented.
• 2:23
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you.
• 2:24
  Michelle Gauthier: " it wasn't signed.
• 2:25
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you to Anonymous, the therapist, who took the time to write that review.
• 2:29
  Michelle Gauthier: I am so happy that you are able to pass this along to your clients as well.
• 2:34
  Michelle Gauthier: Yay! If you haven't written a review yet and you are enjoying the podcast, I would love if you could do so.
• 2:40
  Michelle Gauthier: If you listen on iTunes, if you just scroll all the way to the bottom of the show page, you'll see a place where you can do that.
• 2:45
  Michelle Gauthier: All right, are you ready to move on to feelings?
• 2:49
  Michelle Gauthier: Let's do it.
• 2:50
  Michelle Gauthier: Apparently,
• 2:51
  Michelle Gauthier: when I was a little girl, I was a really big crybaby.
• 2:53
  Michelle Gauthier: All my aunts and uncles lovingly roll their eyes and tell me how annoying I was.
• 2:59
  Michelle Gauthier: I really loved my mom.
• 3:00
  Michelle Gauthier: You guys, I still do.
• 3:02
  Michelle Gauthier: When I started preschool, I refused to stay at school or to be at school without crying unless she was standing outside the door and I could see her like through the window of the preschool classroom.
• 3:14
  Michelle Gauthier: And she did that for I don't know how long, a long time.
• 3:17
  Michelle Gauthier: And then finally, I sort of got over it and got used to school.
• 3:20
  Michelle Gauthier: And then one day we had a fire drill and it was all over again.
• 3:23
  Michelle Gauthier: It was just a drill.
• 3:24
  Michelle Gauthier: I didn't like the loud noise.
• 3:25
  Michelle Gauthier: Then I was freaked out that my mom wasn't there, so I had to start all over again with the crying and my mom standing outside the door.
• 3:32
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you, mom, for doing that.
• 3:34
  Michelle Gauthier: But at some point in my life, I'm not sure when it happened, or exactly why, I just decided I wasn't going to cry about anything.
• 3:41
  Michelle Gauthier: Nothing could make me sad.
• 3:43
  Michelle Gauthier: I could handle it all.
• 3:45
  Michelle Gauthier: I went in the completely opposite direction and would brag that I never cried or how many years it had been since I shed a tear.
• 3:51
  Michelle Gauthier: I somehow decided to feel only the good emotions and stuff the bad emotions way down there.
• 3:58
  Michelle Gauthier: I didn't realize I was doing that at the time.
• 4:00
  Michelle Gauthier: I thought I was just focusing on the good.
• 4:02
  Michelle Gauthier: I think it made me feel in charge, in control somehow, of my emotions and that was all part of my 'life is perfect' scenario that I was trying to create unconsciously.
• 4:14
  Michelle Gauthier: So we don't really need to psychoanalyze me here, but let's just suffice to say that I went from being a very emotional crybaby (I bet that's a term people don't use about their kids anymore -that seems kind of mean, but that's what everyone calls me, so we'll go with it, because we are going to talk about you now).
• 4:33
  Michelle Gauthier: So how about you?
• 4:34
  Michelle Gauthier: Do you hold back from certain emotions?
• 4:36
  Michelle Gauthier: You can do that if you want.
• 4:38
  Michelle Gauthier: But they just kind of lie there in wait until one day they can't stand it anymore and they come up.
• 4:43
  Michelle Gauthier: When you have a feeling that comes up like anger or sadness, think about it like this: you take that emotion, and if you don't express it or feel it, just imagine that you're throwing it as far as you can, but it's a boomerang and it always comes back, and maybe even stronger than before.
• 5:00
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you're right now thinking I don't think I do that I always feel my emotions, that's great if you really do.
• 5:06
  Michelle Gauthier: But I also challenge you to listen all the way through this episode and see if maybe you have gotten so good at pushing them off that you just don't even notice that they're trying to come out.
• 5:16
  Michelle Gauthier: Because I wouldn't have said about my former self, "oh, I don't allow myself to be sad, I'm trying to just present a totally positive life.
• 5:24
  Michelle Gauthier: " I would have said I don't get sad" or nothing makes me sad.
• 5:27
  Michelle Gauthier: Really, I did have sad feelings, I just wouldn't let them out, but I don't think I realized that.
• 5:32
  Michelle Gauthier: So the reason why I'm suggesting that you just hang in there and really search yourself for this and see if this is something that you're doing is because when I was doing it, I didn't even notice I was doing it.
• 5:44
  Michelle Gauthier: So before we get to talking about how to feel your emotions, let's talk about why.
• 5:49
  Michelle Gauthier: A couple reasons.
• 5:50
  Michelle Gauthier: Number one: emotions are there to give us clues about how to act in a situation.
• 5:56
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if you're in a situation that feels dangerous to you, you feel scared, and that scared emotion is telling you to look into something.
• 6:06
  Michelle Gauthier: Like your intuition is telling you that you're scared.
• 6:08
  Michelle Gauthier: If you feel anger in a situation, you should probably look into the situation rather than just stuff it down and ignore it.
• 6:16
  Michelle Gauthier: And the same goes for sadness.
• 6:17
  Michelle Gauthier: If you don't show, feel, and process the hard emotions, it's also hard to connect with people.
• 6:24
  Michelle Gauthier: Imagine my former self being like, "oh, I never get sad, everything's always happy in my life.
• 6:29
  Michelle Gauthier: Who's going to connect with that person that's so not true or vulnerable, etc.
• 6:34
  Michelle Gauthier: So it's really hard to connect with people if you never show your true emotions.
• 6:39
  Michelle Gauthier: It's also really hard to ask for help if you don't feel your emotions because you're denying that you actually need it.
• 6:45
  Michelle Gauthier: I know for me when we were going through infertility treatments for like seven years, I think I maybe cried once or twice in that whole process, and let me tell you I should have cried weekly.
• 6:55
  Michelle Gauthier: That was not a fun journey, but the fact that sadness came up in my body telling me this is a sad situation, it's okay, go ahead and feel sad.
• 7:04
  Michelle Gauthier: Instead, I boomeranged that out of sight like a thousand times and I paid for it later when I nearly lost my mind with grief over the whole situation.
• 7:12
  Michelle Gauthier: When you don't allow those sad feelings - because what I really could have used in that moment was a friend to talk to.
• 7:19
  Michelle Gauthier: I know all of my friends were talking about me and they, you know, not in a mean way, but like they knew something was going on.
• 7:26
  Michelle Gauthier: But I wouldn't really talk to anybody about it.
• 7:28
  Michelle Gauthier: It was too sad to talk about.
• 7:30
  Michelle Gauthier: I didn't have a life coach, I didn't have a therapist, I didn't have any of that, and probably because I wouldn't even feel the emotions that I needed to feel to ask for help in that way.
• 7:41
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so, number one emotions give us clues about how to act in a situation.
• 7:46
  Michelle Gauthier: Number two is when you process your emotions, they pass.
• 7:50
  Michelle Gauthier: For example, I just read a study that when teens talk about feeling sad and express sadness, they are less likely to be depressed.
• 7:58
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you actually express that sadness or just sit with your tears and just cry as long as you want to cry, then it will pass and it won't be stuck inside you.
• 8:10
  Michelle Gauthier: And the third reason is this: without sadness there is no joy.
• 8:15
  Michelle Gauthier: I don't know if you ever saw that Disney movie called Inside Out.
• 8:18
  Michelle Gauthier: If you haven't seen it, it's a great movie for grownups too.
• 8:21
  Michelle Gauthier: It's a kid's movie, but it's so good.
• 8:23
  Michelle Gauthier: The premise of the movie is that the main character, named Riley, has moved to a new town and they give you this inside her head view, where it shows all of her emotions and what they're doing inside her.
• 8:35
  Michelle Gauthier: And the premise of the movie is that the main character, who's joy, the emotion of joy, tries to override all of the other emotions.
• 8:44
  Michelle Gauthier: And in the end, the lesson that you learn is that without allowing sadness, you can feel no joy.
• 8:49
  Michelle Gauthier: The main character, Riley, has moved to a new city and she realizes before she can make new friends and like her school in her city, she has to be sad and grieve what she misses and in the end she finally cries and she tells her parents that she's sad, which is the magic that she needs to start her new life.
• 9:07
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so we're not going to base our research on a Disney movie, but I think it is a great illustration of the truth.
• 9:14
  Michelle Gauthier: Brené Brown, who you probably have heard of (I think I've mentioned her on the podcast before) but she's a self-help author, a PhD professor, a podcast host, and she calls ignoring your hard emotions numbing them.
• 9:28
  Michelle Gauthier: And in her book, the Power of Vulnerability, she says when you numb or stuff (that's the same as boomerang to me) or ignore the hard emotions, you end up numbing or stuffing or ignoring true joy, true contentment and true happiness as well.
• 9:43
  Michelle Gauthier: So you can't just numb or boomerang the hard emotions.
• 9:48
  Michelle Gauthier: When you do that, when you aren't willing to feel your emotions, you do it to all of them.
• 9:53
  Michelle Gauthier: So what Brené Brown has found in her research work and what I find in working with my clients and myself, is that unless you're willing to feel the whole spectrum of emotions, you're never going to feel fully alive, fully authentic, fully joyful.
• 10:07
  Michelle Gauthier: I also love something Glennon Doyle says, which is there is no glory except straight through your story.
• 10:14
  Michelle Gauthier: Right, and you're not going to get to the glory without going through your true story, which will have ups, downs, happy times, sad times.
• 10:23
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
• 10:24
  Michelle Gauthier: So now we know why it's useful to feel your emotions and what happens if you keep them in.
• 10:31
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so what to do next, then?
• 10:34
  Michelle Gauthier: If this is resonating with you and you have hunched that you might be stuffing or boomeranging the feelings that you have, that you don't like.
• 10:43
  Michelle Gauthier: Here is exactly what to do and how to allow those feelings.
• 10:48
  Michelle Gauthier: First, ask yourself the question, where am I holding back or ignoring an uncomfortable feeling?
• 10:53
  Michelle Gauthier: Where could I be pushing it away?
• 10:55
  Michelle Gauthier: So something that might come to mind for you is do you find yourself getting quickly angry?
• 11:00
  Michelle Gauthier: And if you find yourself getting quickly angry, let's say, when you first get home from work, is there anger in there that you just need to process?
• 11:09
  Michelle Gauthier: Or do you feel that angry feeling coming on at work?
• 11:12
  Michelle Gauthier: Just get curious about whatever the feeling is.
• 11:15
  Michelle Gauthier: And then ask yourself too what is a recent situation where I purposely pushed past my feelings and just went on?
• 11:21
  Michelle Gauthier: So something that I used to do
• 11:23
  Michelle Gauthier: all the time is when I would feel sad, I would just distract myself with something else and be like, "oh, I'm not going to think about that right now, or I'm not going to watch a sad movie, I'm not going to read a sad book, I'm not going to do anything sad.
• 11:34
  Michelle Gauthier: " I just randomly remembered myself reading, okay, bridges of Madison County.
• 11:39
  Michelle Gauthier: I had to pause and look it up.
• 11:41
  Michelle Gauthier: Bridges of Madison County where, oh, if you haven't read that, it's like a heartbreaker of a story and I didn't know how sad it was going to be.
• 11:48
  Michelle Gauthier: And I was reading it on a plane and just like sobbing.
• 11:52
  Michelle Gauthier: And I always sit in the window seat.
• 11:53
  Michelle Gauthier: So I was turned towards the window, but that was like one place where I couldn't escape.
• 11:57
  Michelle Gauthier: Had I had the chance to escape somewhere else or turn on the TV or do something else, I would have done it there.
• 12:03
  Michelle Gauthier: So just ask yourself are you pulling that move where you're trying to purposely push past your feelings?
• 12:08
  Michelle Gauthier: Once you have a good idea of what feeling or emotion you might be boomeranging or pushing away,
• 12:15
  Michelle Gauthier: use this process that I created that's called NEAR, and it's called that because each one of those letters stands for something.
• 12:23
  Michelle Gauthier: As always, you'll find the details in the show notes that I'm about to give you, and I even made this little reference guide with the steps and a photo that's the perfect size to download and keep on your phone.
• 12:33
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you're feeling like you might need to process an emotion, you're like, shoot, how am I supposed to do that?
• 12:37
  Michelle Gauthier: You can just pull it up, grab it in the show notes.
• 12:41
  Michelle Gauthier: There's a link to it there.
• 12:42
  Michelle Gauthier: The first part of this NEAR process is the N: Name it.
• 12:47
  Michelle Gauthier: So what are you feeling?
• 12:49
  Michelle Gauthier: A helpful tool that you can Google is called a feelings wheel.
• 12:53
  Michelle Gauthier: I wasn't able to find who originally created this, but if you just Google it, you will find a ton of different examples.
• 13:00
  Michelle Gauthier: It's really helpful because it has a ton of different emotions on there.
• 13:03
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if you start with angry and you go to the next level, it gives you suggestions like okay, you felt angry, was that humiliated, was it bitter, was it aggressive, was it frustrated, was it critical?
• 13:16
  Michelle Gauthier: It digs down deeper so you can understand what the emotion was.
• 13:21
  Michelle Gauthier: If you're sad, are you lonely, do you feel vulnerable, do you feel guilty, do you feel depressed, are you hurt, are you stressed?
• 13:31
  Michelle Gauthier: Is that stress overwhelm, or does it feel out of control or do you feel unfocused or apathetic.
• 13:38
  Michelle Gauthier: It really is helpful.
• 13:39
  Michelle Gauthier: I use it a lot with my clients to figure out exactly what they're feeling.
• 13:43
  Michelle Gauthier: So just take a second and in that first step, N, name it, name the feeling.
• 13:50
  Michelle Gauthier: If you need help naming the feeling, and I would challenge you, if the feeling feels like sad, to look up this feelings wheel and see what could be beneath that, same for angry.
• 14:00
  Michelle Gauthier: It just helps you get more specific.
• 14:03
  Michelle Gauthier: Then the second step is to explain it.
• 14:06
  Michelle Gauthier: The E is to explain it.
• 14:08
  Michelle Gauthier: So what I want you to think about here is where do I feel this feeling in my body?
• 14:13
  Michelle Gauthier: Often when I work with people, if they haven't done this kind of mind/ body work before, they'll say I don't feel anything in my body.
• 14:18
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you don't feel anything in your body, that's okay.
• 14:21
  Michelle Gauthier: But I challenge you to just sit with that feeling for a second and think about where it could be.
• 14:28
  Michelle Gauthier: Start at the top of your head and just scan your body.
• 14:30
  Michelle Gauthier: Start in your head, go down, notice your shoulders and your neck and your back and your stomach.
• 14:36
  Michelle Gauthier: Go down to your legs and your feet.
• 14:39
  Michelle Gauthier: Just see if there's any place in your body where you feel a certain sensation.
• 14:43
  Michelle Gauthier: For example, when I feel angry, I almost always feel a hotness in my chest.
• 14:48
  Michelle Gauthier: Just talking about it right now, I can feel what it feels like when I'm angry.
• 14:52
  Michelle Gauthier: When I'm sad, I feel slumped over shoulders, my head feels heavy.
• 14:57
  Michelle Gauthier: When I get anxious, my fingers get tingly.
• 15:01
  Michelle Gauthier: So I know exactly how feelings feel in my body.
• 15:04
  Michelle Gauthier: What I find in working with people is that there are similarities, but everybody's just different.
• 15:08
  Michelle Gauthier: So just take a second and explain it.
• 15:11
  Michelle Gauthier: Where do you feel it in your body?
• 15:13
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, now we are going to just allow that feeling.
• 15:17
  Michelle Gauthier: For example, let's say the feeling is sad.
• 15:20
  Michelle Gauthier: As you looked on the feelings wheel, you saw that really it's sad, but specifically it's lonely.
• 15:28
  Michelle Gauthier: So now you know the name of the feeling, you've brought it up in your body and seen how it feels in your body, and now you just need to sit in that feeling.
• 15:36
  Michelle Gauthier: Just sit with it as long as it takes.
• 15:39
  Michelle Gauthier: This is a really important part, because this is the part most people are scared of.
• 15:43
  Michelle Gauthier: I know when I was considering feeling my feelings like maybe I'll go ahead and try this I was afraid that if I started crying, that I would cry forever, and I actually looked this up one time and I can't remember the exact number, so don't quote me on this but it's something like usually, when we start crying, we cry for two minutes and then it's sort of over.
• 16:03
  Michelle Gauthier: It's very unlikely that you're going to cry for days and days and days.
• 16:07
  Michelle Gauthier: But just ask yourself when you're allowing and sitting in that feeling, do I need to do anything now If you're angry, do you need to punch some pillows?
• 16:16
  Michelle Gauthier: Do you need to just allow yourself to cry?
• 16:20
  Michelle Gauthier: Do you need to grit your teeth?
• 16:22
  Michelle Gauthier: Do you need to scream out loud?
• 16:23
  Michelle Gauthier: I really like to do like primal screams sometimes.
• 16:26
  Michelle Gauthier: That really helps me get rid of anger when I feel anger.
• 16:30
  Michelle Gauthier: So just think about what it looks like and what you need to do to really be in that feeling and then, once the feeling has passed again my guess would be this is going to be like two minutes then the last step is the R review it: how do I feel now?
• 16:45
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, think about - because you probably have experience with this already - how you feel after you've had a good cry.
• 16:51
  Michelle Gauthier: I always feel tired, but I feel relieved and then ask yourself what will allowing this feeling open the door for.
• 16:59
  Michelle Gauthier: So, now that I have moved past this sadness, what can I do?
• 17:02
  Michelle Gauthier: Now I can feel a different feeling.
• 17:04
  Michelle Gauthier: I can do something else.
• 17:05
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so just in summary, the process is called NEAR, N-E-A-R.
• 17:11
  Michelle Gauthier: You want to it name it - n ame the feeling - explain it - where do you feel it in your body?
• 17:16
  Michelle Gauthier: -allow - just sit in that feeling.
• 17:19
  Michelle Gauthier: One of my clients told me when she was working on allowing sadness that she just sat on her couch and stared out the window and just let it be in her body and that's all she had to do.
• 17:28
  Michelle Gauthier: So you might not have to do do something, but if something feels like you should do it, do it - and then review it, see how it felt to let that emotion pass through.
• 17:38
  Michelle Gauthier: So that's it.
• 17:40
  Michelle Gauthier: That's why you should feel your emotions and how to feel your emotions, and just remember the biggest part to me is that without sadness, there is no joy, without anger there is no contentment, et cetera.
• 17:54
  Michelle Gauthier: We have to be willing and able to feel all the feelings.
• 17:57
  Michelle Gauthier: I think it's really helpful not to categorize any of them as good or bad, as I'm saying those in this episode earlier, I'm using air quotes that you can't see and just consider them all emotions and they're all part of life and do the same thing for your kids.
• 18:11
  Michelle Gauthier: When your kids are sad and they tell you that they're sad, maybe consider not telling them don't be sad, you're fine, it's okay.
• 18:18
  Michelle Gauthier: Say, oh, I see you're sad, I would be sad too.
• 18:21
  Michelle Gauthier: Or tell me how that feels for you.
• 18:22
  Michelle Gauthier: Where do you feel sadness in your body?
• 18:24
  Michelle Gauthier: You can just help them get curious about their emotions instead of trying to shame those away.
• 18:29
  Michelle Gauthier: As always, let me know if you have any questions.
• 18:32
  Michelle Gauthier: You can message me on Instagram or you can send me an email, and next week you can look forward to the start of results week.
• 18:41
  Michelle Gauthier: If you aren't already on my email list, now would be a great time to sign up at michellegauthier.
• 18:46
  Michelle Gauthier: com.
• 18:47
  Michelle Gauthier: Next week I'm gonna be sending out an email every day that shares with you the results of my clients who I've coached one-on-one, and people always really like those because it makes them feel inspired too, like if that person hated her job and was feeling completely depressed and miserable and is now really happy,
• 19:06
  Michelle Gauthier: I can do that too.
• 19:07
  Michelle Gauthier: So it's fun.
• 19:07
  Michelle Gauthier: If you're not on my email list, get on it, and we're gonna start off the week by talking to I have a guest next week.
• 19:14
  Michelle Gauthier: One of my former clients is gonna tell us how she changed her life.
• 19:17
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, that's it for today.
• 19:18
  Michelle Gauthier: Hope you have a great week.
• 19:20
  Michelle Gauthier: Get out there and feel your sad, mad, whatever feelings you need to feel.
• 19:24
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 19:31
  Michelle Gauthier: If you wanna learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
• 19:35
  Michelle Gauthier: com.
• 19:37
  Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.