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Category: Embracing Emotion

What to do when you don’t feel like yourself?

Published on April 6, 2023

I think it’s important to first point out that none of us is just one composition of feeling. We are a melting pot of ALL the feelings.

Like a melting pot, when all of the various ingredients (feelings) are getting combined in relatively the same ways… you’ll get relatively the same taste—which becomes what we might consider: feeling like ourself.

When one or more ingredients start to get added disproportionally to the pot, it’ll modify the taste. As is the case when one or more feelings get disproportionately added to our inner state.

The trick then, becomes identifying and reducing the ingredients that are “undesireably” affecting the pot while finding ways to increase the desired ones so as to get the pot back to “normal.”

For example, when cooking, it’s obvious when too much salt has been added to a recipe. A simple solution, is to (1) stop adding more salt and (2) add more of the other ingredients to dilute the power of the salt.

In life, when we feel a rise in an unfamiliar/ uncomfortable feeling, we start by identifying what it is. Once we’ve identified it and can name it, we trace the origin of the feeling to it’s root cause. Then we (1) stop allowing whatever’s causing it to make it worse and (2) add more of the other ingredients that lead to the more desired feelings we’re after.

And soon thereafter (maybe not right away, but soon), you’ll start to slowly feel more like your normal “recipe-d” self.

P.s. I also published: 37 Robert A. Johnson Quotes from Inner Work To Convince You Dreams Aren’t Arbitrary.

E(motional)-Mail

Published on December 22, 2022

Emotional turbulence doesn’t usually come about all at once. It’s usually the result of an ongoing accumulation of emotional messages that get overlooked and ignored until they pile into an overwhelming mountain of unread messages—which, then, triggers inner turbulence.

…It happens when we say we don’t have time, we’re too busy, or when we keep ourselves blindly distracted. Yet, we have time to incessantly check email and swipe every notification that pops up on our phone?

Maybe, if we took some of that incessant energy that’s pointed towards “productivity” and “networking” and used it to read even just a small portion of the emotional messaging our body sends us… we’d be a helluva lot less turbulent and anxious.

And, heck, we’d probably be a helluva lot more productive and present for proper networking, too.

What’s The Emotion?

Published on November 21, 2022

Every emotion is trying to signal something to our mind:

  • Anger = What you care about / Where your boundaries are / etc.
  • Jealousy = What you want / The types of feelings you want to have / etc.
  • Sadness = What holds meaning / What really matters / etc.

This is why it’s so crucial to identify the emotion.

You can’t interpret the signal you don’t identify or get confused.

Strategic Playfulness

Published on November 16, 2022

Seriousness hardens; playfulness softens.

If you’re having a hard time opening your heart, your eyes, or your life—maybe it’s because they’ve each hardened from prolonged seriousness.

And maybe what’s needed is the opposite… some strategic playfulness.

P.s. I’ll be hosting a LIVE talk on going from Burnout to Balanced on Thursday 11/16 at 11am EST. I’d love to have you join if you’re free/ interested. Details here.

P.p.s. This post became the foundation of the afterword for: Letting Your Bow Relax—A Short Story About Not Being So Serious All Of The Time

Life’s Annoying Teachers

Published on October 29, 2022
  • Overreacting
  • Getting pissed off
  • Feeling irritated/frustrated
  • Burning with envy and jealousy
  • Incessantly needing to show off
  • Rooting for other people’s failure
  • Feeling unworthy compared to others

…Are each teachers trying to instill a valuable lesson about your inner workings.

And you’ll keep getting the same lesson over and over until you actually pay attention, study, and pass their tests.

P.s. More on this here: How To Deal With People Who Annoy, Frustrate, and/or Upset You.

Your Struggles Vs Their Struggles

Published on August 10, 2022

Have you ever struggled and thought to yourself: “Why am I even complaining about this when millions have it SO much worse than me…”

Recognize that this is a toxic thought.

It essentially translates into: “My struggles are invalid and it’s wrong for me to feel how I do.”

…Which naturally leads to emotional suppression, message(s) ignoring, and a worsening of overall state. This is no way to solve a struggle.

Struggles are solved when you add confrontation (with the emotion(s)), subtract comparison, and give all of your feelings equal space to communicate the message(s) your body purposefully sent via them.

Telling yourself they’re wrong for being there doesn’t change the fact that they’re there.

Letting them fulfill their purpose—does. It allows them to move through you and out of your system—to wherever it is that fulfilled feelings go.

Send them there. Don’t deny, suppress, and exasperate them deeper inside, here.

Always Upbeat; Always Positive…

Published on July 20, 2022

A friend of mine once said, “I want to always be known as the upbeat, energy guy.”

…So, he focuses on being perceived as positive and optimistic 100% of the time.

While on the surface this might sound admirable, a closer look might reveal how a strategy like this could actually backfire.

The reality of life is that we’re going to suffer. We’re going to be hurt. There’s going to be pain and upset and anger. And if we try to mask or suppress these feelings in an attempt to “remain upbeat”—we’re only going to end up magnifying them further.

This, of course, makes being upbeat and energetic all the harder, which worsens our state, which leads to more frustration, anger, upset—which leads to more suppression… and so it goes.

Emotions unconfronted are emotions that pressurize/ swell/ and later explode in uncontrollable ways. It is only by facing the emotions that arise and giving them the time/energy/attention they require that they may move through us and release.

So, when it comes to positivity and optimism, here’s the catch-22 that each of us should remember: Confronting the “negative” is what leads to the “positive.” Trying to only confront/ acknowledge/ reinforce the “positive” is what leads to the “negative.”

I put “negative” and “positive” in quotes because emotions aren’t inherently either. They’re just signals. And it’s up to us to interpret the signals and act on them in appropriate ways.

Masking them under an unrelenting armor of positivity isn’t one of them.

P.s. I’ll be hosting a LIVE discussion on Twitter where we dive deeper into the Art of Optimism and discuss how to best deploy it. Details here.