30-Day Challenge to Empty Nest Success: Consciously Process Your Emotions 💚 (15/30)

The Your Empty Nest Coach Podcast, Episode 183

30-Day Challenge to Empty Nest Success: Consciously Process Your Emotions (15/30)

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[level-up music]

Consciously Processing Your Emotions is our topic for today (Day 15) in the 30-Day Challenge to Empty Nest Success. Yes, we’re halfway there.

[level-up music]

If this is your first time listening,  know we are diving into the challenge content. If you like what you hear, jump back to the episode titled “Getting Started with the 30-Day Challenge to Empty Nest Success” and then work your way through from the beginning - or visit EmptyNestSuccess.com to sign up for daily or weekly email delivery of this challenge that will lead you to companion videos, additional journal prompts, resources and more!

Here we go: 

00:44

Amazing human and beautiful soul, we began this topic a bit yesterday when we added on how to envision emotions within our Conscious Effective Olympian Living - and I invite you to dig in a little bit more today: 

Many of us were told over the years to hide our strong emotions. Have you heard these comments: 

"Cheer up," 

"You have nothing to be angry about," 

"Oh I'll give you something to cry about." 

Statements like these certainly don't teach us how to process or pay attention to our emotions. 

It is a bit of a rarity to find loved ones and others who are willing to share their emotions, tell you things like: I’ll be okay. I just have some emotions I need to pay attention to for a little bit of time. 

Can you imagine a parent allowing a child to be angry and encouraging the child to see what they can learn about themselves as they experience the anger? What thoughts are on their mind? Are they enjoying the anger?  To be honest, it might feel way better than the despair they felt moments earlier, or hopelessness they might have been feeling. And then when they get to the other side of the anger, they may be able to move to another emotion that feels even better. 

They may discover the anger really didn’t serve them much at all - or the way they expressed it brought up other things. And the next time they feel it, they may process through it quicker.

What would a world, where we all did this, be like?  These are the kinds of things I like to think about.

In our ever-expanding analogy, I imagine our avoiding and ignoring emotions as we are well-trained to take any thought-box delivery with a strong emotion and toss it in the basement of our home with all the other strong emotions. 

I see all the angry ones are together. All the hopeless ones are together, happy, sadness, you make the piles. The more boxes that are together, the more the energy in that emotion expands over time.

As the thought-box delivery comes down, it quickly is magnetized to the pile that it matches and it becomes STRONG. I almost can visualize them rumbling a bit.

Whether the emotion was triggered by something you watched on TV, in social media, a conversation you had, maybe even driving your car, we don’t know any different, so there’s no reason to beat ourselves up. 

Simply acknowledge that this may be happening. And, if this analogy kind of works for you but you can kind of make it fit a little better, please, make this your own.  

I'd like to encourage you to consider experiencing your emotions (not tossing them down the basement) can be freeing. Sure, we may have been taught to take those emotions, put them into storage and lock them away. 

Taking a look at the emotions, and considering why the emotions are there - what is raising them in us can allow us to clear the clutter of our mind quickly - or quicker than we used to.  I encourage you to become conscious of your emotions. You’re not going to catch them all, but if you start with one, that’s a win!

As you learn to sift through your emotions, pay attention to how they feel in your body, and decide what to do with them before they make it to the basement area. It’s a lot easier to open a single box and to process it, then to go into the basement, grab that box that’s now in a rumbling pile of emotion.

And lets be real, sometimes you open the box, you look at the emotion, and you think, “Yeah, this is justified!” That’s really good! Other times you may be “why was I so angry about this, that’s really no big deal.”   It’s all for you to figure out - make it fun! 

And, there are times when we have to store away emotions briefly until we have time and safe space to process them. When you begin to make that the exception rather than the norm, you may find your life becomes freeing. 

Then, when you do have the time to process your emotions and you end up visiting the storage area, it doesn’t mean you need to dive in and re-evaluate all of your past emotions or anything. Honestly, if you are feeling good, you don’t even have to look at that original box!

Remember, I’m not your boss. You use your own inner guidance, but if you decide to do a deep dive into those emotions, that is a really good time to seek a therapist or another mental health practitioner. They are skilled in helping you navigate all that may come up. 

For now, though, and the future, what if you pay attention to your emotions and consider that, yeah, maybe you just need to be sad. What if you share with your loved ones things like, “Hey, I'm sad. And it’s okay that I’m sad. It really  makes sense. This is a bittersweet time for me.” Looking at the Empty Nest in particular, we could continue with things like,”  I am really excited for you but I'm also sad because I like having you around. And we've built this relationship. I'm really proud of you,  so, I'll miss you. I'm gonna have sad moments but it's gonna be okay. And I am really excited for you."

Not only are you gifting yourself with the ability to take that thought-box delivery, open it up, look at it, consider it and process through - decide where you want to put it, but you're also showing your children and loved ones what emotions look like - that it's okay to have them and this is healthy. 

See where this all lands for you. Ultimately, it’s your journey so do what you feel inspired to try or not try. Conscious Effective Olympian living is super fun and it takes time to adjust - it’s worth it but there is also no rush at all.

A reminder that this is the “meatier” portion of the challenge - and you may need to chew on the concept a little bit. 

Enjoy considering all of this. Be curious about where your thoughts go, and consider what would your life look like if you felt your emotions and you weren't afraid to feel them? Super fun! If you already do this - well done!

06:48

[level-up music]

Your journal prompt for today is …. Reflect on a strong emotion that you initially pushed down - one that isn’t too tough - can you identify where that thought originally came from?

[exit music - upbeat]

Thanks for listening today! Lean into some of those emotions and don’t you dare forget that you are amazing! 

Chat next time!

[end]