Confronting Negative Emotions Head On

Hey,

Thank you so much for taking the time to have a bit of a listen.

I was meant to be interviewed on a podcast,

But it got cancelled and I'm here now in the podcast room.

And I thought,

Well,

I got these great facilities,

I may as well just,

You know,

Share my thoughts with you and in hopes that it will inspire you and give you some ideas on how you can move forward,

Not only in life,

But in many other respects.

So,

I want to talk a little bit more about confronting your emotions head-on.

Because oftentimes when we experience intense moments of discomfort,

Or fear,

Or,

You know,

Moments that we don't feel like we can handle,

Our first response is to mask them.

And we do so in many different ways,

Right,

We'll do it by,

Say,

If you're feeling anxiety or grief or betrayal,

Whatever it is,

The first thing most people will do is either go to a substance like alcohol,

Drugs,

Or social media,

Or a video game,

Or TV,

A movie.

And while those things can help mask,

And in many ways numb,

Or distract you from those negative feelings that you're experiencing,

They're not going to help you grow as a person.

And what's going to happen inevitably is they're just going to,

You're going to experience it all over again,

Because you haven't grown from it.

So what I highly encourage anyone to do is when you're experiencing those moments,

Those feelings,

Those emotions that may at the time feel extremely uncomfortable and overwhelming.

And believe me,

I am speaking about this firsthand because I recently went through a breakup and it devastated my world.

And I was experiencing immense levels of grief.

And it is what it is.

And I had two choices.

Well,

My first choice initially was to use social media,

Play video games and distract myself.

And then within a few weeks,

I realized that,

Okay,

I'm still feeling that nothing has changed,

Right?

So finding ways to mask that is not necessarily the solution.

So I thought,

Okay,

Let's try something a little different.

Let's confront those emotions.

Let's deal with them.

Let's experience them and try to understand them a little better.

And it reminds me of a,

You know,

In the United States,

In the North America,

When there's a storm,

Right?

And you have the buffaloes and the buffaloes,

When there's a storm that occurs,

They actually run into the storm.

They run into the storm knowing that when they run past it,

It'll not come back,

Right?

As opposed to running away from the storm,

You just keep running away from it and it eventually catches up.

There's only so much you can outrun the storm.

So I like this analogy because it's very much like us.

If we're experiencing grief,

Anxiety,

Fear,

Anger,

Or any form of self-doubt that may inhibit us from growing,

Oftentimes our first response is to run away from that storm.

We're running away from it.

We're going on our phones,

TV,

Drinking alcohol,

Doing whatever we need to do.

Because it's very,

Very uncomfortable confronting them.

We want to avoid those feelings of discomfort.

So what we can do instead is when you're experiencing those moments,

And it could be something that happens to you daily,

It could have been a boss who was rude to you.

It could have been a friend who let you down.

It could be anything,

And you're experiencing those emotions in real time,

Live.

Instead of following your initial reflexes and going to social media,

To TV,

To whatever it is,

Or even to any form of substances,

Try sitting with those emotions and acknowledge that,

Okay,

They're going to go away.

The first thing you've got to remember is these emotions are going to eventually subside.

They are going to dissipate eventually,

And they're not going to completely go away because the memories are still going to be there,

But what's going to happen is that you are going to build strength and resilience as a consequence of having faced those emotions.

So what you can do is you just sit there and acknowledge that for the next hour,

For the next two hours,

It's going to suck.

It's going to be so bad.

It's going to be so uncomfortable.

You're going to hate every minute of it.

You're just going to feel those emotions,

And they may lead to negative self-talk.

They may lead to whatever,

Right?

That's the first thing you need to do.

You need to just acknowledge those emotions,

Acknowledge where they are coming from,

And start understanding them a little better.

Familiarize yourself with them because when you become more familiar with them,

When they're no longer strangers,

It gets a lot easier to actually work with them to grow.

So that's the first thing I would say is just acknowledge those emotions.

Now,

Next thing you need to do is you also need the tools,

Right?

You can't just stand there in the storm and let the storm throw you around,

Right?

You need the tools to keep moving forward into the storm in opposite directions until the storm surpasses you and keeps going in the other direction,

Right?

That is what you need now.

Now,

What I suggest you do if you're experiencing those overwhelming and overpowering emotions,

I would suggest a few things.

First,

I would suggest as you're experiencing them,

Write them down.

Write down what it is you're feeling.

Write down every thought that comes through your mind,

Every thought,

Whatever it is.

I suggest a pen and paper,

But you can use a laptop if that's more convenient and easier for you.

But just write it down.

Usually what I do is I'll set a 20-minute timer and just go for 20 minutes.

Just go for it.

That's not going to solve everything,

But it's a start,

Okay?

And then once you've written everything down for 20 minutes,

I want you to sit down and think for about five minutes.

Just think of things for which you are grateful.

Now we have plenty of gratitude meditations here on Insight Timer.

I have a few on my profile,

Which I consider to be very effective and many,

Hundreds of people have attested to that,

So even thousands.

Just feel free to check them out,

Mine,

Others.

It doesn't matter which gratitude meditations,

But it's a great way for you to just start re-inviting a new set of emotions,

And in this case,

It'll be positive emotions,

Hopeful emotions,

Which will set you up moving forward.

You've done that.

You journaled.

You've expressed what you're grateful for,

And then what I would suggest you do is go for a mindful walk.

Just go for a walk,

Clear your mind,

Experience something nice and neutral like nature,

And then you can go ahead and do what you need for the day with the knowledge that you actually confronted that.

Now,

This may happen more than one day.

It could happen over a series of days,

And that's okay.

Just keep following this strategy.

Keep confronting the emotions and dealing with them accordingly,

Becoming more comfortable with them because they are part of you.

That's where meditation kicks in,

And I know that when you're experiencing a turmoil in your mind,

It can be very,

Very hard to meditate.

I'm going to acknowledge that.

I'm not going to pretend that it's easy to meditate when you're experiencing a tumultuous mental state.

That's not what I'm going to do.

I'm going to acknowledge that it can be hard.

What you can do is close your eyes,

Set a very short time,

And then just go for it.

Just meditate for five minutes,

But here's the thing.

Don't have any expectations.

Do not expect for it to be a good meditation.

Don't expect anything.

For all you know,

It'll be the least effective meditation or at least in your mind that you've ever done,

But that's not the point.

We're not trying to achieve anything in this moment.

All we're doing is now we're closing our eyes,

And we are giving ourselves the tools to navigate through those thoughts.

That's what meditation ultimately does.

It helps you distinguish between what is a thought and what is reality,

And when you're in a negative emotional state,

Those two aren't aligned.

Many of the thoughts you're thinking are not necessarily aligned with reality,

And meditation helps give you that perspective.

So then you close your eyes,

And you focus on your breath.

You're focusing on your breath.

Within a few seconds,

You start having those intrusive thoughts,

And that's okay.

So you have those intrusive thoughts.

You acknowledge them.

Go back to your breath,

And then that happens again after three or four seconds,

And that's okay too.

You could,

Within five minutes,

And you can set the timer for as long as you want.

I'm just assuming that you're a beginner.

Within five minutes,

You could only get 10 seconds of meditation,

And that's okay too.

The point is you tried,

And the point is you gave it a crack,

And that you have put yourself in a position forward,

Better to what you were before,

And it's just I like to equate meditation to exercise,

So when you go to the gym,

If you're lifting,

Say you're not even ready to lift dumbbells,

You're just lifting two pairs of sticks,

There's nothing wrong.

You haven't failed as a gym goer.

You haven't failed as an exerciser.

No,

You have taken that first step.

You have taken that first step.

You have begun,

And that is incredible,

And then you know that you may be doing those extremely light weights for as long as you need until you feel more comfortable moving up to a kilo or two kilos,

Or if you want to use aerobics as an example,

You walk for one minute.

You're all puffed up.

That's fine too.

Then you keep going until two minutes becomes comfortable,

And meditation is no different.

Start small until you start feeling more comfortable with increasing the amount of time,

So that's all I have to say.

Don't put any pressure on yourself,

But most importantly,

Don't be afraid to confront these emotions,

Not in a confrontational pugnacious sense,

But in the sense of I am not going to run away from you.

I'm going to just be there.

I'm going to be present.

I'm going to experience it,

The worst of it,

The worst of it,

And through this process,

I am going to learn more about myself and grow as an individual.

If you don't do that,

If you mask it with substances,

With distractions,

With whatever it is,

Then you're going to eventually experience it again,

And you're not going to know how to handle it.

It's just going to be a perpetual cycle.

If you confront it without relying on any substances or distractions,

Then you'll grow.

It's almost like you've built a slightly better immunity to it.

Remember that there are so many meditations on my profile.

There are many meditations on Insight Timer,

But also remember that you got this.

You're an incredible person.

You were born with a gift,

With this soul,

With this God-given set of skills that allow you to overcome these bad moments.

It's just part of being human,

And you're going to get through it.

You are going to get through it.

If you need anything,

Feel free to message me on Insight Timer,

And keep up the great work.

Just always be kind to yourself.

Self-love is the first pillar,

The first pillar of growth,

And you can do it.

Much love.

Hope you enjoyed this talk,

And look after yourself.

Ciao.