Learning to truly feel emotions can be scary if you're not used to it, but practicing this skill allows you to not only feel negative emotions but positive ones as well.
Cadre family doctor Kerry: There's a negative stigma about emotions. She says experiencing emotions is actually a good thing. By allowing yourself to feel an emotion, you validate that emotion and allow it to run its course. Kerry: The positive effects of learning to be vulnerable with your emotions outweigh the negative effects.
Hey, Cadre family doctor Kerry here. Today, I want to talk about what it's like to experience emotions and really learning how to be vulnerable with your emotions. This is something that I've struggled with my entire life and only recently started working through. And I want to explain to you, first of all, there's a negative stigma about emotions, okay? It's, you come across somebody who is an emotional person, and they have extreme highs, extreme lows, and it's. I mean, especially as a female, right?
Like, to be told, like, oh, my gosh, you're so emotional, or you're so drama. Like, those are bad things. But I want to dispel that myth right now because experiencing emotions is actually a good thing. We were created with emotions for a reason, because emotions tell us a lot of stuff. And there's not just negative emotions out there. There's good emotions. And so by being somebody who had control over my emotions my entire life, it actually really harmed me in the end because I wasn't allowed to be vulnerable in a relationship.
And because I could feel numb about negative emotions, I also then was feeling numb about positive emotions because I didn't know what it was like to really experience an emotion. My fear was always, well, what if it gets out of hand? For example, what if I feel irritable and then I become angry, and then I become rageful, and then I become homicidal? Like, I'm not going to be able to contain that. Like, what's going to happen to me if I end up with that much rageful emotion, if I allow myself to actually experience the anger?
So, I'm not sure if this is something you've struggled with, but by growing up in an environment where I needed to be in control of my emotions, and especially in relationships, I learned to get really good at this. And like I said, it didn't serve me well once I entered into friendships and especially intimate relationships with a significant other, because then I wasn't able to really open up. So the things that I've tried that have worked for me over the past few years, and this took a while.
This isn't something that changes overnight, because you are so skilled at pushing aside those emotions that the second an emotion comes up, your body just knows how to respond. And. And I was really talented at this, so this took a lot of work. But let me tell you that fear of the emotion kind of taking over you and not being able to control what you're gonna do or what you're gonna think or what you're gonna say it totally false. By allowing yourself to actually feel an emotion, you validate that emotion, and it kind of allows it to run its course in your body.
So, for example, if I get irritable and I say, oh, my gosh, I'm really irritable, and now I'm just really p***** off and really angry, and I just kind of sit with that in a safe place. Obviously, don't do this in, like, a crowded elevator or something, but in a safe place where you can just allow that, that emotion to kind of run through your body. And then my next tip for you would be to really figure out, where are you feeling that emotion. You know, it might feel like a tightness in your chest, or it might feel like a deep pit in your stomach.
Like, just really focus on where you're feeling that emotion and just kind of let it run its course. Remember to breathe through this exercise, but allow it to run its course, and a lot of things will start to come up for you, you might discover that the source of that emotion is really something else, that, like, what you thought you were angry about wasn't actually that, and it was something else. And then you can start to kind of process through that mentally. Obviously, if you get to a place where you're, like, hyperventilating and not breathing, definitely bring in that protective mechanism to stop.
But allow that emotion to really run through your body, and you'll be amazed at how you feel, because it no longer has that power over you when you do this. And let me tell you, the first time I really allowed myself to even experience joy, I felt like my heart was gonna explode, like, so the positive effects of doing this and really learning how to be vulnerable with yourself far outweigh the work and the negative effects that come along with it, because it is a lot of work. It is a lot of work.
I will tell you that right now. And it is something I still work on on a regular basis. And I'm so grateful to be in a relationship with someone who calls this out in me, who, you know, will say, you seem really anxious. I'm not anxious. Well, of course I'm anxious if I'm answering that way, but just really giving me the safe space to feel that emotion and understand. So why am I anxious? Because pushing it aside isn't working for me anymore, which is awesome. But I just want to let you know that emotions in general are a good thing.
They tell us a lot of information, and a lot of times, it really reveals something underneath the surface that we're not aware of. So give this exercise a try. I hope it helps you. And stay tuned because I'm going to talk way more about this topic as I share about how it was like for me, basically to learn how to be vulnerable in a relationship. So thanks, guys, until next time.
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