It doesn't stop, so where does it go?

Shift was real this week.

Everything is fine — not in the least favourite F word way, but more like the way that you’re sore after running a half marathon: you prepared for it, knew it would be hard, but did it, survived, and now you just want to take a hot shower and sleep for a week.

To be clear, I definitely did not run a half marathon…my step count can attest to the fact that my butt was firmly planted in front of a computer for most of my days — but mentally and emotionally, I am spent.

Life was a lot, and the feelings I had to process reflected that.

Without going into all the details of what transpired (because this is an email, not a book) I want to share the ways that I practiced Self-care so by the end of the week, I find myself emotionally exhausted, but not defeated.

As I’m writing this email, I’m background watching The Long Pond Studio Sessions (if you know, you know 👀) and they are talking about the song Seven.

Taylor comments that the song was inspired by toddlers throwing tantrums in the grocery store, and her wondering when she stopped doing that; feeling so upset and outraged that she would throw herself on the floor and throw cereal at her mom. Jack points out that we don’t stop having those feelings as adults, so where do they go? What do we do with them now?

As if I couldn’t love this exchange enough already, Taylor nails it with her last comment before they go into the song: “We can’t be throwing tantrums all the time, and we learn that’s not the right thing to do. But there’s something lost there.”

I couldn’t agree more. Because yes, it’s not acceptable for us to lash out at others because of our feelings — but trying to ignore or shut them down isn’t the answer either, and that brings me back to what I want to write about today:

I’m okay in spite of all the Big Feelings I had to process this week, because I knew what to do with them.

(No, my solutions didn’t involve throwing cereal at anyone, and although I did throw myself on the floor at one point, it was 99% melodrama).

There are 3 core practices — outside of meeting my basic needs like sleep, food, and hygiene — that help me process and reflect so that I can show up for and work through the inevitable challenges of life without losing my Self to them:

Put stopper on the feeling in the moment, and intentionally come back to tend to it.

I know it’s not helpful for me to act on my Big Feels when they show up. The hot skin and racing heart and clenched muscles that come with a stress response…I am poised to fly off the handle, and I know there will be collateral damage if I respond from that place.

I can't if I’m angry or ashamed or what I’m feeling, but I know I’m feeling something big. It’s overwhelming, and it makes me panic, so I focus all of my energy on listening and remaining in the moment, mentally closing the door on the feeling, until I am in my car or alone at home, and then I let it out.

Because I usually don't know exactly what I'm feeling yet — the primary feel hasn't risen to the surface — I put on whatever song I feel like listening to, and I sing and scream and dance and cry. I give myself to the feeling until it lets me know it's done, even though it's scary sometimes.

Yes, even now, as an adult, feeling fully is scary AF.
I talk about it with the people in my life who are safe spaces.

Not everyone is a safe space, even if they want to be. You are the only person who can determine what it means for a space to be safe to you.

In my case, safe spaces mean that I don't feel judged for the feelings I have. I can say the things I'm trying to make sense of out loud, without the receiver taking everything as truth. They aren't scared of my Big Feelings, and don't try to rush me through them.

They hold space, instead of trying to shape my experience.

This helps me to filter through the noise, and hone in on what's really going on. Because the closer I get to naming what the feelings are telling me, the more resolution I feel — even if nothing about the external circumstance has changed.
I need to move my body, and think about something else.

Once I've worked through the emotional and mental pieces of the puzzle, moving my body is how I integrate the experience. My activity of choice is usually putting a podcast in my earholes and going for a walk with the dogs, although yard work and gardening is a close second.

This gets my heart rate up, my breathing consistent, and my muscles moving in a proactive, stress-metabolizing way — versus the reactivity-based physical response to the stress of an interpersonal challenge.

Listening to a podcast or audiobook is big for me because I've usually reached a point of diminishing returns thinking about the problem. Getting my brain actively engaged in something that isn't related to the source of the stress helps me set a mental boundary and move on with my day.

It doesn't mean that I won't come back to the issue — the most pressing challenges in life are rarely a once-and-done thing, but I need a break to make progress.

Honestly, I hope none of that was revolutionary information for you because I talk about these strategies a lot — I share them again today not because they’re new, but because they work.

The body was designed to experience stress, process it, and come back into a state of relaxation and repair, and these are activities that help us to facilitate healing, and ultimately, growth.

In the same way that going for a regularly scheduled run will help you build the endurance and stamina to go longer distances, building your emotional resiliency with an active feelings processing practice helps you hold your ground when the rumble comes — and to get back up when you’re (inevitably) knocked down.

That doesn’t mean that these 3 core practices are the perfect recipe to manage your Big Feelings — this is my work. But I hope that by reading what I get up to, you start thinking about what your recipe card would look like. And if you already know, hit reply and share your best practices because I'm always keen to try something new!