feelings Archives - Be Brave Coaching

December 8, 2019

Looking at change differently

Flame to Change I LOVE CHANGE! Said no one, ever. Admittedly, my friend said it to me the other day, but she’s an anomaly. A lovely anomaly. Truth is, change can be difficult. In order to get to the new state, whatever it may be, you must end another. Oftentimes we approach change as though it’s a train. Everybody on board, into your new seats and away we pull from the station. Leaving behind the old way. No time for long, emotional goodbyes on the platform. It’s on to the new we go, looking back is for suckers.

Except.

Inherently change results in the ‘death’ of what was, and that comes with emotions that, if ignored, may have a damaging effect.

Change is often associated with business. The notion that ‘without change, we will perish.’ While there is truth to that, we encounter change in a wide array of places in our life, but don’t tie those to the word, hence we treat them differently. But they’re still change.

Your first, and then last child leaves for college.

You face a change in job.

After living in one place for many years, you move somewhere that’s altogether different.

You enter the middle of your life.

A relationship shifts…and then ends.

On the surface, we may not look at those instances as change, but they are. And with all certainty I can say they produce emotions that are far reaching. Until recently, one emotion hid in a corner. There, but I couldn’t quite identify it until someone else named it for me.

Grief.

Change results in grief. The closer the change is to us, the more significant the grief yet, we rarely take the time to acknowledge it, sit with it, process it.

I’m amid a change that, on the scale of 1-10 is an 11. It hurts, is raw and painful. In the several months I’ve been going through it I’ve often wondered if it should feel differently. In some respects, it felt like the wind got knocked out of me and I can’t quite catch my breath, and in others I feel relief. The conflicting emotions were confusing, and I wasn’t sure what to do with another one, numbness. Feeling nothing. New to me and arose as a defense mechanism, most certainly.

After the continuous swirl confusing emotions had continued beyond the point where I thought I could soldier through them any longer, I sought professional help. And exhaled. Within a short time, a new word surfaced that made sense to me and which I hadn’t considered. It was the one hiding in the corner, grief.

As though a light bulb had illuminated a previously dark space, I could see it. Of course, it was grief, yes! But now what? Oh, you mean I have to actually do something with it? Indeed. I was handed a tool that walked me through emotions I experienced, some named, others unnamed, all valid. And isn’t that the case for any of us in times of change? Sometimes we can’t put a name to the emotions we’re feeling, but once we either figure it out, after long suffering, or another person names it for us, it’s as though the final puzzle piece clicks into place.

Grief is normally associated with death, yet, when we think about death expansively, isn’t that what happens in change? One state ceases? Unless we acknowledge the ending, the new is tainted. Stained with the unresolved emotion we carry forward. We must grieve the loss and that phase may be brief, or it may span a longer time. But we must give it the time and space it warrants, or we’ll experience the aftermath.

Over a couple months, I worked through the grief exercise which culminated in reading it aloud. Yep, instead of simply having the thoughts in my head or on paper, I spoke them. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to that step, there was something cathartic about it. The exhale, feelings returning to my core. But once it was complete, I knew that holding on to those papers, what essentially was a letter, would only result in my returning to them. And there is no value in that. In any change, continuing to return to the emotions we feel during transition result in being stuck there. Which is counterintuitive to the process of moving through the grief cycle, feeling the feelings, in the first place. You don’t need to keep picking that scab.

So, I burned them. Ceremoniously, yet without fanfare, I placed them in the fireplace and lit a match. What I’d spent a couple months processing was ashes within minutes. When we go through change, whether personally or in business, we need to give grief the time it’s due. If we don’t, it’ll hide in the corner and come out in unhealthy ways. Destructive to you and the people around you. While not an easy process, one that is entirely worth the effort.

What change do you need to process? Give more time to? Realize the grief that is hiding, waiting for you to finally see it’s face? Friends, that’s the journey. Believe me, we’re in it together and my heart is for you. Sending you all the love. Be brave.

November 24, 2019

Truly seeing one another

I see you Throughout the day, we walk by mirror after mirror so you would think that when asked if we see ourselves clearly, the answer would be yes. But it’s not. Yesterday, I was polishing a handheld mirror that belonged to my great grandmother Marjorie and as the silver became brighter, I thought about the times she would have gazed into it. Wondering the thoughts that went through her mind as she reflected on it, if she saw herself clearly.

If I’m honest, looking at myself in the mirror, truly seeing myself, isn’t at the top of my list. It’s task oriented. At my hair while I’m drying it, at my face so that I can apply makeup, or pluck the persistent whiskers that have joined me in midlife -what is even up with those?!?!?! But to truly ‘see’ myself? Generally, it’s a hard pass.

Yet, in each of our faces, there’s a story, a lifetime, that yearns to be told. And when we’re seen by another person, we often feel stripped naked, unsure of what to do in that moment. People who can reach in and see our struggles and who we are at our core are rare.

That’s where Mr. Rogers comes in. Yes, Fred Rogers.

In the last few years, there’s been a resurgence of interest in Mr. Rogers and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the most recent. With Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, it was set up for success. I spent the afternoon immersed in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood yesterday and walked out with the understanding that he was one of those rare people who could see into your soul.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was one of the few shows I was allowed to watch as a child. That, Sesame Street, an occasional Romper Room…not the diet of television children have today. Because of that, there’s a warm fuzzy feeling, the memory of those days, which washes over me when I watch anything about him.

What solidly hit home for me was how he reached into people’s lives and met them where they were. He tackled many of the “unspoken” issues which continue confront children today. Divorce, racism, anger, sadness…he looked at real life, not a candy-coated version. His kind, gentle approach appealed to children then, and now. The emotions that arise within children, and adults for that matter, are often brushed aside. They don’t have the words to explain them and adults may not ask.

But Fred Rogers did. By speaking the unspeakable he normalized children’s feelings. They were seen by him. That’s the warm fuzzy, the memory of how he reached into my home and created the feeling I was seen. Thank you to Tom Hanks for bringing the feeling back.

What if we could do that for each other? See people, enter their space and assure them that their feelings, their emotions, are valid, and normal and worth exploring. We can, you know, but we must move in. Get closer, ask questions and be ok sitting in the uncomfortable space that comes next. He wasn’t using ninja mind tricks, he simply asked questions…and waited. We’re so quick to rush and fill in the quiet space we don’t let the question linger. People are seen when we wait. Like children, it takes us a hot second to identify what’s going on inside us and name it.

Who needs you to be the one who sees them today? Are you willing to ask questions and wait…letting the answer come when it’s ready? In those moments you’ll see another authentically, the true self that wants to be seen, to be known…to be reassured that their feelings are valid. Choose to be that person. Get closer…what you’ll see will be beautiful.

October 27, 2019

Permission to feel

feel the feelings While waiting for a flight recently, I struck up conversation with the guy next to me. Turns out, we were on the same journey, a quick weekend in Boston and now headed home. But our reasons couldn’t have been more different. Both were with family, but while mine was fun and adventure, his visited his gravely ill grandmother. He told me he didn’t think he was going to be able to go, but his cousin helped at the last moment. When I asked how she was doing, the answer was not well. It appeared she was going to pass away soon. Without a second breath, I found myself saying how fortunate it was he got to see her. “At least you got to be there.”

And then immediately caught myself. I’d rushed to sympathy instead of sitting with him in the emotion. Instead of empathy. Quickly, I changed course. Leaning in and talking about how hard it must be. Staying with whatever emotion this 20ish guy might be feeling about losing his grandmother.

It’s human nature to rush past emotion. To skip past empathy to get to the place where everything is better. “Look on the bright side,” “Something good will come from this,” “You’re better off.” The list could honestly go on forever, the variations having morphed over time to fit the situation.

Yet, we need to feel emotion, and, when the situation presents itself, to be side by side with others as they feel, if for nothing else to give them time to feel. Feel the highs and the lows.

Another tactic we use, a personal favorite, is to stay busy, productive. Nobody can fault me for that. I’m getting crap done. Except what I most need to do at times, which is to wrestle through the feelings. I know I’m not alone in this tactic, Brené Brown wrote about it;

“Crazy-busy is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us.”

Ouch.

Armor is nothing more than the defensive tactics we use to protect ourselves. From emotion, from what we need to feel, from up close life with people, including ourselves. You may be getting a tremendous amount done, hiding behind the socially acceptable guise of productivity, but it’s protection.

When we avoid the feelings, they don’t go away, the burrow down inside of us and wait for the most inopportune time to emerge. It’s because we haven’t looked at them face to face and wrestled through what they’re telling us.

Depending on the circumstance, they can run the gamut. Everything conceivable and even some we don’t want to own up to. I had an interesting conversation with a professional in these matters the other day who told me that societally, women are given permission to feel everything but anger, yet anger is the only emotion men can safely feel.

I found that fascinating but have seen it play out time and time again. I, for one, am quite anger adverse. It feels unsafe to me. Not a rational thought, but it’s the story I tell myself. In fact, I’m quite unaware to any anger I feel. And when faced with anger in another person, it feels more abrasive than it likely is. I feel it in my body, as though my center is being thrown off kilter. But anger is only an emotion. One that each of us can and do feel. The sooner we acknowledge that the better.

So, what of all this? What do we do with the emotions, the feelings?

Get down in the mud and wrestle with them. When we avoid, we defer. The feelings, emotions, will not go away. They lie dormant and until we process through, we might feel stuck.

And to the degree we can support another through the same journey, all the better. Feel the feelings and put down the armor that you think is keeping you safe, but in reality is doing nothing except allowing you to be numb and stuck, and distant from true self and others.

Our journey to authenticity is bumpy, and messy, and emotional. Be brave my dears, we’re on the path together.

April 28, 2019

Feeling and Release

Know what you feel I often watch, with curiosity, scenes on TV or in the movies where the person is upset and lets it out by screaming in the car. Pounding on the steering wheel. Emitting a string of profanity that would curl paint at the top of their lungs and, at the end, peacefully returning to the day’s agenda. Even writing those words makes my stomach turn, just a little bit.

Don’t mistake me, I have no judgement about it, honestly. But the thought of engaging in that type of release (because I get that’s what it is), feels like a forbidden fruit. I’m intrigued by it. I can see the value but imagining myself doing it is uncomfortable.

I had this conversation with a friend of mine the other day. She and I are wired differently, and she didn’t even blink an eye before saying that she has used this technique before. Cathartically. She challenged me to try next time I was in my car.

I did.

And felt like an idiot.

The first words that came into my mind after my half-hearted yell were “hell no, that’s not happening again.” So far out of my comfort zone I nearly had to adjust to a new time zone. I relayed the experience back to my friend who laughed, and she said I’d probably write about it.

She was right.

Because the experience continued to roll around in my head as I thought about why I was so uncomfortable. First of all, yikes, that sure felt like a loss of control. It wasn’t, but that’s what I experienced. While I continue to work on loosening up, at the core, I’m wound tight. Yelling, screaming at the top of my lungs was, to me, anything but in control.

Second, I’m conflict adverse, I tend to ignore my own anger (a whole other story) and yelling felt like conflict. Yes, even alone in my car. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried it at home before and that didn’t work out so well either. I waited until I was alone in the house and then I tried, came out more like a whimper if I’m being honest.

Despite my own aversion to yelling it out, alone, I accepted that it’s simply not me. I think we often try to force ourselves into a strategy that works for others, but not for us. “Everybody’s doing it,” it not a reason to do something that doesn’t work for you. Culture can press up on us, working to convince us we should give it a try, but none of that matters if it doesn’t work for you.

That said, with respect to the release of negative feelings within yourself, within me, find a strategy.

The first strategy is to recognize the anger is there in the first place. Sitting with it, wresting and determining the source. I’ve learned that it’s often not what I think at a surface level. And then figure out what works for you. Negative feelings are akin to a cancer within our bodies. They take a serious toll on our health. This is not an alternative idea, it is fact. It is critical we find a way to process and release those feelings. Whether you scream in the car, or alone in your house, talk through it, burn sage, go to Taekwondo, or whatever it is that works for you, let it out.

I’ve had the Brene Brown The Call to Courage on Netflix on repeat. And while I am not a stranger to her work, I’m a devotee, I love listening to her talk about vulnerability. Vulnerability is courage. For me, at least, the release of anger is vulnerable. Vulnerable because it’s not an emotion I like or want to admit that I have. It feels “bad,” it’s not, but that’s been the story I tell myself. My life’s desire has been to keep ad promote the peace, so you can image my discomfort with anger. But for mental, spiritual and physical health, when it’s there, I need to talk about it, let it out.

While I still don’t see myself leading a vocal yoga class, or taking up yelling in my car, I do see myself being vulnerable. And although anger isn’t at the top of most people’s minds, or maybe it is, it’s a valid emotion that each of us have to one degree or another. An emotion that needs a release valve, preferably not in the form of incinerating another person in the process. I challenge you to think about where the anger may be coming from and then find a way to let it go. A way that is authentic and boldly you.