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Mindfulness and Intense Emotions
51 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to the Mindfully Refreshed Podcast, where we explore the transformative power of mindfulness. In this episode, we dive deep into the realm of intense emotions, focusing on two powerful feelings that often challenge us: anger and fear.
Life can sometimes throw us into the stormy seas of anger and fear, making us feel overwhelmed and out of control. But fear not! We're here to equip you with mindfulness techniques that will help you navigate these emotional tempests with grace and composure.
Join us as we uncover the evolutionary origins of anger and fear, understanding why these intense emotions were crucial for our ancestors' survival. Then, we'll explore how mindfulness acts as a guiding beacon, encouraging you to step into the role of an observer, allowing you to witness these emotions without getting caught in their powerful grip.
Discover the practical tools and mindfulness techniques you can use to manage anger and fear effectively. From mindful breathing exercises to the R.A.I.N. method for emotional clarity, we'll provide you with actionable steps to cultivate emotional intelligence and resilience.
By the end of this episode, you'll have a toolbox full of mindfulness strategies that empower you to face anger and fear with a newfound sense of calm and self-compassion. Don't let intense emotions capsize your ship; learn to sail through them with mindfulness as your steady compass.
Tune in to the Mindfully Refreshed Podcast and embark on a journey toward emotional mastery and personal growth. Embrace the power of mindfulness and seize control of your emotional well-being.
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Transcript
Introduction to Mindfully Refresh Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Mindfully Refresh podcast, where we explore different types of mindfulness, talk with experts, and bring you the help to discover the joy in your journey.
Benefits of Mindfulness
00:00:20
Speaker
Mindfulness is used to help heal stress, anxiety, depression, help us to better regulate, enhance our relationships with ourselves and others, and to experience more happiness.
00:00:33
Speaker
In each episode, we will look at the benefits, challenges, and offer tools and an actual practice from myself and other experts to help you find more joy in your journey and to refresh your mind. I am Tracy Len Pearson, mindfulness coach, restorative yoga teacher, and psychotherapist, but really just a girl working to find the joy in her own journey. Welcome to the Mindfully Refreshed podcast.
00:01:02
Speaker
Welcome back or welcome if this is your first episode. I'm Tracey Lim Pearson, so excited to have you on the Mindfully Refreshed podcast today.
Techniques for Managing Intense Emotions
00:01:13
Speaker
Today's podcast is a different thought than originally I had planned.
00:01:20
Speaker
After our last episode, I got a couple of emails about mindfulness for intense emotions. We talked a lot about anger and how mindfulness can help with that. But what came out from some of the questions were,
00:01:37
Speaker
What about other intense emotions such as fear or some of that just normal intensity that we feel about situations when we can't really pinpoint what the emotion is? So that's what we're going to talk about today.
00:01:57
Speaker
And as we kind of look at whether it, whatever the emotion is, you know, mindfulness offers us that awareness and compassion for what we're experiencing. And what I find personally is also even sometimes what other people who might be annoying me are experiencing.
00:02:19
Speaker
And I then have a better capacity to deal with some of their behaviors simply due to my mindfulness techniques. So I want to start by just kind of acknowledging that, you know, we all have intense emotions. And again, you may have heard me say this in the past, but we have to stop looking at emotions as a good emotion or a bad emotion.
00:02:50
Speaker
And I love the way that this question came in because it was, how do I deal with intense emotions? So again, emotions, I see them kind of like your car dashboard. If my check engine light comes on, that's just a warning. So that's a...
00:03:11
Speaker
natural emotion that just might be happening. And what I love about this question is because it talks about intensity. Because sometimes when I take my car in, I just simply need an oil change. Other times it might mean that there's something
00:03:25
Speaker
um, bigger with the engine or some, I don't, I'm not a car person, as you can probably tell, or some other bigger thing that might be a little bit more intense. And that is a great way to look at and to describe emotions in terms of intensity.
00:03:45
Speaker
Now, what mindfulness does for us is it allows us to begin to kind of pull back from that emotion without judgment. That's why we're not looking at it as good or bad. It's simply an emotion and to create that space between our emotions and our reactions so that we can decide how to move forward. We can look at what is my best action here as a result of that.
00:04:12
Speaker
Now, with big emotions, I want you to think about, you know, maybe having two parts of your brain, which we do, a thinking part and a feeling part. And usually they work together like teammates, like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. They might, I'm really aging myself, I just realized with that example. But they work together like teammates, but sometimes strong emotions can come up
00:04:37
Speaker
And they become super loud that makes it hard to focus on the thinking part, because all you have is just the emotion part. It's like trying to have a conversation when it's really, really loud in a room. You can only get bits and pieces. And what happens is when the emotion takes over, like that loud noise, you're only getting bits and pieces of your thinking. We're not able to problem solve as well as we would.
00:05:06
Speaker
if both parts were working together. So when you feel a really big emotion, no matter what it is, just think of it as like that loud noise is taking over. And we need to figure out how to quiet things down so that you can take a step back and pay attention to it. So, you know, emotions can sometimes be so strong that it makes it really hard for your brain to think through or work properly.
00:05:36
Speaker
And they just kind of push all that thinking out. Again, this is where mindfulness comes in because we're working and we're learning.
Understanding Mindfulness in Daily Life
00:05:45
Speaker
And I like to say that mindfulness is a practice because it's something that we're constantly doing because our emotions and things change.
00:05:56
Speaker
It's also something that we have to practice. Sometimes I will share with people, and these are usually more children, but I'll share with them some mindfulness. They'll tell me how they got upset one week, and I tried that mindfulness thing and it didn't work. Well, sweetheart, you have nine years of not trying that mindfulness thing and throwing things and yelling when you get angry.
00:06:20
Speaker
So yeah, if you just try it one time, one shot in the dark, it probably won't be as effective. So it, I want to stress that first. It really is a practice. So what I'm looking to do is to kind of introduce you to the concept of present moment awareness and its role in
00:06:41
Speaker
recognizing the onset of those intense emotions because when it's intense, it's also often fast. It just kind of pops in. So when we're talking, when I'm talking about present moment awareness, we're going to start to talk about like your bodily sensations, what you're feeling in your body.
00:07:02
Speaker
the emotions that you're feeling as well as important, and then your thoughts. And sometimes it includes even the things that you do. So I can give you an example of that.
00:07:15
Speaker
When I get angry, and this isn't something that I picked up early on by myself, someone mentioned it to me. I was working in a group home with troubled teens, I guess if you want to call it. They weren't really troubled. They were normal teens who just had unfortunate circumstances. But I was working with a group of them, my ex-husband and I,
00:07:40
Speaker
And I would describe it as an intense job. I was young. I was 21 years old. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no training about my own emotions and how I grew up, which made it a little bit complicated.
00:08:00
Speaker
So one day a couple of the girls were coming in. The incident had happened with a different girl and then two of the other girls were coming in from the home and we had this giant counter and I was just like spraying fantastic or something on the counter and wiping it down and using my whole body to clean. And as the girls came in the house, one of them said, who's in trouble?
00:08:26
Speaker
And I said, how do you know someone's in trouble? And she said, because you always clean obsessively when someone's in trouble, you're always scrubbing that counter and it already looks clean. That was the first time that I realized that my emotions were showing on the outside. And what we're, as we're describing this in terms of being able to recognize that then became kind of a marker for me.
00:08:53
Speaker
to better recognize when things like that happen. So the first thing I would start to notice is that, okay, I'm wait, I'm wiping down the counters and then I begin to pick it up a little bit earlier. Okay, wait, I'm standing in my hand with the fantastic and the, and the paper towels. Does the counter really need to be clean? Then I could pick it up from where, okay, I'm headed to the, to the cleaning closet with my keys.
00:09:18
Speaker
So we are beginning to pick up on, so it was the behavior that then brought me to thinking about, okay, now what's happening? I'm standing at the cleaning closet with my keys. What's happening inside my body? I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling rushed. I have a little bit of anger and I'm also afraid. So behind all of that was real fear that I didn't know what I was doing. I felt overwhelmed in this job.
00:09:49
Speaker
And then as I'm, now you can see a clear picture of how I'm able to kind of step back and recognize what is happening.
00:09:59
Speaker
Um, and I'm even able to start to pick up on my own thoughts about it, that I'm not equipped to do this. I don't have enough training. I don't, I'm making this up as I go along and that's scary. So that is the beauty of mindfulness. It's kind of like a traffic cop in your mind. It's just standing there on the side of the road and watching the traffic without getting caught up in it. Noisy cars are coming by.
00:10:27
Speaker
But the traffic cop is just there, just like, okay, I'm just waiting for somebody to really be speeding, but not caught up in that emotion. So mindfulness teaches us then to take deeper breaths when that's happening, to pay attention to what's happening right now, and to pay attention to the things that your body is feeling, and even your heart, your emotions. What are you feeling?
00:10:56
Speaker
what's happening there. It's a superpower. It helps you to stay calm and in control of those big emotions when they take over. So
00:11:09
Speaker
It also helps us to detach from the narratives that we tell ourselves. As I was describing some of those for you, it was that I am afraid. I really don't know what I'm doing. Um, I'm scared. I'm going to mess one of these girls up emotionally because I don't feel trained. So that is where mindfulness is coming in because
00:11:34
Speaker
As I'm having these feelings, first of all, I can say that, okay, this is a feeling that I'm having, but I can also begin to look at it in terms of, okay, how can I help with this narrative? Or is this narrative even real? So one person has described it to me as a way of like thinking about a box of crayons,
00:12:03
Speaker
And each crayon has a different color. You're painting a picture with these emotions. And why we don't want to just say, I'm only this, I'm only feeling this, or I'm only feeling that. You are thinking about like the whole picture. So for me, I wasn't only feeling afraid, I also was feeling overwhelmed.
00:12:21
Speaker
If I just focus on that fear or that anger like we did in the last podcast, then I might be missing something else that's coming with it. And what we know is that often our feelings are like icebergs. Those, that first feeling that we describe is usually that top feeling that we feel safe enough to describe.
00:12:44
Speaker
And what mindfulness is allowing you to do is to dig down just a little bit deeper into a more vulnerable area. You don't have to admit it to anyone else, but just beginning to recognize what is there. Because we are a mix, aren't we? We're a mix of our feelings and our thoughts, and it's not just one thing.
00:13:08
Speaker
And as we learn and grow, we're going to begin to pick up different crayons and realize, oh, wait, I've been leaving yellow out and yellow has been in this all along. So mindfulness helps you to better understand you and the intense emotions that you might be feeling and then what to do with them.
00:13:33
Speaker
For me, that helps me to be more kind to myself. We're so hard on ourselves as people. But if you begin to think about like, you know, all the different things that you're experiencing, then you can be kinder to yourself. You can take better care of yourself. And isn't that kind of the overall goal? Now, in working in this group home,
00:14:03
Speaker
You know, I can say that as I began to slow down my thought processes, I began to realize that, no, I have been trained. I do know what to do, but I am very much overwhelmed. And I am afraid that the training that I got isn't working. I'm afraid for me. I'm afraid for these girls. I have anxiety about it all.
00:14:32
Speaker
And the more I can recognize that, the more I can decide like, okay, well, what can I do about that? Can I get a little bit more training? Can I talk to a supervisor to do that? Can I ask coworkers for help? Can I just stop and take a step back? And can I teach that also to the girls? Is that something that we can begin to practice as well?
00:14:57
Speaker
And the more you're able to do that, you're solving your own problems. You're beginning to feel better if you allow yourself to.
Practical Mindfulness Methods
00:15:08
Speaker
Now, there are a few different techniques that you can use to help manage and kind of slow those emotions as we're talking about.
00:15:20
Speaker
We're going to really focus on breath awareness. So I am going to have you get to a space where you can practice these.
00:15:30
Speaker
If you're driving, this is a great time to pause and pick it up later once you get kind of to a more safe space. Or if you're around other people, you might just kind of want to get to yourself, although you can do it in front of someone. You will not need to gather any tools, but I will give you a few minutes and we'll take some time and listen to our sponsor for this episode, Silver Fox Luxury.
00:16:10
Speaker
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00:16:15
Speaker
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00:16:44
Speaker
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00:17:12
Speaker
And, um, it's called box breathing because it involves four equal sides, just like a box. Um, and one of the ways that we do this is that, you know, I've liked to find a comfortable quiet spot, um, where I can sit without being disturbed because I'm counting and math isn't my, my favorite subject. Um, and then.
00:17:36
Speaker
I gently close my eyes. So I'm going to walk through it and then we'll practice it together. And then we breathe in, taking a slow, deep breath through your nose for the count of four. And then we're going to hold our breath at the top there for a count of four. So thinking about it like a box. This is the second side of the box.
00:17:59
Speaker
And then we slowly breathe out of our mouth for a count of four, imagining that we're tracing that third side of the box. And then we're pausing once we exhale completely for a count of four, imagining that that is the fourth side of the box. So we are closing up that box. And then we continue that pattern, inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and then pausing for four.
00:18:29
Speaker
trying to keep those counts as comfortable as possible and trying to also stay focused on just your breath and the counting because sometimes our minds begin to wander and this helps to gently guide it back to the breath and to counting. So as we do this, it's a little harder on a audio version rather than just kind of watching. So I'm just going to
00:19:00
Speaker
Tap like that for council four. So we're going to, if you want to set and close your eyes, and we're gonna take a deep breath in. Hold. Exhale. Pause. Inhale.
00:19:30
Speaker
Hold, exhale, pause. Inhale, hold, exhale, pause. Inhale,
00:20:01
Speaker
Hold. Exhale. Pause. One more inhale. Hold. Exhale. Pause. Now you just go back to breathing normally.
00:20:31
Speaker
And what I really love about this is that it allows, you can just see as you're, it begins you to kind of feel calm.
00:20:39
Speaker
your focus, you can see why I can't do it around distractions because you're holding and you're counting and I get a little confused. But when I'm in, when I'm by myself and I'm feeling overwhelmed, it is a great tool to kind of pull things back together. You can step aside in a restroom, in your office, you can close the door for a few minutes. It does not take a long time. I love that. Now Navy SEALs,
00:21:08
Speaker
kind of get the credit for teaching. They teach this to Navy SEALs to utilize their intense situations. So it can be used for all of those intense emotions. And then as you do several rounds, usually about four to six should begin to help you feel more centered or grounded.
00:21:33
Speaker
If by chance after six, you're still not quite feeling as grounded as you'd like to, I would just suggest that you open your eyes, kind of take a look around, and then practice again.
00:21:46
Speaker
The more intense the emotion, probably the longer you might have to do it. That's just kind of the way that it works. The other thing is that the more you practice this tool, the easier it will be in terms of bringing down those intense emotions. So this is where I was saying like at the beginning with that nine year old kid that I was talking about, you have to practice a skill.
00:22:10
Speaker
So I like to practice box breathing a little bit every day so that when I am having those intense emotions, then I have something to fall back on. So I want to talk through one other exercise that can be used to help us to stay calm
00:22:33
Speaker
to be grounded in our own, to be grounded in the present moment, I should say. And that is the RAIN method. And you may have heard of RAIN. It's becoming more and more popular with mindfulness and meditation. But this is one that doesn't really involve, you're breathing normally through this exercise.
00:22:57
Speaker
but it is allowing you to begin to investigate and think about and recognize those intense emotions. I like to do this with a journal. So as I'm sitting down and I'm beginning to meditate or I recognize that I'm having an intense emotion and I take some quiet time to myself in the first part of RAIN, the R stands for recognize. So when I'm feeling those big emotions,
00:23:26
Speaker
I just begin to notice it and say kind of, okay, I see you. If it's anger or if it's anxiety or even if I'm not sure like what to pinpoint it, I'm recognizing it. Okay, no, I see you. Something is happening. There is a big, something big, something intense is happening in my body. I am responding to something.
00:23:54
Speaker
And just by simply stopping and paying attention to it, I'm looking at like, okay, what's going on outside of the emotion? You know, maybe what am I thinking about right now? And we're not truly investigating it. We're going to get into that in just a little bit, but I am recognizing that it's there and I'm also recognizing what else is around me.
00:24:23
Speaker
And then the A is to allow, to allow that feeling to be there. So, you know, I talked about how we talk about emotions being good or bad. And this is where we understand, okay, it isn't good or bad. This emotion, this feeling that I have has a right to be here because it is. I am allowing you to be, it's okay that I'm feeling it. I'm not pushing it away.
00:24:52
Speaker
I'm not ignoring it. I'm not saying, oh, anger, you need to get out of here. I'm letting it hang out for, I'm giving it permission because my next step now is to investigate. And now I'm taking a closer look at that emotion, kind of like a detective. Um, where, where is it showing up in my body? Is it that my chest feels a little heavy?
00:25:22
Speaker
Do I feel pressure in my head? Is my heart racing? So I'm paying attention to what I feel in my body. And I'm also looking at what thoughts are connected to this feeling. Do I feel like I'm going to lose my job because I don't
00:25:47
Speaker
I'm not doing a good job or I'm overwhelmed. Am I thinking that maybe taking this job was a mistake? Am I thinking that I'm going to end up doing more damage or causing more trauma to some of these girls that I'm working with? Am I angry with my spouse for not helping?
00:26:14
Speaker
Do I like the work that I'm doing? All of these thoughts that go with that is trying to figure out what made that thought, what made that feeling show up. Where is this coming from, basically?
00:26:32
Speaker
So that is the R, the A, and the I, and the N is to nurture. So it's okay for me to feel this way. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to feel overwhelmed. And I'm going to be here for myself. I'm going to take care of myself. So maybe now I can do some box breathing.
00:27:00
Speaker
Or maybe I need to take a step away for a few minutes. Maybe I need to make a cup of tea. But what do I need right now to feel better? And you can see how rain, I love the acronym because they say it's like giving yourself a friendly umbrella to help when those big emotions come around.
00:27:25
Speaker
So you're recognizing that it's there, you're giving it permission to be there, investigating why it's there, and then being kind to yourself, nurturing yourself, being nice to yourself so that you can better handle the intense emotions.
00:27:49
Speaker
And I mentioned that I like to journal this because it's something that helps me. And I often then think about the thoughts behind it the next time I feel that emotion. So if it's the overwhelmed, it's like, okay, you're feeling like you're not doing your job correctly or you're feeling like it's not working. Let's go back over the steps.
00:28:13
Speaker
Or it might be, maybe it's not working. Maybe the feeling that you have is completely accurate. Now what? But it allows me to think about my response rather than just responding, like just yelling back or obsessively cleaning a counter that doesn't need to be cleaned. I'm actually working myself up into a frenzy.
00:28:38
Speaker
So if you're a beginner, some ways to integrate these, this mindfulness into your daily routine is the
Incorporating Mindfulness into Daily Routine
00:28:46
Speaker
first one is to have like a mindful check-in, um, you know, to periodically check in with yourself throughout the day and to just become aware of, okay, what am I feeling right now? Um, you can even set this as like an alarm on your phone or your, your, um, smartwatch.
00:29:04
Speaker
just mindful check-in at different points of the day, like, okay. And sometimes people do it like in the morning when they wake up, during their lunch hour, right after dinner, and then before bed. It's just a way to become more mindful in your everyday practice. You can also practice more mindfulness activities such as meditation or even taking a mindful walk,
00:29:32
Speaker
just beginning to think about where you are and what's going on with you. And really treating yourself with kindness, especially during the times of intense emotions.
00:29:48
Speaker
So taking that step back, taking a hot bath or a hot shower or a cold shower, whatever you need that just kind of meets your need, treating yourself kindly during those times will help you to have a better outcome
00:30:05
Speaker
I like to think of it as it helps me from not having that icky feeling afterwards when I respond in that emotion. I don't know if you get that, but when I respond while I'm in those intense emotions afterwards, I always kind of get this icky feeling like, I should have said that. Why did I do that? I wish I hadn't done that. And this helps me to have far less of those.
Audience Engagement and Feedback
00:30:34
Speaker
So that is dealing with Intense Emotions. And I just want to encourage you again that any topics that you have or questions from these episodes, I hope that you write in. It's info at mindfullyrefreshed.com. I would love to hear your thoughts. I would love to explore other things that are important to you.
00:31:00
Speaker
And, you know, as we take this mindful journey together, you know, it really is a practice that is transforming. So I like to conclude with what I call wave lengths and wellness, and this is just a non
00:31:16
Speaker
mindful check in. And I just like to share things. If I have a guest, I really like to hear what our guests are reading, what they're watching or listening to. And I have just finished a series of books. I don't think I even remember the name of it, which is kind of crazy because these books are like seven to 800 pages long. But the author is Sarah Moss.
00:31:46
Speaker
or a mass, you might be the way to describe it. And these are court books, The Court of Silver, The Court of Roses. And it's this wonderful, fantastic land that she has built. I would describe it as a Game of Thrones meets Twilight, if you're into things like that.
00:32:09
Speaker
So I just finished that series and I'm taking a little break before moving on to her next series because I understand that those books are even longer. And then I'm also reading a book called There's No Coming Back From This. This is about a woman who was in her 50s who got into some tax trouble. She has a teenage or a college age daughter.
00:32:34
Speaker
and she goes to Hollywood and tries to reinvent her life. That's kind of interesting right now. In terms of podcasts, I'm still listening to the Office Ladies podcast.
00:32:47
Speaker
which I'm afraid is getting ready to wind down because there are no more episodes, but that's something that I'm listening to. I'm not watching a lot of television right now. I'm teaching again this fall, so there won't be as much TV time, but I hope to report something back to you next time.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I'm curious, what are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you watching? Feel free to write that in. And I get all of the emails come directly to me, so I will respond to you personally. And I just want to thank you again for joining me on this journey into the heart of mindfulness and how it really does have that transformative power to handle intense emotions.
00:33:36
Speaker
Until next time, I hope that you find the serenity and strength to be in the present moment. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Mindfully Refresh podcast for more insight or discussions shared with others. Stay mindful and take care.
00:34:00
Speaker
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for joining me. All the show notes and links can be found at mindfullyrefreshed.com forward slash podcast.
00:34:12
Speaker
In addition, you can find out more information on our website, www.mindfullyrefreshed.com, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, at Mindfully Refresh. It would be awesome if you would subscribe and rate this podcast. It helps us to be found by more listeners.
00:34:33
Speaker
I'd also love to hear your comments on how the show has helped you and have ideas even for future shows. You can send me a text at area code 313-524-2256 or email me at info at mindfullyrefresh.com. You can also complete a form on our podcast page.
00:34:56
Speaker
I hope you join us for another exciting episode of the Mindfully Refresh podcast. Again, I'm your host, Tracy Lynn Pearson, hoping you stay healthy, happy, and refreshed.