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Ep 21 Exclusive Preview: The Emotional Health Shift That Changes the Game
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In this special episode of Aligned Living with Dr. Autumn, Coach Autumn invites you behind the scenes of her membership platform with a raw and impactful teaching on emotional health. What began as a course recording turned into a heartfelt message about why emotional regulation and maturity are essential to making progress in every area of life—whether it’s your health, relationships, or spiritual growth. Autumn shares why our emotions often drive the choices we make, and how learning to navigate them can unlock the transformation we’re longing for. With a blend of vulnerable insight and practical takeaways, this episode offers a meaningful starting point for anyone looking to live with more intention, alignment, and wholeness.
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Savage by Beat Mekanik, Free Music Archive, License type: CC BY
Please visit: www.autumnswain.com
Contact: autumn@thealignedleader.org
IG: @drautumnswain
FB: Autumn Alena Swain
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Transcript
Introduction to Align Living Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello there, I'm Dr. Autumn, leadership consultant, wellness coach, author, and I'm incredibly grateful to be your host of the Align Living podcast.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm here to equip you with the tools, inspiration, and practical tips necessary to lead a life of wholeness and pursue greater shalom in your life and that of your families, teams, and communities.
00:00:34
Speaker
My mission is to empower you to lead from a place of holistic wellbeing. It's time to say, peace out to the fatigue, fog, and frustration of living in a place that lacks abundant wellbeing.
Exploring Holistic Well-being
00:00:49
Speaker
Join me as we embark on a comprehensive exploration of spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, social, and economic well-being, all within the comforting embrace of one podcast.
Membership Platform Overview
00:01:09
Speaker
Hey, fam, welcome to the Align Living Podcast. Coach Autumn here. I'm really excited for today's episode because it came about in a roundabout way. Let me tell you, um as most of you all know, I have a membership platform. I made it super, super affordable so I could um serve as many people as possible. But you get access to a bunch of courses that I continue to record new content. So it's dynamic. I do challenges and I have do live coaching, live group coaching.
00:01:37
Speaker
um So it's a really amazing platform. You can check it out at autumn swing.com.
Emotional Regulation Insights
00:01:40
Speaker
But like how this podcast episode came about was I recorded a course on a topic really, really near and dear to my heart. So impactful, like any goals you have related to your pursuit of wholeness or yourself, your families, or your teams, like what I talked about in this, um,
00:01:56
Speaker
lesson in my course, I'm like, dang, like this was really significant. So I was just going to rerecord a podcast episode, a shorter, more abbreviated version. But my I ah as I was ah speaking, I kind of went off script a little bit when I was talking it in this lesson and my my heart, I was just pouring out some things that I think are so significant to your aligned living journey that I'm like, you know what, instead of me rerecording this, let me just put out um a sneak peek of this, um of my course.
00:02:27
Speaker
ah And you get to hear um some of the lessons get super practical. I have like recipes, like specifics on how to eat, on mental health, spiritual formation, like if so much content up there.
00:02:39
Speaker
um But this one specifically on the importance of emotional regulation and emotional maturity and how significant it is in impacting every area of your life. Because what I realized for so long as I was helping people with their nutrition goals and their fitness goals and their spiritual goals and their mental health goals, that emotions come first, because every single decision and choice that we make um is impacted by our emotions in some way. So literally, this is such an important episode. Listen to the end, because in the end, the the last like third or 20, like quarter of this episode, um you know, is
00:03:19
Speaker
I get really practical for you, but I also um really speak from my heart on how significant um this is to your journey. And so um take a listen. I hope you enjoy. Again, it's a freebie for you from my membership platform.
00:03:36
Speaker
um Again, about the importance of emotional health in impacting everything. Like the whole purpose of Align Living is moving you from where you are to where you want to be this gap in the middle, like I get really practical on serving you and how do you bridge that gap?
00:03:52
Speaker
My membership platform goes even way more um in depth, way more resources, you know, way more
Understanding Emotions as Data
00:03:59
Speaker
support. than this podcast but this podcast i at least want to give you some start like start it's your starting blocks to get you going um in a positive direction so um enjoy this sneak peek and um yeah don't forget to visit my website have a great day hey there line living community i am so excited about the lesson that i'll be covering today because honestly it's probably one of the things that you felt you needed the least
00:04:25
Speaker
and pursuit of your goals but probably one of the most important things because it's often neglected but it's integrated with everything we do and so unless we understand what i'm about to talk about it is virtually impossible to make progress towards your goals it will also significantly help you understand not just yourself but the people around you that you have influence over from your family to your teams to your community so i'm really excited to dive right in i'm going be highlighting a resource i highly recommend that you'll be able to go further than what i cover here but let's jump right in so um i've talked about it a little bit before um just the role of emotions in what we do but i uh before you tune out here just understand that i don't it doesn't matter who you are what type of personality you have the way god created us is we are emotional beings so
00:05:15
Speaker
every single input into our lives go through the limbic system verse. So our emotions are activated. um And those are the initial input to our thoughts, our choices, everything. And so without good emotional health,
00:05:32
Speaker
or proper emotional regulation, um you know, it will be hard to live the life that you want to live. And so I'm just going to help you understand just how relevant this is. And I'm not just going to tell you that it's important. I just want to really practically sort of line living communities all about like break down what this means for your life. Okay.
00:05:52
Speaker
So just to to jump right in, trust me, you will be so glad you listened to this to the end. So stick with me. um For the longest me personally, I would focus on physical health, spiritual health, and mental health, like mindfulness, like what goes into our minds, right? I didn't pay so much attention to the importance of emotions until it started like becoming so relevant to my life that I couldn't ignore it. I mean, it's always relevant, but it really like I hit a place where I'm like, man, I need to give this attention.
00:06:23
Speaker
When I started doing a super, super deep dive into how God created our bodies, how our emotions integrate with everything else, our spiritual health, our physical health, our mental health, even our social health. Um, I became just fascinated by its re relevance and significance.
00:06:38
Speaker
And so our, you know, i think part of the reason that we we fail to give this space attention, um even though it touches everything else in our life is because, you know, when we think about physical health, like, okay, our bodies need to be well, we want energy and, you know, want to look healthy and fit and whatnot. Spiritual maturity. Yes, we need this to be a priority because fulfilling our purpose in life, we we need to grow in our relationship with God, you know, makes sense.
00:07:03
Speaker
mindset. We know that um we need to be, it it needs to be a focus for positive productivity and just the pursuit of any goals. Right. So these seem like so obvious that we just give space to them, but what about our emotions, right? Like how do we see them on a day-to-day basis and just how important they are? I think we fail to do so that. So that's really what this lesson is about.
00:07:22
Speaker
um So we go to the gym, we meditate, we pray, but do we prioritize how we can improve in our emotional wellbeing? So This right here, what I'm about to talk about will really give you a jumpstart in this space and it will help you thrive that much more. All right.
00:07:39
Speaker
So just to give you a little insight into how relevant this is, um I was doing, I had a season in my life that was pretty, pretty stressful. um My physical health, you know, I was doing all the things right, eating well, exercising, moving my body, getting plenty of sleep, all of it.
00:07:55
Speaker
but I still was experiencing some symptoms. And it turns out that because of the stress load in my life, my body was in constant fight or flight. All right. And so what that meant was um my emotions, I wasn't giving them the space and attention they needed um because our emotions are some of the most valuable information we could take in. We're not supposed to react to them, but we're supposed to use them as information to understand where we're at and then respond appropriately. Okay. and so you know my um emotions what i realized was without giving them proper attention they were forming my thoughts in unhealthy ways and so things would come to mind and i would have to really wrestle with it but if i got ahead of it by paying it more attention to my emotional well-being then i um it wouldn't have been such a difficult journey and so it's not that it's easy
00:08:46
Speaker
But um it's just super relevant. And and then, of course, you know, our spiritual health and emotional health are super integrated. Peter Scazzaro, Scazzaro, I think pronounced it right. I've talked about it in a previous lesson, um wrote the book um Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.
00:09:00
Speaker
And that goes super, super deep into just how integrated our emotional and spiritual health is. You cannot
Suppressing vs. Regulating Emotions
00:09:06
Speaker
separate them. Okay. And, you know, just think whenever you question this, be like, God made our bodies for a reason. If our emotional expression is um touching every cell in our body, then we need to understand that this is important. And so um I just wanted to one of the ah books that I constantly am referring to, um even though I probably taking out of his original context a little bit, is Jim Collins wrote a book called um
00:09:34
Speaker
good to great right and the very first line in that book i don't remember a lot of it but i remember reading good is the greatest enemy of great okay or good is the enemy of great greatness and this can apply to so many things but i think how it applies to this emotions lesson is if you are just constantly in a state of just saying i'm good and not acknowledging all the emotions that are going on, you are keeping yourself from moving into greatness, right? If you're suppressing them, if you're not acknowledging them, if you're not acknowledging their influence over your life, you know, if you just say, I'm blessed, I'm grateful, I'm good, right? But what are you really? Like, because we are experiencing a slew emotions but every day, every week, right?
00:10:20
Speaker
And so um you can feel blessed and grateful, but it doesn't mean that you can't also experience sadness or hurt or overwhelmed too. All right. And so um I would just listen to my friends say, you know, Autumn, you're just so emotionally stable. You're so level. You're so balanced. You're so even-given. heal, like all of these things. Right.
00:10:39
Speaker
And so I learned to live thinking that all was well, I would get this feedback and I'm like, yeah, I got this on lock. Like I know about emotional wellbeing, but then when you are challenged and this is where I could thank God for the hard, because when you go through tough things, you realize, dang, like,
00:10:57
Speaker
whatever it might be bringing up things from your past that you didn't know or it might be just realizing that because of some of the hurt and trauma that you suppressed um you're experiencing things in your present day that are bringing things up and in making it more your your emotions are having more of a negative impact on you than you'd like and so um Like literally level being level or even kill shouldn't be the goal because, you know, experiencing emotions isn't a bad thing. It should really, the goal should be how healthy are you emotionally? How well do you take in the information from the emotions you're experiencing and then help your, you learn from it, create self-awareness and grow um because you can force, know,
00:11:39
Speaker
like that even keel, right? Like you can force yourself to show, show up that way. But then when you're suppressing things like that's not healthy, right? So health is the goal. That means doing the hard work.
00:11:50
Speaker
But I will tell you after I spent time with that in, you know, therapy and prayer and, um Just doing all the things, all the things holistically in all areas with community, with physical health, spiritual health.
00:12:03
Speaker
After that, I elevated when I stopped suppressing and just being like, you know, and just, you know, good. When I acknowledged the reality of everything, it's just allowing me to level up.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so I want you to know this because the better you become and ah stewarding your emotions um and stewarding them well,
00:12:26
Speaker
your emotional health will be better and you will level up in every area of life. Okay. So, um, what you don't want, you don't want to suppress emotions. They'll just bubble up and also dysregulated emotions is not good. That creates chaos too. Like maybe you're not suppressing, maybe you, you overreact to every emotion that you feel that's not healthy either. Right. And so emotional regulation the goal. Emotional health is the goal.
Emotional Health and Societal Issues
00:12:51
Speaker
And that's where you find peace.
00:12:53
Speaker
All right. And so just to give you a little analogy, I'm a huge fan of gut health. And I remember I knew, I know that a lot of pharmaceuticals are not beneficial to our health. They're just suppressing or they're addressing symptoms, not the root cause.
00:13:07
Speaker
So gut health is a ah really important thing to me. um I talk about a lot. And i remember talking to somebody who had pretty severe, acid reflux. And I'm like, well, the root of that is actually, you know, addressing your gut health and doing the right things that your body actually needs. But a lot of people just pop antacids will antacids.
00:13:28
Speaker
are actually pushing the problem down further and further and further and it bubbles and bubbles and bubbles get worse and worse and worse. It's literally just a very, very temporary band-aid solution addressing a symptom.
00:13:38
Speaker
But when you get to the root cause, that is where freedom lies, right? Where you don't have to worry about S reflex again, or in this case where you don't have to worry about the stress that comes with emotional dysregulation when you're not treating your emotions, we're not taking them seriously. So it turns out This I'm good autumn was just in a whole lot of fight or flight.
00:13:59
Speaker
All right. And so there's a lot of things that I began to integrate into my life just that have helped in the journey and it is a journey, right? But I just want to encourage you to pay attention to all of it because the goal is aligned living it's having aligned life so you have to be really honest with yourself because living out of alignment results in unnecessary challenges if it's not addressed okay so i can guarantee some of the hardest ah places that you're in right now or have been in recently um could be tied to ah not stewarding your emotions as good as you could so this is where i want to help you out so our society
00:14:41
Speaker
struggles with things like debt and obesity and toxic relationships and spiritual complacency. All right. You can look at those as isolated issues, but they're not, it's all connected.
00:14:52
Speaker
And a lot, all of those issues, when you look at individuals like contributing to this, the these, the you know, the, this reality of um our communities is tied to emotions and,
00:15:08
Speaker
um emotional choices when we're not in a healthy place. All right. So for example, you have instant versus delayed gratification. I could tie delayed gratification as partial solution to addressing every one of those things above.
00:15:24
Speaker
If you want to be physically more fit, if you want to be financially more sound, if you want to have healthy relationships, if you want to be spiritually in tune with God and thriving more in that place as well versus instant gratification usually leads to place we don't want to be, but we continue to give in. Right. That is an perfect example of why understanding our emotions and emotional health is so important.
00:15:47
Speaker
OK, so um if you're thinking, I'm just not an emotional person. um or you don't believe how significant the emotions impacts are on you, I just want to give you an example of just emotions that we all experience, because it is not a thing. It's not even a thing to say I'm not an emotional person, because we all experience emotions. Now, different people express their emotions differently. Maybe you are one to suppress them more, but it doesn't mean they're not there. it just means they're suppressed.
00:16:15
Speaker
All right. And so just I'm trying to change the narrative here in how we think about emotions. All right. So you have a lot of the obvious primary emotions that are pretty universal happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust even. All right.
00:16:30
Speaker
And you have, you know, joy. and contentment and love and hope and relief, like all of these things that we might experience. Of course, we have anxiety and frustration and guilt and shame, loneliness, jealousy, disappointment, embarrassment, regret, and grief.
00:16:49
Speaker
Okay. These are also all hard emotions that we experience. And then as it relates to our relationships with one another, we experience empathy or lack thereof, compassion, again, lack thereof,
00:17:02
Speaker
envy, admiration, trust, resentment, affection, rejection, belonging. You see, like, it is literally impossible to tell yourself, like, this is not part of your life.
00:17:14
Speaker
And so, um oh, insecurity. I missed one. That's another one, right? um And so we need to change this narrative because we're all emotional beings, um because almost everything that happens to us or we experience is connected. to one of these emotions or two or three or four or five of them, you know?
00:17:32
Speaker
And so what I think people are intending to say is like, I have control over my emotional responses maybe. And that could be true, but it's not that we're not experienced emotions, or maybe you are experienced emotions to the extremes.
00:17:47
Speaker
Either way, the importance is that you're in pursuit of health when it comes to this. All right. And that is a very multifaceted ah solution or goal or pursuit, right? Just like if you want to be physically well, you can't just eat right. You also have to move your body and exercise. You also have to sleep well. You also have to manage your stress. So same thing with emotional health. There's just multiple things that you want to be aware of. All right. So let's talk about that because suppressing emotions or overexpressing, overexpressing them are unhealthy emotional responses.
00:18:14
Speaker
And so I just want to look at how, um emotions impact us, ah and it's tied to solutions. So just stick with me here. So because the reality is that if if the whole goal of Align Living, right, is you you have some goal, like you want to eat better, healthier relationships, or, um you know, you want to have better mental health or whatever it might be, like all um of our actions are influenced by our emotions.
00:18:41
Speaker
um They often drive how we respond to situations, how we respond to people, how we respond to decisions. Think about it. Think about the last important decision you made and how emotions influenced it.
00:18:54
Speaker
Could have been good. It could have influenced them good. for the good or not, you know? um But from these examples, I want to drive home the point that it isn't the emotion that's good or bad, it's how we choose to let it influence us. It's the stewardship right part, right?
00:19:09
Speaker
And so again, ah like most things, it could be a tool for good or harm, all right? So emotions act as internal signals.
00:19:20
Speaker
They're giving us information about our environment and our needs. Okay. That's a good thing. um It could be fear that that might signal danger or something that is happening around us that we need to be aware of. It could be joy that encourages us to repeat, but but you know, um like reinforce positive behavior.
00:19:39
Speaker
Emotions also influence decision-making. And I've been doing this series um on emotions. what influences our choices. Because when I go back to it and I say, okay, man, my desire with Align Living is to help people bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be.
00:19:53
Speaker
Everything in that gap is about what choices you're making. And so I knew that it was important to spend time here.
Intentional Living Through Emotional Regulation
00:19:58
Speaker
So if emotions influence decision-making, again, we're rarely making choices off logic alone. Our feel it feelings do guide what we prioritize and how we assess the risk versus reward.
00:20:10
Speaker
um An example, anxiety, which might in an unhealthy way lead to avoidance or lead to over preparation. um Again, another emotion, excitement can push us to take risks or try something new.
00:20:22
Speaker
OK, the third thing. the impact of emotions is that they affect relationships they just do they shape how we communicate and connect with others big time right it could be empathy that leads to supportive actions or if you've ever been in a relationship where um somebody lacks empathy it's really really hard um anger an emotion that definitely influences um relationships it could cause conflict Or it can also drive us to set boundaries, which could be really valuable.
00:20:51
Speaker
um Again, ah the fourth way that emotions um influence us is they could either fuel or block action. You know, you have motivating emotions, passion, hope, they they can energize us.
00:21:04
Speaker
um But overwhelming emotions like shame or fear can um cause us to move into a paralysis or withdraw or something that doesn't benefit us, right? Blocking action. unchecked emotions often leave to reactive behavior so again unchecked so like this is where i would say if there's a lack of emotional health it leads to reactive behavior which is where you don't want to be you want to respond not react so that's the biggest goal of this for me just to equip you with some tools to navigate this space because when we don't pause to process emotions we tend to react rather than ah respond
00:21:40
Speaker
like snapping when you're frustrated or making impulsive choices when overwhelmed. All right. um Think about a time where you've done that or somebody close to you has done that. How let's say someone else did it and you were on the receiving end of it like it doesn't feel good. Right.
00:21:56
Speaker
And so I'm just learning to recognize and regulate emotions helps us act more. intentional rather than being driven by just these automatic reactions. All right This is why it's so important to pause.
00:22:10
Speaker
And actually the very first in my um aligned, this line living community, this very first challenge that I had put out was a pause challenge. It um it was called mindful moments, the pause challenge.
00:22:23
Speaker
And it's just so important to get in the habit of doing so intentional pauses to think and process. All right. So I want to share with you a resource because this lesson is like just hitting the surface. I mean, it's enough for you to walk away and say, okay, like I know quite a bit, like I have several more points I'm gonna hit on this video, but I do wanna give you a resource um Dr. Anita Phillips wrote a book, The Garden Within, and the subtitle here is Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins. Like when I read that, i was like, whoa, that is a very, very strong subtitle, like war with your emotions ends. But
00:23:07
Speaker
It's kind of true. Like if you are not stewarding your emotions well, like they're battling against you because you experience something, then you feel something. And then if you react to it, it's going to put you in a negative place. Or if you sit with it in an unhealthy way, it's going to put you in a negative place.
00:23:24
Speaker
So we don't want to war with our emotions. We want them to be on our same side, which means it's all how we view them and use them. Okay. So I actually love her concept of the garden, this garden metaphor, because um it just represents this inner space of the soul where emotions and thoughts and spiritual life all intersect.
00:23:45
Speaker
um So um Dr. Phillips, he uses this idea of cultivating a garden to explain how we can nurture, our emotional and spiritual health. And just as a garden requires attention, care and patience, so too does our emotional health. And this is where in life, like, I think we need to leave margin for our wellness. This the whole reason I started Align Living Community, because how often do we just keep running forward so fast, expecting something to
Garden Metaphor for Emotional Growth
00:24:15
Speaker
change? Like,
00:24:16
Speaker
if if If our emotions are part of this garden that needs to be cared for, then we need to take the time to do it, right? So emotional growth and healing, because I want to touch on a positive and and negative thing here that just is super, super important to be aware of.
00:24:32
Speaker
In a garden, there are always weeds. And if you don't pull out these weeds, they'll take over. And so um the soil must be enriched for growth and we need to get rid of the weeds.
00:24:44
Speaker
So similarly, in our emotional lives, there are weeds, there's unresolved pain, there's bitterness, there's trauma, there's unhealthy patterns that need to be dealt with to allow for growth.
00:24:55
Speaker
And emotional healing involves confronting and removing these weeds, allowing space for healthier and more vibrant emotional life to flourish. Okay. And so how do we start to do that?
00:25:06
Speaker
Spending time with God, intentional time, asking him to help you with your growth. spending time in positive community people who want you to grow not just gonna let you sit in your emotions in an unhealthy way um so community and then of course physical health because um a lot of our emotional expressions through neurotransmitters and whatnot dopamine serotonin all of that connected to physical health and Um, our thoughts, our mind health and our emotions are intimately connected. We need to address that as well. So there's a lot of things we could start doing to address the weeds. We can go to therapy, right?
00:25:40
Speaker
Um, so there's also the other side of it's pulling out the weeds, but also planting seeds for that healthier inner life. So just like gardeners, whatever, you what do you want? What fruits do you want to see in your life? Right? What fruits, what flowers you must plant those seeds.
00:25:53
Speaker
um whether that's compassion or forgiveness or boundaries or self-care, and then consistency, consistently nurturing those things, whatever you want your life. All right. So, but I just want to step back and and look at the weeds again, because growth goals for emotions must consider our history. So a lot of the weeds are attached to our history in some way. So there's literally no way around it because there are physical presences in your body. Like,
00:26:21
Speaker
your memories have ah actual neuron, physical neuron or multiple of in your body. This isn't my greatest area of expertise. Dr. Caroline Leaf talks about this way better than I do, but basically like,
00:26:35
Speaker
When you have your, i've I, the episode that I did in my podcast, um, actually there's probably a lesson here on this too, but on the non-conscious mind, the subconscious mind, our conscious mind, mind blowing. It's so no pun intended. It's so important to understand this because inputs, if they are um triggering neurons that are attached in our non-conscious mind attached to memories, and that was how we emotionally responded with that experience, it will keep coming unless we do the work to undo the thought patterns that caused that emotional response.
00:27:11
Speaker
So it does take a lot of intention. Like you have to look at the weeds and start with thinking about your past, your history, what what associations do you make and start to unlearn and relearn um healthier patterns really. So um something pretty fascinating is ah there's a lot of psychological theories out there around the mind. It's huge. you know like I've read articles that are like not in total agreement, but there's still so much to learn. but
00:27:42
Speaker
It's a pretty strong consensus that the non-conscious mind often referred to the unconscious mind is where a significant portion of our emotions and memories are stored and processed, even when we're not actively aware of them. Okay. So essentially our unconscious mind can hold onto feelings and experiences that are not readily accessible to our conscious awareness, but they're still significantly influencing our behaviors.
00:28:09
Speaker
And our thoughts without our us realizing it. Again, if you are finding yourself doing things you don't want to do that, you said, okay, I'm going to do this. And then you don't do it. Like you have to address your emotional health and look at the weeds and say, okay, what other things might be causing me to make this choice? I don't want to make.
00:28:26
Speaker
I will tell you, i know this is a lot, but you might have to watch it a couple of times and take some notes and pause and do what you got to do because it's worth it. My counselor helped me understand emotions ah from a different lens to that.
00:28:41
Speaker
That has helped me a lot. um she says that our emotions tell us of our met and unmet needs so i remember even sitting down with checklists and like okay this specific experience how did it make you feel what were the things that you were feeling and then what needs do you feel were being met or unmet in that situation because there's always a connection we experience emotions that are tied to met or unmet needs.
00:29:04
Speaker
And so that is valuable information. If you think about it that way, it allows you to work backwards and be like, OK, this is what I'm feeling. What is this attached to? And then you can be proactive about either understanding, but maybe it's just a reality you can't escape in this moment, but at least you're acknowledging what's happening.
00:29:20
Speaker
it' So um if you're particularly feeling anxious about something in the present, It could be too that the response is connected to an emotional memory from your past too. And so again, this is why it's important to take the time to do the work because it will result in freedom.
00:29:36
Speaker
um It might not be overnight, it won't be overnight, but it's really, really important. So with that being said, I want to tie this all back to choices because where you are versus where you want to be again, that gap is all about closing the app is all about the choices that
Challenge of Delayed Gratification
00:29:55
Speaker
you're about to make.
00:29:55
Speaker
Whether you're going to grow that gap and get further away from where you want to be or close it and get closer to where you want to be, it is all about choices. So how we make decisions is such a huge topic.
00:30:07
Speaker
And so there's so many spaces that we can look at as it relates to emotions and their role in our choices. I'm going to talk about one on this video. Okay. Again, you have the garden within Dr. Anita Phillips book that you could read.
00:30:20
Speaker
Um, of course I'm going to keep adding more and more lessons to, um, your, Aligned Living Community membership and I will do challenges where you can learn more. i will, um what the group coaching, you could submit questions and we'll dive into them together.
00:30:38
Speaker
um But what what I want to touch on in particular in this lesson, because I want you to have a super, super practical takeaway, is um a delayed gratification challenge. Okay. I want to give you the gift of pause.
00:30:51
Speaker
And all that means is like just giving you the challenge or permission to say, like, I'm going to pause when I need to pause. This delayed gratification challenge will change your life. So emotional health and regulation supports delayed gratification. The more emotionally healthy you are, the more regulated you are, the more you will be able to delay gratification. All right.
00:31:12
Speaker
The effects of instant gratification are tough. they will hurt you. They will keep you from getting closer to where you want to be. um Decisions are emotional in some way. There's no way around it.
00:31:26
Speaker
um Some people might, ah the emotions might influence their decisions more so than others, but they are playing a role. whether it doesn't matter if you're emotionally healthy or unhealthy, in some way they're influencing that process.
00:31:41
Speaker
Stimuli comes in through that emotional brain center, the limbic system, and then to our thoughts. All right. So there's no way around it. Emotions are supposed to be information.
00:31:51
Speaker
And when we're emotionally healthy, we take that info and use it. And then our prefrontal cortex makes wise, informed, healthy decisions. But guess what? Unfortunately, there's a lot of things that keep our prefrontal cortex from making those wise, informed, healthy decisions.
00:32:09
Speaker
And this alternative is letting emotions control you instead of using them for helpful information. So no emotions are bad. And Dr. Anita Phillips, I love i watched her live one time and ah give a talk.
00:32:24
Speaker
And that was like the biggest takeaway. She kept saying no emotions are bad. No emotions are bad. And like my counselor says, this is data to help you understand you understand your needs unmet or fulfilled.
00:32:37
Speaker
All right. So I want to look at instant gratification, its effects on your life and what we could do about it. Okay. So, um, this is real, it gets deep really quickly. And so honestly, I could take each one of these points and we can go a lot, lot deeper.
00:32:56
Speaker
What I might do is take these different areas and create different lessons or expand upon this, because I'm just going to highlight some things. So you understand this relevant. So maybe the next time you're tempted to eat something really unhealthy,
00:33:10
Speaker
you can ask yourself how your emotions are influencing this choice. Are you delaying gratification or is this instant gratification right here? You know what I'm saying? And so um I'm going to talk about physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, like all of it.
00:33:23
Speaker
All right. This isn't going to be too long, so stick with me, but I want to get this out here. And maybe I'll include this in the lesson notes, actually, because then you could just read them and reference them back as challenge points.
00:33:35
Speaker
um but physical health. So think about when instant gratification dominates over delayed gratification and delayed gratification is what we want. So in those cases, unhealthy eating. So let's say you choose fast food or sugary snacks for this immediate pleasure instead of a nutritious meal.
00:33:51
Speaker
All right. It's a really, really good example of instant gratification. When you know that your goals require you to eat better, ah lack of exercise. So instant gratification, skipping workouts because um Rest or screen time feels more rewarding in the moment. um Rest is good, but I'm just saying like, if you've gotten your eight hours of sleep and you just don't wanna wake up, you just wanna pick up your phone or um you know whatever, this just lacking the discipline to do that. Again, instant gratification. Instant gratification, a huge one is poor sleep habits.
00:34:22
Speaker
Because if you stay up late for entertainment things instead of prioritizing rest, let's say bing watching binge watching something, that is very much instant gratification, saying this is what I want in the very moment knowing I'm gonna pay negative consequences.
00:34:36
Speaker
All right, so those are just a few examples we could probably think of 2030 of them um mentally so how instant gratification negatively affects us mentally reducing focus because if you're constantly checking your phone or multitasking that will damage your ability to concentrate long term.
00:34:53
Speaker
Procrastination is another one. um Choosing quick distractions, excuse me, over completing important tasks increases stress and reduces self-discipline. This is another huge one. Procrastination is instant gratification to a T. Overstimulation, again, if you are looking for that constant dopamine hit from social media or games or um substance abuse or whatever, it can lead to decreased satisfaction with everyday life. So this is super, super real.
00:35:23
Speaker
Oh, is this is feeling really deep. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about people in my life where i know that this is a problem and it's hard because when you're in it, when you're so used to gratifying your desires instantly, it's is it it becomes a challenge. You have to really rework your thinking and say, the goals that I have in my life are important enough to me I'm I am going to delay gratification.
00:35:53
Speaker
And you know what? I am going to to do regular delay gratification challenges in this community. I just have to, because it is one of the most important things in seeing you achieve your goals. And that's why I'm doing this, because I'm passionate about it.
00:36:06
Speaker
All right. So so emotionally, um excuse me, guys, I didn't mean to get emotional on you, but I'm passionate. I'm passionate about this because it's influencing people that I love and know.
00:36:18
Speaker
And it's also influencing people I don't know that have people in their lives that care about them or have amazing callings in their life that's being affected because of this. So emotionally avoid avoiding discomfort.
00:36:32
Speaker
That's instant gratification. Using food, scrolling, shopping to numb difficult emotions rather than working through them. Impulsive action reactions, impulsive reactions.
00:36:43
Speaker
Again, lashing out or venting without thinking due to that immediate emotional urge, instant gratification. Imagine if you delayed gratification in that moment, how much relationships would be saved.
00:36:55
Speaker
um Bank accounts would be increasing, you know what I'm saying? low resilient yeah grow Low resilience, resilience. Instant gratification would say always choosing what feels good now and can reduce your ability to tolerate discomfort or delay gratification later.
00:37:13
Speaker
When I wrote my book, The Playground Leader, resilience was I did an entire chapter on it because if there's one thing that we want our kids to embrace, it's resilience. But delaying gratification is important. Sometimes you have to get in a bit of a battle with your kids to build resilience, to to tell them, like, no, you can't have that right now.
00:37:31
Speaker
But we don't want them to grow up to have low resilience. Spirituality. Neglecting spiritual practices, instant gratification, skipping prayer, skipping meditation, skipping reflection for more instantly rewarding distractions.
00:37:46
Speaker
This is such a real thing. um How many of you are okay sitting in a quiet space by yourself, you and God, and just spending some time in the quiet, meditating, praying, listening for his voice?
00:37:59
Speaker
um Shallow living, again, prioritizing short-term pleasures over long-term purpose or meaning. This is super deep, super real. Spend some time thinking about that. Disconnection from values. So instant gratification making choices based on impulse instead of alignment with your deeper beliefs or faith.
00:38:16
Speaker
Again, this whole reason is called aligned living is because I want to help you live aligned, which means in order to do that, you're going to have to make choices based on um where you want to be and not instant gratification. All right.
00:38:32
Speaker
Socially, um self-centered behavior. This is choosing convenience or comfort over showing up for others, leading to strained relationships. My goodness.
00:38:45
Speaker
Imagine delayed gratification, like thoughtfulness, doing things for people because it's the right thing to do, showing up for them. Because guess what? When you need people to show up for you, that's when they'll be there. Poor communication, reacting emotionally in the moment instead of pausing. Again, that's that word again, pause to listen or respond thoughtfully.
00:39:05
Speaker
Lack of accountability. Again, this is instant gratification, avoiding difficult conversations because they're uncomfortable um and that weakens trust over time. You can't have unhealthy ah relationships if you are always looking for the instant gratification route. It just will not happen.
00:39:22
Speaker
economically i mean it goes without saying impulsive spending when you buy things you want now instead of saving for the future instead of investing wisely debt accumulation this is huge using credit to satisfy immediate wants and then you create long-term financial stress missed opportunities spending rather than saving can limit your ability to pursue meaningful goals like education travel or starting a business all right there's so many things that people say they can't afford but If they had more delayed gratification in their life, much more likely build up that cushion to be able to make more important um investments that take advantage of important opportunities.
Breaking Emotional Cycles
00:39:59
Speaker
All right. So basically. This is a lot, y'all. This is a lot. Emotional health is a key element of our holistic growth. It's just a really important thing that we can't um disregard.
00:40:11
Speaker
So my takeaway for you, um again, I'm going only list three, but the Garden Within will go a lot deeper and give you more takeaways. um She talks about a few things I'm not going to go into here. um She talks about healing the broken heart, um freeing the angry heart and calming the fearful heart.
00:40:32
Speaker
All right. I bet you every single one of you listening to this has experienced one, if not all three of those things, broken heart, angry heart, fearful heart in some way.
00:40:43
Speaker
Okay. So her book digs into that more, but I'm just going to touch on three big takeaways, addressing emotional trauma. So one of the um book's key points is the importance of recognizing and addressing emotional trauma. Okay.
00:40:57
Speaker
If it unaddressed emotional pain, whether for past relationships, childhood ruins, life experiences, all can stunt personal growth and spiritual development so that healing is required um and ah to live a full life. And that means you have to confront these emotional wounds, give them to God, allow the process of restoration to take place in your life.
00:41:18
Speaker
second takeaway emotional honesty i talk about honesty across the board with aligned living you cannot live an aligned life without honesty you have to be honest with yourself why are you still stuck here for example um so uh the book highlights this too but i just want to emphasize because i believe this as well as one of my soap boxes the importance of being honest with yourself in general but specifically for this lesson with your emotions many people Try to avoid, suppress, or deny their feelings.
00:41:48
Speaker
But true emotional health comes from acknowledging and understanding them. And this involves not just identifying what you feel, but also giving yourself permission to feel those emotions without shame.
00:42:00
Speaker
and then breaking the cycle of negative emotions all right this is the third takeaway break that cycle because cycles are habits they're hard to break but do it pick one thing and be super intentional about it um again in her book she'll go deeper but just my takeaway for you emotional health involves breaking out of destructive emotional cycles such as anxiety anger or sadness by understanding the root cause. And this is why I go to therapy because like in my life is pretty good. You know i'm saying? Like I have a lot of blessings. i I have a lot of hard, but unless you get to the root cause, this is why i help people as a coach with aligned living. Let's get to the root cause of the things.
00:42:39
Speaker
That's the only solution that's freedom. And so with this breaking the cycle of negative emotions, get to the root cause work to reframe them in healthier ways. And this may include practicing emotional regulation techniques or learning new ways of thinking about and responding to emotional triggers.
00:42:56
Speaker
So I want to leave you with this. Emotional health is not just about managing emotions, but it involves cultivating a deeper connection with God and understanding and caring for the body and then being honest with yourself.
Holistic Approach to Emotional Health
00:43:12
Speaker
OK, like if you're trying to pursue um emotional health, you're like, this is so relevant to me.
00:43:16
Speaker
like i want to make some significant strides here like you can't just manage those emotions again you've got to connect with god you've got to care for your body and you've got to be honest with yourself and i will add you also got to be in a good community that's really supportive for you because emotional health is this holistic process right it requires ongoing self-reflection emotional regulation spiritual practices And again, support of community.
00:43:42
Speaker
So altogether, this will create a balanced and thriving life that honors God's design for your body and soul. You know, the idea is to work from the inside out. Like this is and this is what my dissertation argument was on, my doctorate program. This is my passion. This Align Living is all about.
00:43:57
Speaker
Everything is intimately interconnected. We are integrated beings. Our emotions are connected to our spiritual health, our physical health, our mental health, our emotional health, our community, and our economic health. There is no separating it, all right?
00:44:10
Speaker
And so nurture that inner garden in you and do it with patience and do it with love and do it with care, knowing that healing is an ongoing process, but one that leads to greater peace, joy, and a purpose, all right, and freedom, right?
00:44:24
Speaker
And so, gosh, this is so real. And I'm so convicted about it because my life, I can say, thank God for the hard because it helped me ah address some of these things head on you know what i mean and spiritually you will elevate physically you'll elevate you'll elevate in every area because your emotions influence every area so the healthier are the healthier they are the healthier you will be so there are so many layers to this conversation i'm going to keep adding
00:44:57
Speaker
um lessons to my course in the align living community that goes deeper and deeper and deeper here but i just wanted to start somewhere so that you guys could be convicted about the importance of leaving time for this just like you leave time to cook healthy food for your family if you want kids to be healthy just how you leave time to pray if you want a good relationship with god leave time to pursue emotional health.
Invitation to Align Living Offerings
00:45:22
Speaker
So thank you for plugging in. I hope that this blessed you as much as it's blessed me. And I would love your feedback. I would love to hear from you. And thank you for listening.
00:45:36
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to the Aligned Living Podcast. I'm Dr. Autumn, your guide on this journey to shalom or wholeness. Ready to embark on this journey of self-discovery and transformation?
00:45:50
Speaker
Head over to autumnswain.com to learn more and to dive deeper into the world of Align Living. Until next time, stay aligned.