Turn pain into possibility

So many of us get stuck when we feel anger, pain, frustration and bitterness.

Last week, I wrote about why it’s important to fully feel and release difficult emotions, and shared ways to do that so you can move forward. If you missed it, you may want to check out those tips.

Today we’ll dive into what to do once you have released the hold of the emotions, so that you can move ahead when you feel freer.

It’s time to take a new approach

Now that you feel free of the grip of bitterness/anger/disappointment, you have an opportunity to more clearly consider the dynamic that set off the reaction.

If what bothered you was something fleeting, like a remark from a rude stranger, it may have been easy to move on once you let yourself go all the way into your feelings and release them.

But what if you are faced with a situation that’s a recurring challenge — say, someone at work or in your family who behaves in ways that trouble you, or sees things differently than you do?

Nearly everyone experiences this kind of thing.

You may find it helpful to see this as an opportunity. I know that may sound crazy, but hear me out.

Consider these new ways of moving forward:

• You have an opportunity to calmly state your case or express your point of view or suggested next steps. This may call on you to have a conversation in a different way than in the past. Get help if you need it, to be able to show up calmly and speak your truth.

• You can set new boundaries with that person, to minimize the likelihood of repeats in the future. This can mean minimizing contact with that person or setting conditions for ways you will interact.

• You can set new energetic boundaries for yourself when you decide not let someone else’s actions cause you pain. To do this, you might try seeing the other person operating the best they can, with limitations or different standards than yours. See if you can take it less personally. You might also feel compassion for them and send them love. 

• Let go of doubt. It may feel odd to approach things in a new way, but with practice you will get better and better at using these tools and finding your strength in situations that are hard for you now.

• Do not rehash. It is easy to replay and ruminate in the pain, which makes it hard to let go of the pain. Having taken good steps forward, do your best not to talk and think about it.

You have the opportunity to create rather than react

Yes, rather than reacting to things that sting on the fly, you always have the opportunity to create new ways of responding and moving forward in your life.

And, in this case, when you start with expressive creativity (to feel the emotions and move them through you), and follow that step with creating new ways to approach challenges in the future, you are creating the best possible conditions to support your wellbeing. 

With practice this process gets easier

Depending on the painful situations you face, the methods described last week and here may work perfectly the first time, or they may take ongoing practice — as has been my experience. 

If you keep in mind that your objective is to protect and strengthen your energy, and support your wellbeing so that you can bring all of your power into everything you do, you will find these approaches easier to master.

If you’d like support with any of this work, email me and we'll make a date to talk.

How to loosen the grip of painful feelings

It’s easy to get derailed by interactions and events that feel upsetting.

Whether it is in a moment when someone cuts you off in traffic, or when you interact with a person you know well who says or does something hurtful (often repeating a pattern of behaviour that has hurt before) it is easy to feel angry, bitter, shaken, wounded.

And while those feelings are valid and not to be brushed aside, there are ways to process the emotions to move forward feeling lighter and better, that you may not have considered.

Today I will share some first steps you can take when you are faced with upsetting emotions.

And next week, I will provide additional guidance to help you move forward once the grip of the emotion is released.

Feel your feelings — and then release them

It is important to acknowledge and feel what you feel. It is also important to learn how to transform the challenging emotion at hand, so you can move forward free of it.

It can be tempting to brush painful feelings aside, assuming they will simply dissipate. But that’s actually an illusion. Troubled emotions that we do not honor and work through inevitably show up in ways that have a negative impact. 

Or, you may tightly hold on to tough emotions.

Perhaps the pain and anger you feel in a relationship with someone, or another ongoing situation, are so ingrained that those emotions pop up automatically at the smallest provocation.

Emotions like these need to be released so you can begin to disrupt the pattern.

Try using some or many of these tips and see what happens. 

Ways to process and release painful feelings

To feel the feelings, and fully express them to wring them out, you might:

• Sit and free-write in a journal.

• Go for a long walk in nature, or go for a run, if that's how you like to move energy. 

• Scream into a pillow, like a friend of mine recommends.

• Stand in the shower and scream or cry out the emotions you feel. 

• Slam a stuffed doll at a table — over and over and over. 

• Crank up loud music and dance the emotions out.

• Make a series of hideously ugly drawings to wring out all the painful emotions. (This is one of my favorite techniques!)

It is important to let yourself go all the way into the emotions and use the way or ways that work best for you to let as much of it go as possible.

The process takes practice to master

You may find yourself needing to do multiple rounds, or trying multiple approaches, until you feel you have worked through and emptied as much of the unpleasant emotion as possible.

Situations that ignite difficult emotions can come at us unexpectedly. When they do pop up, be patient with yourself. Building awareness and carving out space to address those powerful emotions will help you feel better and think more clearly.

Next week, I will share approaches you can take that will build on this foundation of releasing the emotional charge.

Until then, have a great week.

(And if you’re ready to live your biggest, best life, you can book a quick call with me to talk about what that can look like.)

What’s to be done about emotional clutter?

As you consider that question, you may be wondering what I mean by “emotional clutter.” When I think about clutter of any kind, I think of a mess — a jumble that is confusing and complicated and filled with things that can be eliminated in order to create calm and order. In the emotional realm, clutter is similar. A mess of emotions includes many that are needlessly complex and often undesirable. Messes like that typically grow without awareness.  

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I have been thinking a lot about how we can simplify our cluttered lives. I recently wrote about starting with a focus on you (read The gift of simplifying here). I also urged you to consider the importance of decluttering your environment — and had tips to help you tackle that clutter (read Just say “no” here). 

Something important tied those two concepts together: saying “no.”

Learning what to say “no” to, and saying it with comfort (and without guilt!) is a key skill to build to simplify your life.

Today, I am thinking about another dimension of decluttering that will help you to simplify a hectic life — emotional decluttering. We often overlook the impact of emotional clutter in our lives, which builds when we don’t pay attention to it, and when we don’t consciously say “no” to tame it. 

Why is it important to do emotional decluttering?

In much the same way that a cluttered physical environment contributes to making us feel overwhelmed, we are often in a swirl of emotional clutter. And when we let that clutter fester and grow, it adds enormous stress to daily life. Emotional clutter distracts us, distresses us, and drains our energy. We pay a high price when our energy is sapped.

So, the question arises: What can we do to declutter a life plagued by emotional mess? Try this exercise and see what happens: 

Make a list of ENERGY DRAINERS

Start with a clean sheet of paper. Think about what you may be putting up with, and start listing what comes to mind. Consider what you put up with in both your personal life and at work. What do you tolerate, even grudgingly, that creates resentment, frustration, or anger?

Next, think about things you’ve taken on or accepted that drag you down emotionally and/or energetically. Your list can include people or situations in your life. This may take some careful thought, because we often take things on or accept things that drain us emotionally without being aware of, or acknowledging, the negative consequences.

Look at your list. Consider that these things often drain your energy for positive activities, and that they can impact your thinking in negative ways. Give some thought to that impact. Consider how long the things on your list have been influencing your life and the consequences of bearing the ongoing emotional clutter.

You may or may not choose to actively do anything about the things on your list now, and that’s fine. Simply becoming aware of them and articulating them will make you more alert to where they interfere and will also build awareness about their impact. With that new awareness, you may naturally start to address, or eliminate, or resolve them. 

And, you may decide that you are ready to make deliberate changes — ready to say “no” to the emotional clutter that is sapping your energy. If you are ready to take action, start by choosing an item or two on your list that you feel most comfortable addressing. Take small steps, and continue as you feel ready to address more of the troubling items on your list.

As I have often said, it’s okay to ask for help

Just the way there are some household and office decluttering challenges that are best tackled with the help of a professional organizer, there can be challenges clearing emotional clutter that feel daunting to take on alone. It may be easier for you to say “no” to the excess “stuff” in your environment than to making changes in the realm of emotional clutter, where habits are often deeply entrenched.

Coaching can be valuable if you are ready to make a commitment to shifting the mindsets that hamper you, so that you can stop saying “yes” when you truly want to say “no.” It will provide support and guidance for you to set healthy boundaries of many kinds in your life, so that you can live without emotional clutter — and live big.