Rachel (00:00):
You're listening to relationship coaching with Rachel, episode number 54, How to manage your emotions.
(00:20):
So you might be wondering why you would want to manage your emotions. Well, first of all, when you manage your emotions, you're able to forgive and let go of your past. Your past does not have to equal your now or your future. When you manage your emotions, you'll feel more empowered. You do have control over your emotions. You'll be able to make better decisions. If you get stuck in this decision fatigue, you don't feel like you can make decisions, learn how to manage your emotions, you'll stop taking things personally. You'll stop feeling angry, guilty, regretful and resentful, and you'll create new, healthier patterns in your relationships.
(01:14):
Now, I've talked about this before and I've seen sent tons of emails out, and you probably see it on social media, but just as a reminder, your emotions can be changed and they only last about 90 seconds or less. And emotions, remember, they're just vibrations in the body and they're very short-lived. So just like we can't be happy all the time, I know there's this myth out there that we're supposed to be happy all the time. No, no, no, no, no. We feel all the emotions. I want you to be able to able to feel all the emotions that make up the whole human experience. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be happy. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be glad. We're just not gonna live there forever. Just know that they're always fluctuating. So if you were to recap your day, you would see these up and down emotions based on what happens based on uncomfortableness, based on maybe what you've seen on the news.
(02:19):
It's going to drive your emotions. Now, what I really wanna touch on is this concept of being in emotional adulthood or emotional childhood. So you might be wondering, Well, what do you mean by emotional childhood? What do you think of when you hear emotional childhood? Well, I think of a toddler , just reacting to every single thing. Maybe throwing a fit, maybe pouting, maybe crossing your arms and sitting back and not talking to anybody. I don't know. That's just what I think in my head when I think of emotional childhood. But the way it was explained to me was it's not taking responsibility for how we are feeling, blaming others for your let's say maybe over-drinking. Well, there was alcohol at the party. Is it their fault that I did some over-drinking? Or maybe there was a buffet and you blamed the buffet on the reason that you overate.
(03:28):
I don't know. Or maybe someone else was upset. So you decided to mirror that emotion with you being upset. Really, it's emotional childhood. It's reacting to emotions. It's acting out. It's avoiding emotions instead of taking responsibility. Now, that is the undercurrent here. So not taking responsibility for how you are feeling, and we're not doing this on purpose, I wanna remind you that, Well, my guess is that we were not taught how to function in other ways. Maybe you were taught by your mother about how to react and maybe you were taught to hold a grudge. Maybe you were taught to never apologize. Maybe you just learned it because that's what you saw. And that's okay because you know what? You can always change. And a lot of emotional childhood is expecting the world to change so that you can feel better. If you watch the news, you might just get into this like, Oh my gosh, we're all gonna die .
(04:38):
If you are on social media too much, or if you kind of just fall down that rabbit hole, sometimes you can really start blaming other people. The world circumstances on how you're feeling and what that really does, an emotional childhood, you, that takes your power away. I like to say you're giving your power away, which results in you don't have as much authority over your life. You're just like, Here, here's all the power. It's yours. And that I'm gonna react accordingly. Maybe I'm gonna pow, maybe I'm gonna cry, maybe gonna tell how terrible the world is. Remember, this resembles the behavior of a toddler. Now, toddlers, get a free pass because really they've only been on this earth for a few years. They don't know any better. They're developing. But as adults, you can change that. So you don't wanna have temper tantrums or pout, right?
(05:39):
Or sometimes we catch ourselves saying mean things. And again, maybe we've mirrored that from our mothers. And the outcome is we don't feel like we have any control over our lives or our emotions. We usually tend to take action when we're in emotional childhood that we end up regretting later on, like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I reacted that way. Maybe we yell and blame and just the circumstance. Maybe you've had a day at work, maybe your boss is in a mood, and then you mirror the mood of your boss. Well then nobody's in emotional adulthood. Everybody's running around a toddler. But the thing is, we're not toddlers. We do have control over our own brains. We just have to practice. It just takes some practice. And maybe you've noticed that what you've practiced up to this point isn't very helpful. For example, somebody might yell at you or maybe you accidentally pull out in front of somebody. And as my dad likes to say, they tell you you are number one, and you might feel more powerful to do it back. And yelling back could make you feel more powerful in that moment. But that's gonna be real quick. That's not gonna last. You think that the world is responsible for how you feel. So now what?
(07:09):
Sometimes you're more likely to tell the world how to behave so that you can feel better. And we do that. That's just human nature. But the key is to catch it before it happens. So here's a thought, a couple of thought finders, aka questions for you. And they're just a couple on emotional childhood. Where do you find yourself placing blame? And you can look over the last 24 to 48 hours. I would be very surprised if you didn't find anything. And the second one is, when do you feel entitled to something that you haven't earned? Not that you could go with anything. And all of us are a little bit different. Just say, if you have decided to take a break from drinking for a month and maybe you've told yourself that you've had a bad day, again, that's subjective. Well, when you've had a bad day, maybe you are like, Well, I'm just gonna go have a glass of wine or a bottle of wine, or whatever the thing that you said you weren't gonna do.
(08:18):
Being entitled to something that you really haven't earned. Now we're gonna go over to emotional adulthood. And it's basically the opposite of emotional childhood, but this feels so good talking about this. And basically, it's taking responsibility for our pain and our joy. Now, why did I put joy in there? Because a lot of times I know it's easy to beat ourselves up for the pain are like, Whoa, where did I mess up? And for a lot of us, especially if we had got some mama drama, we outsource our joy or we don't take responsibility for the things that we've done. And I coach a lot and I ask people, What are your wins for the last 24 hours or for the last week? And they're like, I don't have any. I'm not a single one. You didn't enjoy yourself at all. And I used to be like that.
(09:19):
We have to remind ourselves because the brain is just gonna go to that. Nope, nothing's ever working. It's all terrible. Now I want you to think about emotional adulthood, being responsible for your pain and your joy. So the other thing with emotional adulthood, how do you know if you're in emotional adulthood is not expecting other people to make us happy? Well, that's a deep one. I'm gonna touch on this a lot more later on in other podcasts. And that was my lesson. Not expecting other people to make me happy. I get to make myself happy. Whether it's your mom, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your kids, really, you get to be happy no matter what. And it's so hard to wrap your head around in the beginning, but it actually works. Really, you're retraining your brain to go, I'm totally responsible for my happiness. And maybe it's just writing a few things down where you're like, I'm happy because, or How did I enjoy myself today?
(10:35):
And also, emotional adulthood is no longer behaving in ways that you're not proud of. You can stop doing the things that you don't like that you're doing. It takes some practice. And a lot of times it's that pattern interrupt, like, Oh, there we go again. When you are in emotional adulthood, you're able to delay gratification. That's one of the most important emotional adulthood skills to practice delaying gratification. And there's this, there's less of a dopamine hit reward and a satisfaction reward when you're able to delay gratification. And another way is not trying to control, I don't know why I laughed, but not trying to control people to get them to behave in a certain way that is manipulation. And it's not emotional adulthood. And I want you to take down this statement, or maybe later on if you don't have anything to write with, I want you to write down, at some point, you get to decide.
(11:46):
There are four little words that are very powerful. You get to decide. You get to decide is one of the most empowering statements because you do. Again, we love to outsource. If another person can just tell me what to do, then I'll know it's the right thing to do. And I've really, one of my biggest struggles is like, I need everyone else's approval before I can take that. Well, what do you think? Well, what do you think? And actually not trusting myself enough to make my own decision. And I've been working on this with my coach and I get to decide, I get to have fun with it. And I get to decide because once you've made the decision, you have stopped wasting time. Emotional adulthood is also owning up to your mistakes rather than blaming and shaming other people. Stepping into emotional adulthood is a powerful skill. And I'm telling you it's a skill because it takes a lot of dang practice.
(12:56):
So I want you to look at some of the people, some of the examples of emotional adulthood in your life. So when we're in emotional adulthood, we're taking control of our thinking. We're not avoiding, we're not resisting, we're not reacting. What we're doing is going back, we're doing a little evaluation. What worked? What didn't work? What are we gonna do differently? Also, planning ahead of time is emotional adulthood. Holidays are coming up. So some of us are gonna be with family that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I will tell you the best way to deal with family, especially if you've got some mama drama and you think that she's just out to get you. I need you to make a plan. How do you want to show up? I know how I wanna show up. I'm like, Mom, say things sometimes is that are not true. And she gets to be wrong about me, and I'm gonna do a whole podcast on that one. And it's such a powerful statement.
(14:06):
So you probably want to know, Well, how do I do this? Well, I'm gonna tell you, you are gonna want to be the scientist. You're gonna be this investigator. Test this thing out. You're running an experiment. Now, what happens in an experiment? It needs to be done over and over. Keep going there. Okay, that didn't work. What else? Okay, well, I don't know. It almost worked, but I feel like it led me closer to what's gonna work. We're closer. Every experiment. Experiments need to be done over and over. Get the data, facts and math versus the stories, the fiction and the drama. Our brains love drama, okay? It's our dopamine head. Some of us like it more than others. I want you to get really, really curious. As that investigator or as that scientist, I'm gonna ask you to find evidence. Create an evidence list for yourself.
(15:08):
Also, I love the idea of a strategic byproducts list. So something didn't quite work. Just say you show up to Thanksgiving and your mom says mean things. Listen. She's gonna say what she's gonna say. I'm telling you, she's gonna think what she's gonna think. And maybe you're like, Huh, that's interesting. She's wrong about me when she says that. But I'm not even gonna go there. What if I just, I do the nod and smile or like, Huh, that's interesting. I don't think that's correct. But you get to think that whatever she wants to think, some of these things may stick for you. And some of these things may not work for you depending on how open you are to your own growth, right? Cuz this is about you. This is about changing you. This is not about changing your mom cuz she's not gonna change. We love her in our own little ways, but she's not gonna change. And when you can be like, okay with that, that's when you can change. But a lot of times we're like, But she should change so I can be happy. She's not going to. So having all your happiness, hopes and dreams, dependent on what she says, thinks or does, you're fighting an uphill battle. You're just fighting. It's exhausting. So what if you just let it go? She gets to say whatever she wants. Isn't that funny?
(16:50):
I roll or whatever works for you and you don't have to show up for any of it. So with these strategic byproducts, these are little things that like, Hey, I didn't react the way I normally would react. And what happened a lot of times is that little, the little fire that starts to build, I'm starting to get mad. It kind of fizzles out within seconds instead of you being mad for five days. Okay, Okay, let's do a little action step. I'm gonna ask you to explore these concepts on your own emotional childhood. Again, write down where you're placing blame. When do you feel entitled to something that you haven't earned? That's a good example. And just a little reminder, you get to decide you have a choice on how you respond and feel about everything. I'm telling you everything now, emotional adulthood. A quick little recap on that. How can you take more responsibility here? Okay, just one little thing. You don't have to do a whole bucket of things and change everything all at once, cuz that typically doesn't stick. Try one little thing. Maybe you can ask yourself, Where can I stop blaming?
(18:16):
And if you did this, if you made these changes, how would that change the outcome? Or how would the results of what you're getting in your life change? And listen, most people think that the world is causing the pain. So what do we do? We try to manipulate and change the circumstances. We try to change the world and we just can't. We can change ourselves. And that's really where it all starts. So I have a little exercise or maybe some homework for you if you wanna try this out on a daily basis. What are your three most common emotions that you experience?
(18:57):
So for me, my top three were overwhelm and anxiety. Excitement. That was a second one. I get excited very easily. And the last one I thought was really, really interesting. Weary or this foggy feeling. And then the next question is, why do you think you have these feelings on a daily basis? Again, daily I walk around with anxiety and I'm like, okay, it's the friend that I really never wanted . But I also feel like sometimes anxiety kind of pushes me too. I don't really wanna go to the gym, but I'm gonna go cuz I know I'm gonna feel better once I get there. I'm totally fine. Okay. So why do you think you have these feelings on a daily basis? Okay, I'll just tell you mine. Anxiety.
(19:55):
I want to do things all at once. I want, I mean, if you could see my brain, it's like 50,000 thoughts and ideas wanna come out all at the same time. Okay, , nice visual right? Or anxiety comes from me telling myself that I can't manage my time well, maybe I think I'm gonna get it wrong. That's been my undercurrent anxiety thought. And where does my excitement come from? I love coaching people. I love it. It's just the best thing ever. My husband, when I owned the yoga studio, my husband used to call me the emotional bartender. I was like, What? He's like, yeah, he just like, you're up there helping people with their problems. The front desk had nothing to do with yoga. So I thought that was fun. But yeah, my excitement does come from helping people and foggy and weary.
(20:51):
This was so interesting to me because I'm like, I don't even know. I really had to dig a little bit deep. And what I realized is that this was typically towards the end of the day when I started to run outta gas. Ask yourself, what would you like your top three feelings to be? Oh, I loved this one because it's so easy for us to go like, Oh my gosh, I'm anxious, I'm kind of all the negative stuff. But let's like, what do you want them to be? Because they're all available. It's like the emotional buffet, right? Mine was certainty, calm, and a sense of relief. And then why do you want to have these feelings? Ask yourself, why do I wanna have a feeling of certainty? Why do I want to have a feeling of calm and a feeling of relief? And keep asking yourself, what else?
(21:54):
Maybe something like acceptance to move this back to the mama drama example. Problems that women come to me with approval seeking, which also goes into decision making, people pleasing. Attachment, you're attached, you feel like you need to take a step back. You feel guilty, you feel like a dutiful daughter, not able to live your own life. Or you should run this by your mom every time you make a decision. Again, this goes back to decision-making. So if these tools, this way of looking at the drama with your mama and managing your emotions resonates with you, I wanna invite you to schedule your free consultation with me. Let's chat. Let's talk about it. Go to rachel k hudson.com and just click the tab that says, Work With Me. Also on the website, you will see where you can get your Free Mama Drama Boundaries guide. I'm giving you some real-life examples from some of my clients as well as myself. I'm giving you some really great questions to ask yourself. And then at the end, I give you a little cheat sheet with some really quick tips, and quick reminders that you can save. So go ahead and download that is there's a banner at the top of my website to get your free Mama Drama Boundaries guide. Okay, I will see you next week. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Bye.
