Rachel (00:00):
You're listening to Relationship Coaching with Rachel. This is episode 56 and we're talking about indulgent emotions.
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Hey everybody, it's great to be back with you today on the podcast. I'm so excited to talk about this topic. So the topic of the day is indulgent emotions. You might have a lot of questions about this, and lately I've been talking a lot about emotions because emotions y'all will drive everything that you do. So emotions come from our thinking process. Our thinking process creates these emotions. So if we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day, we have a lot of emotions. So what is an indulgent emotion? Well, it's an emotion that is really, really comfortable for you. It's very familiar to you, and it's an emotion that you dive into, and indulge in a lot more than you really, really want to. It's your go-to emotion. Now, indulgent emotions are not useful and they're not helpful. Okay? These emotions that keep you stuck at these emotions don't give you the results that you want and they deplete your energy.
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These emotions are time wasters. So I have a few examples and I'm pulling these, a lot of them from just a lot of my clients and myself, and they're, they're kind of the top emotions that are indulgent, and there are six or seven of them. The first one is worry. It is not useful. Remember, the criteria is not useful, not helpful. It keeps you stuck and it depletes your energy. Worry depletes your energy, and keeps you stuck. It doesn't really give you the result that you want. Confusion. This was a big one for me. I'm like, I don't know how to do it, so I'm not going to do anything confusing. How do you do that? How do you create a podcast? Well, I tell people all the time, I had to figure it out. You can give me all the how-tos, and I'm still going to tell you I don't know how until I get in there and I do it.
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Another indulgent emotion is comfort. Comfort meaning not just that you've had a good night's sleep. No, no. Comfort is the indulgent emotion. Being comfortable is watching 18 episodes of something on Netflix while eating my go-to used to be popcorn with the shaky Parmesan cheese on top. That was my comfort. That's also called buffering. So comfort or feeling disheartened, that's another one. Despondent. It's kind of like that. Depressed sometimes when I would get into a depression, I almost enjoyed it. It almost felt like, oh, this is my excuse. Okay? Still happens every once in a while, but not too often. And the last one I will talk about, and it is, it's a big one. Self-pity is one of the most indulgent emotions we can experience.
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It's excessive. I will tell you it's self-absorbed unhappiness. But it's this, it's almost like this weird comfort level of self-pity because then we don't have to deal with our problems, our troubles, and what happens? Remember the criteria for an indulgent emotion keeps you stuck. So self-pity leads to a lot of inaction. It's like the toxic treadmill that you're going on. It keeps you stuck in victim mode. It keeps you stuck in externalizing problems like the blame and shame that has nothing to do with you. You're like, well, if that person hadn't have said the thing, then I wouldn't be sitting on my couch for 12 hours. So those are just some examples. It also leads us to accept failure and defeat ahead of time before we've even given it a chance. Well like, oh, well, that's not going to work. And it really leads us to feel sorry for ourselves.
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Instead of changing what we can change, maybe this is a learned behavior. Maybe we've gotten rewarded for all these indulgent emotions in the past. Maybe it brings us a little bit of attention, and subconsciously our brain gets really happy about that. And you're like, Hmm, okay, that is an indulgent emotion. And really self-pity it produces nothing useful. So I want you to really think about that. And these emotions, these indulgent emotions can lead to indulgent actions that can turn into excuses for us to not do something. It could keep us in that, well, I'm busy. It could keep us in that fake busy mode. You know what I'm talking about? I'm just so busy. I don't have the time to do this. Think about working out or going to the gym. The easiest thing to do is I'm just too busy. Well, I wasn't too busy when I was watching all of those shows on YouTube.
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So just some good examples. And it turns into an indulgent action that keeps us tired and exhausted and leads to more and more procrastination. The second thing I want to talk about is you might be asking yourself, why do we have these emotions? Why do we have indulgent emotions? Why are these a problem? And how do we know that we're indulging in this emotion? Well, we have indulgent emotions because it tends to be a coverup for other emotions that we'd rather not feel. Now, this is where we're kind of uncovering some big stuff. We'd rather feel the indulgent emotion of worry, and confusion instead of the real emotions that are going on. And for me, and for a lot of people, it's things like fear, fear of the unknown, or judgment and shame, or even sadness. Again, it's a problem because it leads us to inaction.
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It leads us to doing the same thing and really beating ourselves up. So I'll give you a quick example or a story. When all of the things were happening in 2020 and 2021, remember that? Remember that fun time that we all lived in? I was going through the day, indulging in overwhelm, a lot of overwhelm, and one day I sat in the feeling of overwhelm and just really, I'm like, I'm going to process this. I don't know why I'm doing this. But once I got quiet, once I started writing it out, what is really going on? What was really going on with sadness? And there was a lot of sadness for obvious reasons, for different reasons. But what was happening was that my brain was having this fight because overwhelm was way easier to feel than sadness for me. I was sad about a lot of different things.
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In those two years, I think there was a lot of fear for me as well. I don't know what's going to happen. Is the world really going to end? I mean, I think we went there collectively, and so I indulge in the emotion of overwhelm and the indulgent. What I learned was that the indulgent emotion was really a smoke screen or think of it as a mask for other emotions that I was feeling, but I completely was trying to bypass them. I was trying to shoo them away. I don't want to think about that. I'm busy with overwhelm and I wasn't willing to feel the sadness or the fear. So that's just a little personal story from me. Just to give you an example, and I like to be really vulnerable on this podcast because I think when I share my examples, other people can be open and share.
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And I like to be an example of what's possible. And it's not comfortable sometimes, but it's helpful. It's helpful. It helps me move through these as well. So when we're feeling these feelings, and when I was feeling these feelings, I had to sit down with these and ask What is really, really, really going on? And I hated sitting with that, I'll be honest with you. But what I learned was that I was avoiding and I was pushing down some very important, and I'll say it, useful, teachable emotions that I was really not wanting to feel. I was just avoiding those. And those were fear, a little bit of judgment or shame. Some of the stuff that came up for me was shame and a lot of sadness. Fear and sadness were my top two at that point in time. So what I did learn from coaching was that my brain was really trying to do me a favor by protecting me.
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Your brain is really designed to keep you safe. Don't do that. That's too scary. Okay, , kind of what I feel like my brain has its own little voice. My brain was really protecting me from feeling emotions that I believed were dangerous to feel. Hopefully, that helped you out a little bit. So that was just a little backstory from me. Now I have some work for you. So I'm going to say, get out your journal get out, maybe your notes. I like to use notes on my phone sometimes. I really, really like writing things out first and foremost. But what I'd love to offer you first, I've got two different types of exercises. What I'd love to offer you is a tool to work with to help you uncover these indulgent emotions to see if there's something else that might help you uncover what's really going on. So the first thing I like to, in this kind of a teaching moment, notice this emotion. Notice the indulgent emotion. Think of it. Is it worry? I know a lot of people are worried and confused or there's just self-pity. Just notice this particular emotion. You'll have to feel it in your body. Maybe take a couple of deep breaths and get honest with yourself. Your body's going to tell you what's going on.
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And I like to greet these as a very familiar worry, confusion, these familiar emotions as a friend, somebody that I know really well. We've been together a long time, worry and confusion. A long time. And sometimes I say, Hey there, hi friend and just remind myself that nothing has gone wrong. Write that sentence down. Nothing has gone wrong. I love that I have it on a sticky note in five different places in my house. So that was a thing. The first thing is to notice the emotion. And number two is questioning. That indulgent emotion with some openness. I want you to think of our body as being either open or constricted. So if it's been constricted a little bit, I want you to take some breaths and just open yourself up. Question this emotion with curiosity. Curiosity's fun to play around with because it's a little bit neutral. It's like, hmm, I'm just curious about this.
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Curiosity, openness, and intention. In the case of overwhelm, I sat down and decided to dig in, and I have this bolded and underlined in my notes without escaping, without picking up my phone and start scrolling around. And I wonder what my friends are doing, what's on Instagram or what's on YouTube without escaping? And I asked these questions, why this particular emotion? And then I kept asking, what else? What's underneath that? Ask yourself, what else? Three to five different times. And your brain. Here's the fun thing about the brain. It loves to answer questions. And you can't ever say, I don't know, because that's just a cop-out. Okay, that's cheating. So after I ask myself, what else? A lot of times that's when I found the sadness and the fear. I was sad for people. I was scared for myself, and my family. I was fearful.
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My husband couldn't go back to work. We had, there's just a lot of stuff and a lot of people's opinions about what was going on. And I felt like people were going to be mad at me if I said how I was feeling. So I kept it all in and I just indulged in worry. But what was really going on with sadness? Then it started to just let it happen and observe. I began to process this emotion. And I would notice if it was new information or no new information, kind of pick A or B. So with new information with this, oh, it's sadness. Oh yeah, I am really sad. I'm really scared. I got to actually process it. And I cried a bit because I'm a crier. And it felt good. And then I was like, okay. And actually, my body felt so much better and so much more relaxed. Now the second thing is it maybe there's no new information. Just allow that indulgent emotion and just say, look, I see you. We've been friends for a long time. We've been together forever. I hear you and we've got work to do. And maybe the next day or sometime afterward, you might come up with that new information. Maybe it's just sitting in your brain a little bit, kind of like, Hmm, it's just doing this. It's working behind the scenes.
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And for me, I noticed that overwhelm hides so many things for me. And so that was really my work. And so reminder, follow these three steps, notice the emotion, question it, and then notice for new or not new information, this is going to give you insight to whether or not there's something to learn under the indulgent emotion. It might, and honestly it might not. But , so far for me and the people I've worked with, it is uncovered something. So the second exercise, when I get out your journal a powerful writing exercise that you can do to help you understand the feelings that are truly holding you back. Now, this is just a different take on what we talked about earlier. Now, when you ask yourself these powerful questions you're going to come up with, and you're going to be surprised at the answers that your brain is offering up.
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I really laugh at myself because I had to do this during coach training, and I'm laughing because I'm just like, man, I was really in it. I was really freaking myself out for no good reason. And I can laugh about it now, but back then it was serious. I thought it was going to die pretty much. So no matter what the brain offers up, there's nothing to be afraid of. And remember, the worst thing that can happen is an emotion. Knowing that now, and I think I probably knew that back when I was answering these questions. Y'all wait till you hear my answers. It's really for me. But I think everything's funny. So here's the thing, do not do these in your head. I'm going to tell you time and time again, your brain is so sneaky because it wants to protect you and you cannot process it in your head.
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And if you're going to insist on doing it this way, then you need to give me a call and we need to work together. You need to hire me as your coach. I'll help you with all of that. We're going to pull all of that stuff out. Back to the questions, write down your answers. And I'm going to go to my , my screen now. Okay, the first one is, how often do you feel overwhelmed, confused, worried or anxious? And explain. So as a reminder, I was doing this when I just started coach training. So my answer was, I hope I don't crack myself up all the time. It was just a fact all the time. I'm overwhelmed, confused, and worried and anxious all the time. Daily. I said, coach training is a different level of anxiety from me. My schedule is crazy. I get so confused on what to do next.
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I'm constantly in indecision and worry. Can we just take a moment here to send some love to past Rachel? I'm just like, poor thing. I really was in it. I thought this was the end of the world like I do. Right? Okay, so number two, you're going to pick the one. Just going to pick one emotion that you feel the most and give a specific example of when you feel it and why. Okay, ready for another laugh. I'm being super vulnerable and I'm almost, I'm kind of sweaty doing this. I get worried that I'll miss something.
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Sorry. I'll get worried that I'll miss something that I need to have ready. So what I do is I obsessively check on the schedule, and write it down in a lot, all caps, lot of places. And now I'm really worried that I'll get it wrong Anyway, how helpful was that? It wasn't, which is why. Now looking back as I've been coaching a while, I'm like, you poor thing. Okay, number three, do, okay, here's, there's going to be a big difference between number three and number four. Number three, do you believe you could go a day, a week or a month even without experiencing this feeling? Why or why not? And I just flat out said, no, , maybe an hour, but I doubt it. I don't have a good system and I don't trust the systems that I do have. So I mean, nothing is helpful for me in this one.
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It's so funny. Okay, so do you think you could go a day, week, or month without experiencing this feeling? And the fourth question is, do you believe you could go a day, a week or a month without indulging? Okay, the big difference between indulging and experiencing without indulging in this feeling. And I put indulging, of course, maybe even a whole day. So I thought, okay, so I want you to think about the energy between those. Of course, the first one was like, no. I was like, if you could just picture my brain with his arms crossed, there's no way I could do that. I'm like, oh, indulging. Oh, I think I can maybe experience it without indulging. So these questions are really, really good. So ask yourself that too. I said maybe a day. This was a short and sweet answer for me. Okay, so number five, can you see a reason why you might want to keep indulging in this emotion?
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I said some reason, yes, I'm comfortable in keeping myself in the confusion loop so that I don't create systems that I can really trust. I thought that was an interesting answer. I don't know if it really answered the question. I think it was it a habit that I just indulged in this I can see now where I inadvertently just confused myself by having things in all different places, which of course, it's going to confuse me if I just had it in one place with loud that I do like I do now. It's less confusion. So if you continue this, this is number six. If you continue to indulge in this emotion of worry, what will it cost you? And then this was the answer that really helped me. And I said, well, it's going to cost me in time in my business, and it's going to cost me money if I keep indulging in this worry that I don't have things where they need to be. I'm confused.
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It's costing me in my relationships and in my business. So going back to the criteria for an indulgent emotion, it's comfortable, it's familiar. I, I'm very familiar. So I go to that. It's my go-to emotion. And it also on the negative side, it keeps me stuck. It doesn't give me any positive results, and it depletes my energy. So thank you for joining me in this episode. I hope you learned a lot. Now, if you're ready to work with me one-on-one, go to rachel k hudson.com and click the tab that says, work with me to schedule your free consultation. And as a reminder, at the time of this podcast, I do have a Mama Drama Boundaries guide. It's for free and it's a workbook on how to set smart boundaries with your mama or anybody. This really works for anybody. I will see you guys next week. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others.
