Ep: #63 - The Importance Of Feeling And Releasing Your Emotions

Hello Hello Hello and Welcome to episode number 63 of the Wellness 4 Women Show

The Importance Of Feeling and Releasing Your Emotions

What we resist persists.

When I first heard this it was a real light bulb moment.

I hadn't known at the time and even scoffed with my accountability partners at the start of my weight loss journey that I had nothing to journal on, that nothing came up on a day-to-day basis as life was just 'normal'.

What I didn't know at that point in time was that I had bought into a story.

A set of lies I had created for myself and didn't even know I had done it.

The lies being:

• That life was life and you just had to get on with it. No point whining or crying over spilt milk
• Feelings are bad and should not be felt
• Having feelings makes you weak

You see I had developed a pattern of burying my feelings so deeply and denying them for so long that I had almost convinced myself almost they didn't exist.

I had wrapped a tight clock of defence around myself from the things that made me feel bad and I then on the outside, tried to wear my perceived resilience and strength like a cloak with a badge of honour.

The problem was it was a bunch of 'shoulds' and 'lies' and so today I want to tell you my story to see if any of this resonates with you.

Super quick intro, as usual, I am Faye Casement. I am a Certified Life Coach and I want to help you ditch diet and life drama and find more joy in the weight loss process with my simple food & life freedom method the Triple-A-Way™️ because you deserve to feel amazing inside and out. See the description for more details.

So back to my story.

I spent decades... and I mean decades! Telling myself I was fine, that I just had to be strong, that having feelings was weak, and burying them because I thought having feelings was wrong and because I didn't like how I felt when they come up.

I am still discovering where this all comes from and unpicking the threads. Even as I was writing at the weekend I am going to be honest and say this is me avoiding my feelings, although writing these shows are part of my healing journey and in sharing we can learn from each other. More about that later.

Taking a trip back in time to when I was little I can see now times when I buried my feelings. There may be other things that led to me doing this as ultimately my beliefs would have been formed when and event happened and I felt a surge of emotion as this is how they are formed.

I remember as a kid I hated being tickled. I mean really detested it.

I hated the feeling it gave of not being in control. I hated that my treacherous body would laugh and giggle when inside it was screaming stop this feels horrible.

I can remember getting really annoyed about it and with anyone who tickled me.

I can only have been about 7/8 when I started to declare to anyone who even vaguely came near me that I am not ticklish.

Was this a defence mechanism so they wouldn't try to tickle me or was it that I wanted the attention of them trying and me being able to show off my will of steel? I am honestly not sure.

But I told myself repeatedly from that moment, any time I was tickled that 'I am not ticklish', 'I am not ticklish' on loop and would hold my breath so that bloody giggle would not come out. Eventually, I genuinely didn't feel ticklish anymore and to be honest I still don't.

I sometimes wish I was ticklish though, I can see now that it does bring about a connection and the laughter of a moment shared even if the ticklee is not so happy at the time, and that maybe I have missed out as a result of this defence I created but that is another story.

I also have memories of not wanting to seem scared at horror movies. Feeling so embarrassed by the emotions that again I buried them. I believed for some reason that I could not show how afraid I was that I had to pretend I was not scared so as to save face when really I was shitting myself.

I believed I couldn't, no shouldn't show weakness.

Goodness knows where all this started. I know it will have been in my childhood as that is where our beliefs are formed but which one was it. Maybe with Belief Coding®️ I will find out one day. I could start the process if I wanted to but it is not pressing today.

What I now realise is that actually burying my feelings was actually for me the weaker option.

Why?

Because I was hiding from them, scared to deal with them or what I thought might be the perception of others if I showed them.

This also over the years has impacted relationships no end.

I would suppress feelings of anger, disappointment, sadness as these were other emotions I was embarrassed by and did not like which led to me tolerating more than was healthy and not communicating as a result. But the thing is you can only hold these down so long and so then they would come out in mega bursts and it would seem like I was overreacting. Cue shame and more defensiveness.

And more thoughts:

Feelings are bad.

Feelings are confusing.

Feelings don't feel nice.

Bury Bury Bury Bury

Bury them quick!

Hide them at all costs!

Round and around the same loop I would go. A loop I didn't even know I was in.

I can see how this all played out now in my life and how it was ultimately not great for my wellness and it is why I wanted to talk about this today.

How it is important to feel the feels, that you do not have to be worried, scared or ashamed of them. How you can work on and accept that your emotions and feelings are a part of you and that you can start to work on your beliefs, your thoughts and your emotions. My Triple-A-Way™️ process gives you the tools to do this, to gather awareness of your patterns and triggers and then step into action to deal with them.

All of this delicious insight is thanks to my weight loss journey. I didn't know it at the start but actually was a journey of healing as I tackled my relationship with food I found more about about myself, and how I ticked and I changed. Boy have I changed and all for the better in my book.

When we want to lose weight all we have been taught by the diet industry is to focus on food and exercise. I saw some kind of advert about weight loss earlier in my Book of Faces feed earlier not sure which one but underneath there was a load of comments, no surprises really. In hindsight, I probably would have been best to avoid looking as it was a little triggering. I find it hard to see so many people struggling with weight loss, their self-image and also some having very worrying relationships with food.

Anyhoo, out of this sea of comments I saw one I see all the time... "Weight Loss Is EASY... You Just Have To Eat Less & Move More!" Boom mic drop... thank you oh wise one.

Without risking turning into full sarcasm mode. Yeah Yeah I know it is the lowest form of wit.

I do have a tendency to role my eyes when I see this comment more than others.

It is such an oversimplification it is beyond belief. It is a belief that has been instilled in us and then when we do not find it easy and we struggle to eat less and move more we can think we are broken.

That there is something wrong with us and all the other thoughts and feelings we can think about ourselves when we are not thinking about ourselves with love.

What you eat, when, how, why and how you move, when, where, why and how all stems from your beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Eating and moving are the by-product of how your mind, body and soul is all fitting together in that moment which is why a gentle and exploratory method of weight loss like the Triple-A-Way™️ is genuinely life-changing because it is about healing your relationship with food rather than just knuckling your way to weight loss.

OK rant over... !

So going back to where I was when I was writing this. I said earlier that I have not been feeling great and that actually writing the show this week was my way of avoiding my feelings.

Tailend of the week before, for a couple of days I had been feeling a bit low. Really drained and tired. I could feel I was resisting and avoiding something but I was not sure what.

I have all the skills and tools to work my feelings but yet I had been resisting doing it.

So what I was resisting was persisting and I was continuing to feel low and drained.

Lightbulb moment... my brain had gone into freeze mode.

You have all heard of flight, fight, freeze, fawn and flopI assume? Just in case you haven't these are our body's natural defence mechanisms when we experience trauma and they are ingrained in us since the prehistoric days, you can see them playing out in animal kingdom which is fascinating.

So this is my pattern, something I have observed in myself.

My past history is that instead of dealing with my thoughts and emotions, there is a lot of distraction, procrastination, tiredness/wanting to nap, numbing out with food and shopping and telling myself I am fine, that it is likely hormones and to not be silly that this will pass.

That I need to put up and shut up.

To feel better by whatever means necessary and quickly because I feel like crap.

As a result, my brain is throwing up all the signals it can to direct me to the things it has learned in the past gave me comfort.

On this day in order to keep me safe my brain is sending all the signals that I am tired. That I cannot possibly do anything today that I just had to give in and rest. But this was not true.

Physically I was getting all the signals, thick head, heavy limbs, eyes wanting to shut, feeling irritated.

To all intents and purposes, I was TIRED with a capital T.

But then I took a take a step back so that I can understand what was going on inside of me.

I have just woken up and I had a good sleep so this feeling of physical tiredness is a lie.

It was a physical manifestation due to me trying to avoid my feelings.

My mind was sending all the signals to my body to get me to check out for the day. So that between the pair of them, mind and body, they could strong-arm whatever negative emotion was coming up back into a pit in my stomach and to get it covered over asap so I can't feel it anymore, so I can feel better and so status quo can resume.

It was really just like that tickle from earlier. My mind and body working involuntarily against me.

To be fair, the 95% of my mind and body that works on autopilot didn't know any better, this was a well-worn path and it was just trying to get me to take it.

This I did resist.

I figure that if I let my mind and body win. If I bury the emotion and just try to just bulldoze my emotions out the way they would get trapped and hinder me. They may have passed for a while but they would come back.

The emotions would have peeped through by way of intrusive thoughts, more tiredness, more procrastination, more eating, more shopping, more sleeping etc.

So, I need to work it through fully.

In the Backstage Pass Membership I talk about us Super Sleuthing our weight loss which is about using the Triple-A-Way™️ method to figure out what is going on and taking action. There is then also a Mind Nijary section for self-coaching. I am fortunate also to be training as a Belief Coding®️ Facilitator so I had all of these tools to draw on.

So I set to work.

Mindfulness plays a big part in my life nowadays. Especially observing with loving curiosity what is coming up for me mind, body, and spirit. Really listening and querying what is going on.

I want to tell you the process I went through.

So I started with a Belief Coding®️ self-facilitation.

In Belief Coding®️ we work with the subconscious. Some of what can come up may sound bonkers as sometimes the process can show us things that can be a bit off the wall but it all has a clear purpose and plan and it is fascinating.

So I start the process and ask my subconscious where was this feeling of avoidance and resistance coming from?

Now for what you might think is the weird part... I get an image/sense in my head of me being a hermit crab.

Fascinating.

This little crab is poking its head out of its shell and darting back in saying it is not ready.

I can instantly see that there is a metaphor going on here... I am sure you are very surprised to learn I am not a hermit crab. 🤣

It totally fits what I am feeling and fits with resistance and avoidance.

I spent some time trying to coax her out, so that it would talk to me but she is hiding. I was getting pits of thoughts coming through.. weight loss.. business... house.

She did, however, at this point in time give me the inspiration to write this episode but also it was the perfect 'excuse' to avoid dealing with whatever emotion is trapped.

So I wrote most of this show in avoidance thinking it may help me to work it through which it did in part.

Belief Coding®️ is a fascinating process and I could tell my mind was holding back the goods trying to keep me safe.

To be clear there was no real danger, nothing I cannot handle. Our brains don't really know the difference between a giant sabre tooth tiger and a bit of stress. So my brain just needs a little poke in the right direction so that I could start to release the emotion.

I contemplated reaching out for facilitation from another facilitator because even coaches and facilitators need coaching and or facilitating we do not have to go it alone but I decided to try again.

I took a shower, and turned to my trusty journal and started to pull at the threads of my conscious thoughts. What was coming up?

I wrote down all my thoughts, wrote about how I was feeling the ultimate self-care. It is so powerful to work on your thoughts mindfully and to self-coach and get coached.

The process would have been quicker had I got a facilitation in hindsight as my brain again kept trying to shut the process down as I tried play both the role of facilitator and facilitatee (not sure that is a word but it is now!) I was drifting in and out of the process as I worked it through but I got there.

Anyhoo, the crab was talking... huzzah. The thoughts had unjumbled themselves and she was telling me she was feeling overwhelmed.

Finally!

Finally, I knew what had been bothering me I was feeling overwhelmed. Of course I was it all made sense now as to why I was trying to avoid and resist. I had somehow given my poor brain too much to do. This happens a lot to be honest as I am working a full-time job, and have my business, a house, family, friends etc it is a juggle but this is what I want.

To cut a very long story short... I helped my hermit crab by giving her a magic map, a fuck it bucket for the feeling of overwhelm, my signature power colour of pink, lit and candle and she was happy.

We coded in the new beliefs to combat the overwhelm and the session was done!

The best bit though... if you had asked me that more how I was feeling and how my day would have gone I would have predicted it would have been like walking through soup. I would have tried to push it but I would have procrastinated a lot, procrastasnacked, procrastacafinated and then probably sacked the day off to buffer in online games and Facebook in a mood.

What actually happened...

My energy lifted instantly.

My head cleared.

I made magic map.. aka a plan.

I shut the lid on the fuck it bucket.

I lit a candle, put on my pink backlights

And

I smashed my day!

Since then the avoidance and resistance has gone and I am back to my normal self.

Happy days!

Ok, that is it folks.

I hope you found my little story interesting today. 

Don't forget to check on the membership below to find out how you can take this show and your life & weight loss to the next level with love. Members your weekly resource will be dropping soon so what out for the announcement in the support group this week's resource is a challenge called the '7 Days Of Joy' where I will outline the GLAD Method.

See you next week!