How To Stop Punishing Yourself!

Do you feel like you can't fully express or accept yourself?

Does it feel like life is against you and you don't have the confidence to be yourself?

Summary

In this episode, I discuss the importance of emotional intelligence and how it can help individuals express and accept themselves. 

I’ll share a few personal stories and highlight the impact of emotional intelligence on our decision-making and overall well-being. 

My desire is to encourage listeners to stop punishing themselves by embrace their emotions as valuable informants and to begin learning from what they are sharing so you can begin living as free as you were created to be!

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Takeaways

• Emotional intelligence is crucial for understanding and managing our emotions.
• Expressing and accepting oneself is essential for personal growth and well-being.
• Emotions are not to be suppressed or judged, but rather embraced and understood.
• Emotional intelligence can greatly impact decision-making and overall quality of life.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
09:17 The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
29:29 Emotional Intelligence 101
32:00 The Impact of Emotional Intelligence
35:48 Stop Punishing Yourself

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Transcript

Treveal C.W. Lynch (00:01.068)
Hey, what's good, my good people? Welcome once again into the I Am The Possible podcast experience. Oh yes, oh yes. The place where possibilities become perspective. Guys, thank you so much for rocking with me once again in the place to be. There are some amazing things for you and I to see.

before we get into anything, you know where we gotta start. We gotta pause for the cause and you're it. You're the reason, you're the cause, man. You are why I do what I do. You are the reason I get up in the morning. Well, not the only reason, right? But you are definitely a part of the reason I get up in the morning. Thank you guys so much for rocking with me, for subscribing.

for downloading, for listening, for sharing, for every email, every comment, every question. Thank you so much for engaging with this content and engaging with me. And so I'm just looking forward to this new season of the podcast. I've got some amazing guests coming up in this new season and it's just been just such a pleasure, man, to prepare and to get ready to kick it off once again.

And so this Sunday, I'm going to be kicking off a brand new episode with a very special guest. I won't, I won't spoil it right now, but you know, if you, if you're plugged into the universe, if you're on any of my social networks, social, social media platforms and whatnot, or if you're just listening, or if you're watching on the tube and you should be watching on the tube, you should be subscribed. If you have not subscribed to the YouTube channel version of this podcast.

Please do so. Please go over to YouTube right now. That's right. Hit the pause button. Go over to YouTube right now and smash that subscription button and that bell so that you are notified each and every time some new content is dropped. And I am dropping new content on the regular. So guys, today I want to jump right into it, man. I want to talk about how to stop punishing yourself, how to stop punishing.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (02:16.844)
yourself and I want to share you know a few stories in my past and how this all you know how this whole idea came to be but I first want to ask you have you ever struggled with expressing yourself and accepting yourself have you ever struggled with expressing yourself and accepting yourself if you have I know a little something

about that and what I've learned and really what I want to talk about specifically and share on today is how my lack of emotional intelligence led to me personally throughout I would say all of my childhood and my formative years not being able to fully express myself not being able to to fully

accept myself Because I didn't know what was happening within me. I Wasn't knowledgeable. I wasn't aware. I didn't know what was happening I didn't know why I felt the way I felt and half the time I didn't know what I was feeling and I don't know if you've ever been in that space if you've ever been to that place Where there's things happening within you and you just don't understand why you don't you don't understand what it is You don't understand why it is?

and you don't understand where it came from. Now, in these episodes, right, you only have so much time. And so I just wanna focus on a few specific things as it relates to what I just shared in terms of our inability to express ourselves and our inability to accept ourselves, which by the way, I think is two things that universally everybody should be able to enjoy.

There's many things in this world that not everyone will get to enjoy because it's attached maybe to some sort of financial status or some sort of religious affiliation. Perhaps it's based upon your gender or how you identify. There's all kinds of factors that go into this thing called life that...

Treveal C.W. Lynch (04:44.78)
may prevent you from experiencing something or going to a certain place or being around a certain person. But when it comes to the work within you, when it comes to you being able to express yourself and being able to accept yourself, I think that that's something that everyone deserves no matter what your background is.

no matter what age or stage you are in life, no matter your upbringing, no matter your economic status, none of these things should matter. I think it's something that all of humanity should be able to experience and enjoy. And I know for myself that was something that I didn't get to enjoy and I didn't get to experience much at all until just recently. And so I wanna share with you.

a little bit about a conversation that my son and I just had actually this morning. And it's funny how it all ties together, but we were having a conversation this morning and I was just sharing with him how blessed I am to be aware that I really am happy. Like I'm really, now I know, right? Happiness is a temporary feeling, but what I'm trying to express is like,

I'm really happy with my life. I'm really happy with who I am. I'm really satisfied in the sense of the idea of maybe contentment, right? Like I'm content. And the only time that I become discontent is when I compare my success or I compare myself to someone else. And how I've been on this journey of learning how to center myself through the help of my mentor.

centering and, you know, realigning myself with what truly matters for me and re -realizing that I already have that. I already have that. It's present. It's now. It's here. It's in my life. I don't have to search for it. I don't have to hunt for it. I don't have to fight for it. I already have it. It's already a part of my, you know, internal...

Treveal C.W. Lynch (07:10.252)
space. It's already an element of my existence. And so, and so I have these things, but I can get riled up and I can get discontented when I compare myself with someone else. And how, and, and, and that was something that I was explaining to him. But the fact was I was tying it to the idea that nothing material is ever the answer to what we're truly looking for in life.

Like yeah, true, you might need a new car, you might need a new home, you might need a new shirt, a new pair of shoes. I'm not saying that you don't need tangible physical things. What I'm saying is that if we're in the context.

really enjoying our experience of life, the quality of life that's always a product of a feeling, of an emotion, of an emotional state, of an inner state, right? The inner space and place. Life, and I'm sure you've heard this before, life is happening through us.

I'm gonna say that one more time for the people in the back. Life is happening through you, not to you. And so when you know that everything is worked from the inside out, then it liberates you and frees you to no longer have to pursue and live under the pressure to accumulate more possessions.

Not that possessions are bad because they're not nothing's inherently good or bad Until we name it and frame it until we assign it a meaning does it become quote good or quote bad? And so when you learn that everything is a work within to work without Then you are able to and i'm listen just stay with me i'm wrapping this all back around to the

Treveal C.W. Lynch (09:17.196)
idea of the importance of emotional intelligence because all of this awareness has to do with your emotional states and you knowing what those things are and how they operate within you but I was having this conversation and I was letting my son know how all we're really chasing is a feeling I want a new house so I can feel a certain way you know new car so I can feel a certain way right in the context that you don't really need it you want it.

you got what you need, but you just want a new one, or you're after something greater, normally it's because you're hunting and you're searching for a feeling. So the first thing that I wanted to share with you again is that, again, life is not happening to us, life is happening through us. And so if everything is about this inner work to work.

without, right? This work within to work without. Everything starts within. Well, listen, if that's true, then it would also inform us that our quality of life is not determined by our possessions. Our quality of life is determined by our positions, our internal positions.

That's what determines our quality of life, how we feel. I can put you in a 12 room mansion, but if you feel within yourself dissatisfied with who you are, not able to express yourself, not able to accept yourself, true, you've got the 12 room mansion, but it's of no value in the context of the quality of life.

that you experience. I can give you a brand new Bugatti, brand new, like zero miles on it. But if you are emotionally just an emotional wreck, you're just traumatized emotionally, life sucks, you suck, people suck, God sucks, like you are in the ditch. Yes, you have that great possession, but you suck when it comes to your position.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (11:36.62)
in life. And that's what I want to talk about today. You know, I was having that conversation with him because I had recorded some content the other day. And I was talking about the fact that, you know, how we come up as young boys. Maybe you've, you know, maybe you've had this said to you, maybe not. But I came up at the time where one of the most famous sayings was, big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry.

And the truth is big boys do cry and big boys should cry. They should cry as often as necessary, right? And I won't go down the path as to why we started that saying and kind of why we continue to push that very damaging agenda. But the fact of the matter is that if you are crying,

It's because of some sort of emotional trigger, something within you, right? People cry tears of joy when they're overwhelmed, right? That unexpressible, unexplainable joy that just happens because you witness something that just blows your mind and you're brought to tears. One of the places I love to cry is whenever I'm watching performing arts. I love synchronicity. I love...

when people have that pinpoint accuracy in terms of like, you know, they're on a stage and maybe it's 10, 15, 20 people and everyone does exactly the same thing at the exact same time. I don't know. I'm just wired that way. It's just, to me, that's a beautiful sight. Maybe it represents unity in my mind. Maybe it represents people just, you know, working together and whatever it is, right? I'm brought to tears when I see that.

a beautiful performance of something. When I witness someone's journey, I love watching documentaries. It brings me to tears. Well, you know, those are tears of joy. And when I see tragedy in the world, sometimes I'm moved, you know, to an emotional point where I cry tears of sorrow and sadness. Nevertheless, why would I not want to cry only because I'm a big boy? No, big boys should cry.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (13:59.468)
And I get the context, right? It's normally in the context of an uncle or a father or a grandfather raising a young boy and the boy fell down and scraped his knee or something like that. And the dad wants to come in and protect, protect, right? I'm doing air quotes if you're just listening to this version of the podcast, you know, I'm just doing air quotes right now. You know, we're trying to protect. And in our hearts and minds as the father, grandfather, as the uncle, we are, we are protecting.

in our minds, right, where it matters, but we're not really protecting them. When we say things like, hey, get up, you know, wipe it off, suck it up, you know, big boys don't cry. We're doing much more damage than good. And the reason I say that, and now this brings me to my story, is that when you have this concept that, and we're gonna just use the big boy don't cry as an example for all ideas in the world that...

pressure you to suppress and to depress your natural emotional expressions. Okay, so I'm just gonna take it out of my life's context and just use that example, but it represents everything as I always tell you, you name it, you frame it, you put it into your context. What is it for you? What was said to you, right? If you've experienced this, what was the emotional blocker for you where...

You didn't feel like you could express yourself or accept yourself, right? So keep that in mind, okay? So for me, something happens and I wanna cry. I want to express myself. Remember, the two things I think everyone should be able to experience, an expression of their truest self and an acceptance of their truest self, whatever that looks like.

God will take care of the rest. It ain't for us to be judging and be condemning. Don't worry about all that. God will handle anything that ain't in place. Don't worry about that stuff. Everybody, everybody, and I do mean everybody, no one, zero is excluded. I don't care what your gender, I don't care what your faith, I don't care what your ethnicity, I don't care about none of them things. You are a child of God and you...

Treveal C.W. Lynch (16:22.988)
deserve a fair shot at experiencing the life that he created you to experience. He or she, whatever you call God, God can be a he, God can be a she, God can be an it, however you get down. God wants the best for you. And I believe, and I'm just honing in on these two areas, expression and acceptance, because that was something that I didn't get to experience. So you got the big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry. I feel like crying. So.

Now there's this suppressed version of myself operating in the world because I want to cry. It's a natural occurrence. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I feel the little lump in my throat. I want to cry. I want to express myself, but the world tells me society tells me no, no, no big boys like you. That's what you are. I put you in a box. Big boys.

don't do this. So now I have to hide those tears. I have to suppress those tears. I can't let those tears out. And that not only creates an internal conflict, but it creates again, this suppressed lesser than my best version of me operating in the world. So.

people didn't get to express who I really, I mean, people didn't get to experience who I really was because I had to mask it. I had to, I had to, you know, I'm shaming it, right? I'm internalizing it. And so I'm, I'm hiding this natural God given gift of expression because big boys don't cry. Remember, I'm using this one just as an example to everything that is oppressive and suppressive.

to our ability to express ourselves, all right? And then the second one, acceptance. You know, there was a lot of conflict that was happening within me that caused me not to accept myself because in those formative years, you are a sponge. You're learning life. You're learning how to do life. So if I'm looking to my father, my uncle, my brother, other men in the community, whoever I'm looking to, and the message that they're giving me is,

Treveal C.W. Lynch (18:45.836)
Big boys don't cry. Well, I have to take that because I don't know no better. I'm growing, I'm learning, I'm a sponge. I don't have the emotional capacity. I don't have the mental capacity. I don't have the life experience to be able to debate that quite yet. I don't have the tools to debate that. I can debate that now at 46. You don't want to see me now, but at nine years old, 12, 13.

What do I know, right? So now there's this conflict within me because there's something that wants to occur naturally. I know that I want to allow it to happen, but society says, no, you don't do it. So if I'm a big boy and big boys don't do this, but inside I feel like doing this, the very thing that big boys don't do, then here it comes.

What's wrong with me?

Yeah, what's wrong with me? Isn't that the question that we ask ourselves? What's wrong with me? Not what's wrong with the messaging, not what's wrong with society, not what's wrong with other people, not what's wrong with this system, but what's wrong with me? And because we don't have the capacity to really answer that question quite yet,

Because the truth is nothing's wrong with you within that context. So there's really no answer to give you other than there's nothing that's wrong with you. But because we're not educated enough yet, we're not schooled enough yet in this area that I'm about to get to in just a moment, emotional intelligence, because we ain't got enough game yet, then we judge ourselves. We condemn ourselves. We limit.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (20:46.252)
ourselves. We judge and we criticize and we critique and therefore we we're not able to accept ourselves as we are. Right? So I'm not able to express myself. I'm not able I'm not able to accept myself.

I'm not very free, am I?

I'm not very free.

I'm not very happy. The quality of my life is not very good.

Why? Glad you asked. So, so glad you asked. It's this thing called emotional intelligence that I want to highlight and I want to encourage you to dig into, to lean into, to welcome into your life. I've said everything else that I've said to get us to this point. Emotional intelligence is the game changer. I was given this book, which I'm going to highlight.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (21:58.636)
Emotional intelligence 2 .0. I was given this book years ago And I put it on a shelf The book itself didn't look appealing just this white and red book

And, you know, there's a quote at the top from the Dalai Lama that just at that time, it just didn't move me. There's some reviews and some other stuff at the bottom, you know, best selling authors, yada, yada, yada. But it just didn't move me. The book didn't look fancy from an aesthetic perspective and the title, it just, it didn't speak value.

Perhaps it was something nice, maybe something I'll use at some point, but when it was given to me, I just didn't care. I didn't care to know what it was or what it was about, but I kept it. Funny how life works. I told you, God will take care of you. Don't worry about it. Because at the proper time, in the proper season, then things will start to matter. So many, many years later, like over 10 years later,

or whatever it was, but it was a lot, a lot of years. Cause I remember who gave it to me and when they gave it to me. So I'm not doing the math right now, but it was a lot of years. And I recently picked it up over this last year after taking my, my professional coaching certification course to become a coach. It came back around because we talked a lot about emotions. So now all of a sudden this book made sense.

and I got into it and I began to understand not only the value of emotional intelligence, but how I had been learning it over the last seven or eight years in various ways, but just not knowing what I was learning and the tools that I was utilizing. And then once I finished my certification, I really understood the value and the importance of emotional intelligence, emotional awareness. Because if...

Treveal C.W. Lynch (24:08.396)
I would have known these things and understood these things back then, then I would have been able to navigate. I would have been able to say, you know, I know what society is saying, but these emotions are my friends. These emotions are on my side. They're my allies. They're not my enemies. See, when something is happening within you that you can't explain, you don't know what it is.

why it is and where it came from, but it's just there. It's easy to start to judge. It's easy to say something's wrong with me, because that's our default mechanism. We don't ever say anything's right. We always go to what's wrong with me. But I would have been able to say, you know what, crying, that's cool. Sadness, that's cool. Happiness, that's cool. Gladness, joy, that's cool.

Even depression for a set time. That's cool. I know that's really radical. You mean depression is cool? I don't have time to go into it. That's not my intention. But let me just give you a little bit of hope when it comes to that. There are some things that unless you go down, you'll never discover. I'll leave it at that. There's some things on the bottom that you'll never pick up.

unless you go to the bottom. I'll leave it at that. Everything has utility value, as we say, in the biz, right? Those who coach and psych majors and whatnot. Everything has utility value, as we say. One thing that I picked up during my certification was when it comes to emotions, don't attempt to eliminate, but integrate.

Integrate don't eliminate why I'm gonna give you emotional intelligence 101 right here really quickly in like a minute Emotional intelligence 101 Emotions are your friends Emotions are your friends Emotions I'm gonna say it one more time. They are your friends They are there to assist you to inform you to enlighten you to point you in a direction They are there to serve you

Treveal C.W. Lynch (26:36.588)
is not so much about mastering your emotions as it is about managing your emotions. Because emotions are something that you can't control. So it's not about mastery, it's about management. You can't walk out of your door, you know, head out for the day with such great mastery that nothing is going to shake me. No, you see a person get murdered right in front of you, you think you're gonna override that emotion?

and you're gonna be so stoic and so powerful and such a master of your emotions that nothing is going to shake you and break you. No, you see something tragic, something earth shattering, you witness something of that magnitude and I don't mean to go dark, but I'm just trying to make my point. You witness something that real, you telling me you gonna just.

your emotion and and and feel the way you want to feel no there are some things that are just gonna bypass logic and you're gonna feel them because that's what we do we truly are emotional creatures so again I said I was gonna do it in like a minute or so okay so let me get back on track okay emotional intelligence it's understanding that emotions are there to serve they are informants they are telling you something and

the better you get at emotional intelligence, the more you are aware of what you're feeling and then identifying the source of that feeling, AKA where it came from. And then the third piece of the puzzle, what to do with it. What am I feeling? Where did it come from? What am I to do? What, where, what? What am I feeling? Where did it come from?

What am I to do with it? That's the essence of emotional intelligence. Being able to know what you're feeling, to know where it came from, to know what to do with it. And when I say no, I'm not saying perfection. I'm not saying 100 % accuracy. I'm saying you getting really good at you being consistent.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (28:59.5)
You being engaged, you being, you know, plugged in, dialed in, leaned in, engaging with your emotions. Because life is a lesson that we all get to learn. We're learning life as life is unfolding. So it's not about perfection, not about perfection. It's about progress. It's about presence. It's about position.

It's about pursuit. It's about purpose. It's never about perfection. Don't waste your time on something that's not achievable. Don't waste your time on something that's not achievable. Okay? So again, if I would have known these things, then I would have been able to say, okay, well, within me, when I wanna cry, crying is not a bad thing. So I don't have to judge myself.

And this feeling that's welling up within me, that's an okay thing. It's about managing like pieces on a chess board. It's managing your emotions, leveraging them, utilizing them when you get a little bit more advanced, right? Triggering them on purpose, right? When you get a little bit more advanced. But in a nutshell, it's just knowing, man, what am I feeling? Where did that feeling come from? And now that I know those two things, then,

What am I going to do with it? What's the best course of action? What's the best decision I can make? What's the best choice I can make? What's the best direction I can take because of what I know and what I understand about me? Because the world will make you feel like there's something wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with you. You just don't know what you're feeling, where it came from and what to do with it. And so,

Again, put this in your context. We are emotional creatures. There is no decision in this world that is not an emotional decision. When guys talk about, oh man, you just being emotional. Oh man, you a punk. You just being real feminine, man. You just being, you know, real, real emotional. Shut up. You are too. We're all emotional.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (31:30.124)
what we are. It's woven in our DNA. We can't separate from it. It's a part of us. It's a God given gift. And until you know that, then you're going to always look to push them away, suppress them, control them. And you go in this cycle and you feel worse and worse and worse.

because they're not there to control you. They're there to inform you. And then you can control the things that it's informing you, the choices and the decisions. It's informing you to make better decisions and better choices. And I hope and pray that you guys really hear my heart in this. Guys, I wanna suggest two books this year, if you haven't already done so.

I'm not here to give you five points to anything. I'm here to tell you, get aware, become aware. That's step one. If there's any steps, then step one is always awareness. Become aware, aware of your need for emotional intelligence because it is determining almost everything in your life. Your emotions are governing your decisions and your decisions are.

Governing your directions and your directions are governing your destinations in life the places you end up health -wise relationship wise Financial wise I'm jacking up the English language all just I'm just throwing it out the window pretty much But you get my point wherever you end up in every area of your life if you're struggling and a emotional level

is because of your decisions. If you're struggling on a physical health level, it's your decisions. If you're in relationships, religion, it doesn't matter what it is. It's always decisions, directions, destinations. But what determines your decisions? It's your emotional states. It's highly influential.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (33:51.596)
in your decision making. So, number one, emotional intelligence 2 .0. They're not paying me. They should pay me as much as I talk about this, but they're not paying me for this, but emotional intelligence 2 .0, invest in it, buy it, get it, whether it's physical book, audio book. I do suggest physical books just because of the additional benefits that come along with reading physical books. And then also my book.

Hey man, shameless plug, why not? My book, right? Get my book, What Is Enough? This book was written to the perfectionist. It was written to the emotional unstable, right? It was written to those who struggle emotionally, who struggle with feeling like they are enough, feeling like their effort is enough, and feeling like their existence is enough.

So if you have never picked up my book, What Is Enough, right? It's on Amazon, it's on the website, all those good things, iamthepossible .com. But if you've never picked up my book and you deal with some of those perfectionist issues, right? Trying to be perfect, because you're afraid of what people are going to think and say about you, right? Because you never feel like you're good enough, right? So you overcompensate, right? You compare, right? And you never feel full, always feeling empty.

Right? If you're the person who just, you're just down on yourself. You're very rigid. You don't have any freedom. Everything is a goal or some accomplishment. You turn everything into a competition with yourself. And when you fall short, not if, but when you fall short, you punish yourself. You just get down on yourself. If you're that person, this book was written to you because it was written to me because I was that person.

Yeah, yep. All of this is tying back to emotional intelligence and just getting a grip on our emotional states. So stop punishing yourself. Stop punishing yourself. Stop limiting your ability to express yourself and to accept yourself. That's my encouragement for you today. I hope and pray that something I've shared and something I've said.

Treveal C.W. Lynch (36:18.796)
has been a blessing to you, has been a motivation, inspiration, edification, something, right? Moved you on the inside some way, somehow. God loves you, I love you. I believe in you guys, I'm praying for you guys. Until next time, let's continue to regulate, guys. Let's continue to elevate. Let's continue to be encouraged. And let's continue to be.

Our possible.