In this episode, I discuss how in our society and in academia, some feelings are labeled as productive and hence legitimate, and other feelings are considered unprofessional, unproductive, and illegitimate. Stress and anxiety are feelings associated with hard work, but joy and excitement are discounted as potentially incongruent with productivity. Listen to how I explain that the opposite is true--how stress can literally kill you while joy and playfulness can unleash your highest productivity and create high quality of life.
In this episode, I discuss how in our society and in academia, some feelings are labeled as productive and hence legitimate, and other feelings are considered unprofessional, unproductive, and illegitimate. Stress and anxiety are feelings associated with hard work, but joy and excitement are discounted as potentially incongruent with productivity. Listen to how I explain that the opposite is true--how stress can literally kill you while joy and playfulness can unleash your highest productivity and create high quality of life.
Welcome to the thriving academics Podcast. I'm Ulya Tsolmon, a professor and certified coach, and I share insights on how to create your best work and live your best life. If you want to go from surviving to thriving without sacrificing what's important to you, then listen on To find out how. Hello, my friends. In this episode I want to talk about legitimate and illegitimate feelings. In one of the previous episodes, I talked about the importance of feelings and how feelings are a reason for everything we do and don't do. And today I wanted to discuss how in our society and academia, some feelings are labeled as productive and hence legitimate, and other feelings are considered unprofessional, unproductive, and possibly illegitimate. So let me share with you why all feelings are important and they all serve you in one way or another. But most importantly, you can choose to feel the feelings that are good, and produce good work in a sustainable way. Stress is such an interesting emotion, how the society looks at it. On the one hand, stress kills, so we should not feel stress. On the other hand, stress is a badge of productivity. All good work and hard work must be done with stress. work without stress is not good enough. Do you believe that you can get your work done? Only if you feel stressed? Do you think that stress is unnecessary feeling you must have for you to get your work done. If in your mind and experience, stress and productivity go together, then this is so typical. Most people have been socialized into thinking that stress is a legitimate feeling, and actually a sign of you working hard. Now what is coming up for you when I say feeling joy and calm is more productive than feeling stress? Do you feel skepticism? Doubt, or does it ring true? Most people I asked this question tell me that calm and joy is what they chasing with stress. But they can't imagine that they would work as hard if they were calm and stress free. So our society and work culture tends to legitimize certain feelings over others. Anxiety and stress seem to be legitimate feelings to have than sadness or excitement, anxiety and stress of feelings that we feel almost out of obligation. It's almost like without stress and anxiety, there is no good work. Without stress and anxiety. You cannot trust yourself to do good work. Without stress anxiety, you will likely just laze off and fail. We're afraid to feel excitement about a work because we suspect that we may be wrong here. Maybe we're getting excited over things that are not realistic, or things that won't work, that maybe we are being unrealistic when we feel positive emotions. Negative emotions are much more realistic and will guide us to safety and success. Does this sound familiar? So remember that feelings are a fuel for all our actions and inactions. So by legitimizing certain feelings over the others, we consistently fueling work with certain type of fuel. So if stress and anxiety are your go to fuel, then of course you're tired and exhausted and burnt out. It's a very costly fuel. It demands a lot of energy and does not generate good energy. It's like a diet of junk food. It does the job of keeping you alive and fed in the short run. But it's very harmful to your well being in the in the long run. You don't get a full range of nutrients. You get chemicals that are harmful to your health in the long run. And the food makes you feel lethargic contributes to gaining weight, accumulating cholesterol spiking your blood sugar and the list goes on. But we afraid of other types of emotional fuels such as excitement, curiosity and courage, because we suspect something is up with them. Why should you feel good when you're working? Hard work means suffering. Can you really work without suffering is that good work? When we feel positive emotions, we worry that either the feelings are wrong, or that we won't do good work with positive emotions? What does your life look like without anxiety and stress? Do you really picture yourself slacking off, not showing up to teach your classes, letting your co authors down, not feeding your kids not caring? Where your kids might be? Not taking care of your pets not taking your care of yourself? Is this really true? Do you really need anxiety and crippling stress to do the things you want and you are committed to doing? Have you tried using a different emotional fuel to do your work? Many people talk about the flow state of work. It's of course different for different people. But the main common feature of this flow state is that it's only you and your work. When you in the state. Your brain is working beautifully. coming up with ideas, putting ideas together, creating something of a thing of beauty. There is nothing else in the flow state there is no anxiety, there's no doubt. There is no stress, there is no frictions. You lose sense of time and space. And you're just in the flow. Many people describe the feeling that they have in the flow state one of calm, curiosity, joy, yes, pure joy of creating and working. If you've been in an experience, the flow state, you know how it feels. The fuel is beautifully sustainable. It's clean, it's invigorating, and you come out of the flow state completely satisfied and nourished. Junk food of anxiety and stress cannot create the space for you. Yet, we are so practiced into thinking that stress is the only way to produce good work. As you can see, the opposite is true. You need to embrace the feelings that create good sustainable fuel for you. So maybe it's excitement, curiosity, playfulness, Joy. What is the clean emotional fuel for you. Knowing what emotions and feelings create good space for you to do work is very important. Just because fast food stores are at every corner and junk food ads are everywhere, doesn't mean that that food is good for you. You get to decide what food you want to eat and nourish yourself. If your goal is not a long term wellness, or you must fuel your body immediately to survive, then of course, junk food will do. But if you're aiming for long term goals, and want to have sustainable fuel to make the journey, then you got to be intentional about the fuel you choose feeling good. Enjoying your work and making progress can really go together. In fact, the best work can come from joy, curiosity and enjoyment. So you don't have to feel guilty when you're wanting to relax and feeling happy. Just because it doesn't seem productive. The opposite is true. Being in a flow state, using the clean fuel of joy, playfulness, and curiosity can be even more productive. So how do you get into flow state and not feel stress? Our emotions are generated by our thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts are so practice that we don't even notice thinking them. It just seems like feelings are emerging on their own. That's not possible because your brain has to make sense of inputs first to generate your feelings. Fear does not emerge spontaneously comes from either your brain picking up danger cues from its environment, or your thoughts about certain circumstances to signal danger. Either way, there has to be a thought either conscious or subconscious, that something is dangerous for fear to emerge. Then the emotion of fear is very useful because it can get you running away or hiding from danger. So the first step is to figure out what you're thinking about your piece of writing or other work which you think is causing stress. Then you can examine the thought for how true it is neutralize it, make sense of it. If your brain sets off an alarm when it thinks it sees a snake on the trail, you certainly want to run away scream or whatever. But when you take Another look and see that it's actually stick, then you start calming yourself down and continue on. So similarly question whether what your brain thinks is so scary and dangerous. And whether that is really true. Is it just the stick and not a snake? So question your initial reaction. The next thing is to think, what emotional fuel? Do you want to use instead? When working? Does it? How does it feel when you are in a flow state? Do you feel calm, excited or focus, then try on different perspectives and thoughts that can generate those feelings. You can generate any feeling you want. Movie Makers and writers and notice very well, they can get you crying, or laughing just by suggesting things to you. You could be laughing or crying or feel horrified, depending how the story goes. The story does not even happen to you, but you feel all the feels. So be the director of your own story. Do you want a horror show or tragedy, you can create the story and thoughts that can generate the feelings that are really useful to you. It doesn't have to be fictional. Tapping into your curiosity is not fiction. It's just underused, because it's not being legitimized, or practiced as often as the emotion of stress. So stress and anxiety and doubt are really not necessary for you to show up and do good work. You really got to trust yourself there. I will argue and I have a lot of evidence that you can do better quality of work on a consistent basis over long period. With joy, curiosity and playfulness, then with stress and anxiety. You can fuel yourself with invigorating, nutritious energy that feels great and produces high quality work in a sustainable way. So that is all I have for you today. Just remember, you can do your best work and also feel great at the same time. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and have a beautiful rest of the day. Until next time. Take care. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about all the things we're talking about, check out women faculty.com Where we take these concepts and apply them. Come join us and do your best work and live your best life.