Let That Shift Go
Welcome to "Let That Shift Go," a podcast hosted by siblings Lena and Noel. Join them on their journey of self-awareness as they delve into meaningful conversations about the human experience.
Lena and Noel have decided to break free from the confines of private discussions and bring their heartfelt, and at times, humorous conversations to the public. They believe that we are all going through the trials and tribulations of life, and it's comforting to know that we're not alone.
In each episode, Lena and Noel will explore various aspects of being human, sharing personal stories, insights, and lessons they've learned along the way. From navigating relationships to dealing with challenges, they'll offer a refreshing perspective on life's ups and downs.
Through candid and authentic conversations, "Let That Shift Go" aims to create a safe space for listeners to relate, reflect, and find solace in the shared human experience. Lena and Noel invite you to join them as they embrace change, growth, and let go of what no longer serves them.
Tune in and be part of a community that celebrates the beautiful messiness of being human. Get ready to let go, laugh, and discover that you're not alone on this journey. Welcome to "Let That Shift Go" podcast!
Let That Shift Go
“Good Vibes Only? The Dark Side of Toxic Positivity”
Ever felt like the "good vibes only" mantra is more suffocating than liberating? Join us as we unpack the hidden dangers of toxic positivity, sharing personal stories from my career as a flight nurse and a memorable family dinner. We challenge the idea that positivity should be prioritized over genuine emotional expression, highlighting how this mindset can silence those who need to be heard most. Our conversation ventures into the delicate balance of acknowledging all emotions, advocating for compassion and the importance of feeling validated in any emotional state.
Moving forward, we dive into the notion that emotions, even the uncomfortable ones like anger, serve as vital signals much like a car's warning lights. Through a personal anecdote involving my child, we illustrate the power of allowing emotions to run their course, leading to more effective and heartfelt resolutions. By challenging the "good vibes only" mentality, we encourage listeners to embrace their struggles and discover the transformative potential of spaces like Serenity Cove, where emotional weight can be processed and released.
We then confront cultural norms that often stifle emotional expression, particularly for men, urging the creation of safe spaces for vulnerability. Reflecting on experiences where sharing personal struggles fostered deeper connections, we emphasize the bravery and influence of being the first to open up. Our episode champions the development of emotional resilience, urging listeners to welcome all emotional experiences to cultivate authenticity in relationships and personal growth. We invite you to join this movement by sharing your own stories and questions, building a community that normalizes emotional expression.
Hello and welcome to the Let that Shift Go podcast I'm Noel.
Speaker 3:And I'm Lina.
Speaker 2:And this is where we talk about the good, the bad and all the shift in between. We just talk mad shift, let's get into it and on this week's episode, healing from toxic positivity.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that whole good vibes only, yeah, I had some problems with that originally. Yeah, I had to rethink any kind of signs that they would put out. I'm not putting that on my property, no, but first let's get into these healing cards.
Speaker 2:Okay, you want me to go first, you go first. Okay, I'll go first to say if you could have something of mine, what would it be and why?
Speaker 3:um, I would say probably your fearlessness, like when it comes to like I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna do this, like kind of. You know, especially physical fearlessness, I wouldn't mind having some of that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I see you as going first on a lot of other things that aren't physical, yeah, so that's okay.
Speaker 3:I'll go into the emotional fearlessness.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that is though?
Speaker 3:Why do you think that the physical physicality is something that you're less likely to do first? I think I became more or less likely after working as a flight nurse and seeing too many of the ways it went wrong. You know, yeah, and so, even though it's like something I maybe would have wanted to try, there's already like this kind of story in my head about oh, remember that time you had to pick someone up, and so it limits how much risk I want to take physically.
Speaker 2:It brings to mind a word. I asked you about vicarious trauma, secondary trauma.
Speaker 3:Secondary trauma.
Speaker 2:And how it can affect you. Yeah, it is secondary trauma. Okay, what's your question?
Speaker 3:Okay, my question is if there was a movie about our family, which actors would play us?
Speaker 2:Oh man, who would play you? I think, I don't know, maybe because I'm watching Stranger Things again Wynonna Ryder would be you.
Speaker 3:She's a little quirky. I could do that she could.
Speaker 2:But she kicks ass in the same time, yeah. Yeah, she definitely can figure, sit out.
Speaker 3:Or who would play you.
Speaker 2:I don't know what would you think? It's hard to say me.
Speaker 3:Robert Downey Jr. Okay, why, but why? He's quirky, but he and he's funny but he's strong, you know, but he, he can be vulnerable, but he, he can laugh at himself.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, somebody once told me like you, act like you. You remind me of Chris Pratt, for some reason.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's, you know that's that same type of humor. I could see Chris Pratt Totally. I could totally see that. Yeah, I ran that through in my head. I saw the movie trailer right now.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's get into this topic healing from toxic positivity. So what comes up for you on this one? I know you talked about like not wanting to put up signs that were too positive on the property.
Speaker 3:Well things, like you know, it's not even that it's too positive. It's just things that say like specifically, like the term that makes me think about it is good vibes only.
Speaker 3:And that's like a t-shirt everybody would wear, and for a while I was like, yeah, good vibes only, I only want you know people who show up with good vibes or any of that. And then I started to realize like that's really alienating all other emotion to some degree and it's like you're, you know, you're kind of being told to just stay positive, when maybe all you want to do is be heard, and so that kind of it just like increases the need to suppress emotions. And I think, with everything I've been taught about dealing with trauma or regulating your nervous system, there really is no place to suppress your emotions. And when you have that like, hey, just stay positive.
Speaker 3:You know, you're, if you're feeling down and out or you're having a problem and somebody says you know what? You just got to focus on the positive. It's like cool, but what do I do with all this other stuff that I'm feeling?
Speaker 2:Well, it brings to me, as you're saying, that I'm thinking about a time where we were at the dinner table and I was, I had a particularly bad day and I was trying to stay in my positive vibes and Logan, one of my boys, decided he had something on his heart and he wanted to express, and it was very negative. And I was like, hey, we're not going to do this right now. This is the dinner table and I don't want any negativity right now. And you can see him shut down. And he was like, see, I never can be heard, I don't have a voice at this table or at this house.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh man, I felt so terrible because I was like I just want to be positive right now, but everybody wants to be heard. And so at that point point I was trying to just be in my positive vibes and not let anybody bring me down. But that can have, you know, a secondary effect to somebody else, you know, if you're not allowing them to be heard in their moment, because whatever issues I was having, I have to allow and have compassion for other people to have theirs also. And that being positive in that moment completely kind of just pushed him down.
Speaker 3:It just dismissed it. Yeah, I could see how it totally affected him in a negative way. Like you're just asking someone to dismiss their negative emotion, even though that's what's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not allowed to have that right now, because my feelings are more important than yours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there maybe there is like a fine line, right? Because if, if you're I, what I think about is like if you're in a group of people and all you know, everybody is just constantly complaining.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's one thing. It's like everybody needs an opportunity to be able to vent and let those negative emotions out. But I think that there needs to be maybe an intention with, like, I need to just get this out, I need to move through it and maybe you can provide, you know, help if it's being asked for, but just allow somebody to express their emotion. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that the opposite, like the thing that wouldn't be helpful, in which I see, and I have done in the past and many people do is like let me tell you this negative thing that I have right, or I'm listening to the negative thing that you have. You know what. Let me tell you about a negative thing that happened to me too. Well then, now we're just like Competitive yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're just in this loop. It's just kind of like commiserating. So I think there's a difference between commiserating and that just being like the whole you know-.
Speaker 2:There's no healing there, you know experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and let's just connect on something that's really negative, as opposed to let me, you know, provide the space for you to hear you out and let you talk about what's going on for you, but it doesn't mean I have to then continue the negative feedback. Yeah, you know what I mean. I think it's different from shutting someone down and saying, you know what, there's no room for that. You just need to stay focused on the positive, as opposed to, oh yeah, that really must've sucked Like and I can imagine how hard that is, you know and instead just allowing them to let that out, because everything we talk about with breath work or healing talks about how you know, emotion is energy in motion, so emotion can be, you know, a number of things fear, guilt, shame anger ecstasy, joy, whatever, but it wants to move.
Speaker 3:That emotion wants to move, it wants to be expressed and once it does, it really doesn't need to hang on. It's almost like when you let somebody talk about something that was really hard for them or traumatic for them. Sometimes, the more they're able to just express it, it almost starts to bleed it out, so that a lot of the emotion or the activation around it starts to bleed out. It starts to kind of lessen lessen, lessen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just talking about it. Yeah, being able to get it out. Yeah, releasing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. There is something to that to letting someone just talk about what's happened. Provide a space for them to do that, but what we're talking about here is where we're inclined to just shut them down and say you know what, let's just go with good vibes only.
Speaker 2:Well, one thing that I, you know before I knew about kind of being aware and, you know, having an awareness and some of the wound and the cuckoo-ness of you and Armando was kind of like, oh, she's just happy, Everything's positive and nothing really affects her and kind of looking before I knew what it was, I was just making a pure judgment of like oh everything, nothing affects her. Everything's perfect, you know just, she just lets things, you know, roll off of her. But that's not really what it was.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:What do you think it was now?
Speaker 2:Well, now it's opening space, yeah, and and active listening that we talk about a lot and just hearing what's going on, and allowing that person to have a voice and to be heard. You know, that's what I think it is now.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But there was a judgment about being woo-woo and-.
Speaker 3:You're just, it's all good vibes only.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, hippie and everything's good and everything. Well, they just. How could they not be mad about this? How can they not be mad? It's not about not being mad. It's about reacting different or responding different, yeah, you know, or responding different, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, it's definitely that, and I think that probably in our, in most of like, in our day-to-day lives day-to-day lives with Armando and I we are processing, we are talking about things that bothered us during the day, Like we're not, like we don't talk about that. Yeah. You know, if Armando's had a hard day or if I did, we we can give each other the space to be like all right, oh, yeah, that must've been difficult, or I can see why that was frustrating, you know.
Speaker 3:But we don't like take it as an opportunity to just harp on it will on it, like make it bigger than it even is. But also, just being able to express that way doesn't leave me carrying it around, you know, or just in a reactive mode constantly, because I'm stressed, you know, because all of that does affect your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's science that talks about how suppressing negative emotions like sadness or anger or fear. It might feel like a quick fix to just suppress it, but you're actually creating a physiological response in your body that leads to more inflammation, cortisol, all of that.
Speaker 2:You're storing those implicit memories in your fascia of your body.
Speaker 3:Yeah, You're actually changing your chemistry you know, by holding onto anger and stress and all of that. So there's it's not just this woo thing about. You should just stay positive and, you know, never talk about this, or you know it's not that it's this is how it affects your body on a physiological level, on a physical level, and your mind. You know it's not that. This is how it affects your body on a physiological level, on a physical level, and your mind. You know this. Holding all of that in can lead to depression, anger, anxiety that is expressed in a way that probably isn't healthy.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I talked about this before, but Logan, my son, had come to me and was, you know, having some conflict at school and was talking about he was very negative about what was going on and describing things in detail, and so I went into my positivity. You know, son, you got to do this and that, and I understand where you're coming from, but you need to, and he was like dad.
Speaker 3:You need to.
Speaker 2:He's like dad can I ask you a question? And I said, yeah, go ahead, bud, and he's like you. I can't really vent to the people at school and right now I just need you to listen. I need to. I need someplace to vent, Can you? So can you just hear me out and I? That just really.
Speaker 3:I mean it shook me, I was like whoa.
Speaker 2:I need to shut off dad mode and really open a space for him and just hear him.
Speaker 3:And yay for him for being able to say this is what I need, yeah, and that was shutting down that toxic positivity.
Speaker 2:I think that, specifically, was the moment and as I listened to him talk he was able to. I seen him voice things out and was working things out as he was speaking.
Speaker 2:And by the end of it, all the stuff that he planned to do was better than what I would have told him to do. He just needed the space to kind of work it out and somebody to hear it, yeah, and kind of an affirmation, if you will, yep. And by the end of it I was like, wow, you know, that was so powerful and such a learning moment as a dad, because you know I come from this place of like, oh, I got to fix everything, I got to protect him from everything, I really got to keep you know all of this, you know, you know all of this. You know he keep him positive and not let things get him down. I don't want him to be depressed and all these things, but it's not a good thing to be always. Even Gandhi or the Dalai Lama is not 100% of the time positive and everybody has their moments. Because without I forget what it's called it's like a positive stress, because stress without that stress, there's no reaction in our body to create some kind of change or healing.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So just recognizing what that is and allowing the space for it is probably the most important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the other thing that I found is that what they're talking about is pain as being a signal, right, and there was this statement about imagine if you were told to ignore a warning signal in your car.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't fix the problem.
Speaker 3:You can't just put a piece of black tape over your check engine light.
Speaker 2:I've done that, I've literally done that.
Speaker 3:So if you were going to ignore your check engine light, it would just hide it, you know, or you just wouldn't look at it. Our emotions work in a similar way. So that pain or whatever's going on, maybe anger, anger has its place. Anger is one of the best ways as a catalyst for change. Right, because it can tell you that something is not right, something is not right with you and maybe there is a boundary that needs to be set, or maybe there's a conversation that needs to be had, and maybe through that conversation, instead of a blow up, you know, but being able to manage anger in a healthy way and say this is upsetting to me that maybe change could come from it. But the opposite is just kind of putting in your body or just, you know, just suppressing it, and then you're always feeling like you're in a fight or flight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's called deferred maintenance.
Speaker 3:You can't defer it you can't defer it, then the whole engine goes Like if you would have just checked, you know, taking care of the problem in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because usually a small problem incrementally gets bigger and bigger and becomes a really big problem. If you would have handled it you know, right away or as soon as you got the sign, you could save yourself a lot of time and headache.
Speaker 3:Yeah, emotional pain is the signal to make us change, you know, and we just ignore emotional pain, then we're not changing and we're just starting to maybe build resentment or whatever that is, and physically it's not good for your body. So there's just so many reasons to just be able to express what you're feeling in the moment that you're feeling it, and so I think having this conversation is both for us as listeners and for us as human beings because life is going to life you.
Speaker 3:It's going to life you sometimes harder than others, and so you have to be able to move through whatever is happening in a way that is I don't know maybe changing what's happening or being able to express it in a way that deepens your relationships, you know, or just lets you show up more fully. Right, because being able to hold that space within yourself and being able to express emotions in the moment that you're having them leaves you more room to be able to do that for someone else.
Speaker 2:And you know a lot of times you know if you compare it to like a car thing you know, once you do it, you're like oh, why didn't I do that earlier? It was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be this big thing. And then you do it.
Speaker 3:You're like, oh, it was just that I should have just got taken care of why didn't I, you, we work on it.
Speaker 2:The easier it becomes to kind of handle these conflicts and as they come up, you know, giving ourselves some compassion and some grace, some space to move.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because that fear of missing out and that anxiety of like I got to fix this or you know, sometimes, yeah, and then it's just this like ticking time bomb in your head that you got to go do this.
Speaker 2:You got to go do that it creates anxiety and sleeplessness, especially for me. It creates anxiety and sleeplessness, especially for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, yeah, there's I don't know. I thought this was something that I had to call myself out on early on, early on, I mean, especially with we have Serenity Cove and there's a lot of great things that happen here and we do want, like we talk about vibration and you know we want people to show up in a good attitude, but actually, no, I actually want you to come and bring the stuff that you're trying to work through and leave lighter you know, and so that I don't know.
Speaker 3:that for me was like yeah, that's definitely not a motto. Here is, you know, good vibes only and hey, hey, we don't talk about that, let's just talk about all the good things that we feel that stuff's all in the past.
Speaker 2:Bro, don't even worry about it. Yeah, no, I'm the opposite now.
Speaker 3:Now, when I see somebody triggered, I'm like ooh, do you want to go into that? They're like no, I don't want to go into that. No, but I think there's something there's a treasure.
Speaker 2:There's something there. There's a treasure there. What A treasure. I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 3:I see your toxicity is like an opportunity, you know, or whatever this anger or this like sadness is. It's like there is a that's something to unlock because there's something really great on the there could be something really great on the other side. It may be, you know, to change something, or it may be just a feeling of like I feel so much lighter.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, there's probably something to the fact that it's like oh, I'm going to go see Lena, oh, she's going to pull something out of me.
Speaker 3:I get a lot of that. Yeah, I don't want to talk to her. She's going to make me look at all my stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I get that sometimes too. It's almost like, oh, noel's all in his feelings and he's tapped into his emotions psychoanalyzed.
Speaker 3:It's like no that's not what I'm trying to do. No, we just want you to let that shift go Quite, literally. Yeah, there's a I mean the other thing about anger that I think that's something that sometimes we try to avoid feeling, or you almost feel, I don't know. Anger is misunderstood, I think, on some levels, and I think there's almost like this shame in in being angry sometimes you know, like I can't believe I got angry and it's like I think that it's a vital emotion you know, it is it signals, boundaries, um.
Speaker 3:It signals when something that is important to us has been violated, right, and allowing ourselves to feel that and understand it can help us stand up for ourselves you know and set the boundaries we need and when we're doing it in a way that maybe is even in the moment, or in a way that you feel empowered to do so, it may not be as explosive, you know.
Speaker 2:Kind of the beach ball effect, kind of thing holding the beach ball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, holding the beach ball, trying to hold it underwater.
Speaker 2:And if you, don't you know kind of the beach ball effect kind of thing. Holding the beach ball.
Speaker 3:Holding the beach ball, hold it underwater, and if you don't, you know let it out in your own, it's going to blow out, hit you in the face tired of holding it. Yeah, so being able to go, man, I feel angry. This is making me angry and ask yourself why why, am I? What is this about? And then being able to express it when, when you're able to do that, there's a possibility for change.
Speaker 2:It's pretty scary to do that, though you know I mean we talk about it because we've been trying to do this work. Yeah. But I think for somebody just fresh into kind of going through and looking at themselves and trying to become aware of why they are the way they are. It can be scary to kind of you know approach those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it can be scary to kind of approach those things.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, it gets easier and easier the more you do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think you know what One of the suggestions I usually have with clients is start with something benign Like. Start with something like if you wanted to practice this, like, let's say, I wanted to practice just voicing my opinion or something that I'm angry about, but maybe it's not as juicy or spicy- Like it's just an everyday thing, yeah it's just an everyday thing.
Speaker 3:It's not like something about my childhood or my closest relationship. Maybe it's just something that is really benign, like something that upset you during the day and being able to just talk about it and maybe practice with things like that, that don't feel as like you're so attached to it. Yeah, you know, and I think the better you get at just navigating the small things, the better you get at being able to experiment with the bigger things you know, and then you start to build some confidence in being able to feel anger right, or even feel sadness, because the depth of sadness like sadness helps us slow down you know, right.
Speaker 3:It helps us to connect with what we've lost, whether it's a person or it's a relationship, or even if it's a past version of ourselves, and embracing that sadness can lead to acceptance and even gratitude and allowing us to make space for new experiences. But, sometimes we're so afraid to feel any emotion that we oftentimes just try to numb from it, or distract from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's another thing, well drinking, or-.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anything Recreational drugs or whatever. I binge watching yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, it's just something to check out Scrolling, scrolling Exactly but the thing is that sadness, or that anger or whatever it is, is an emotion, it's energy in motion. When you shut it down, it doesn't disappear. Even if you numb it, it doesn't disappear. It just kind of waits for you. So the trick is to start processing that in the moment, and I think that's one of the things we both see with breathwork and why breathwork is so valuable. It's like breathwork allows you to build that bridge between the mind and the body, and it's all feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're stimulating your autonomic nervous system.
Speaker 3:You're going into your sympathetic state. You're being able to, yeah, kind of clean out, Clean out a lot of these things that you haven't allowed yourself to feel Right. So what if we didn't just wait for these big clean outs or big blow ups or sickness illness?
Speaker 2:But you know it requires a safe space to do that, because I've found that some people are even. They apologize for just having a brief moment of vulnerability. I'm so sorry I put that on you and it's like they felt like they were emotionally dumping on me and it's like, no, we're friends. This is a space where I'm willing. I wanna hear how dare you rob me of the opportunity to be here for you?
Speaker 3:Well, think about how the culture has been, though Listen, only positive stuff. This is what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:This is what we're talking about. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:If your parents were not comfortable. You know listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. So if you grew up in a household where people didn't openly share emotions, then that would seem like-.
Speaker 3:Something you need to apologize for.
Speaker 2:Somebody's like hey, listen, I got to tell you about this thing, that's really bothering me and that would just not be a place that they would feel comfortable at all. So trying to find ways to have people be more comfortable with that, Like, I agree, I think starting with something small usually helps, Because usually when that type of a phrase comes out where I'm sorry, I got you know, it's like that's it's usually something really big, Like there's shame attached to having feelings.
Speaker 3:There's shame attached to crying.
Speaker 2:Especially I mean, I don't know for women as much, but I can speak for myself especially for men. It's like what are you? You know you're in your what are you weak-minded?
Speaker 3:Yeah. What are you? A baby? What's wrong with you? Why are you crying? There's no room for your sadness. You crying, there's no room for your sadness.
Speaker 2:You know what they're, but often for men the only thing there is room for is anger. Well, it's the only emotion that was cultivated and, and and nurtured.
Speaker 2:It was like, come on, you know, kick his butt. You know, do this. Come on, don't let him do that to you. It was, it was always. Even. You know, uncles would kind of antagonize cousins fighting or brothers. You know like there would be things where they were like kind of antagonized cousins fighting or brothers. You know like there would be things where they were like, oh, let's see what happens, and they were really pushing us to exercise the emotion of anger. But when it came to any kind of sadness, no, no, no no no, we don't do that.
Speaker 2:Even pain, like I broke my. Oh, walk it off. Come on, don't cry, you gotta walk it off. Like, really Like I can't just be here in this moment and feel what I'm feeling and let this process pass. Yeah, and I find myself a lot more, even. I mean, I find myself getting teary-eyed in TV shows, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And would you hide it?
Speaker 2:No, not I used to I used to totally yeah, but now it's just like oh man, I'd wipe my tears Like, wow, that was so powerful, but I actually feel like I enjoy things more fully you know books, tv shows.
Speaker 3:Well, you have like emotional availability. Yeah, I mean I'll watch like stuff like America's.
Speaker 2:Got Talent and see somebody who, yeah, and they have some sort of affliction, and then they're so talented, I'm like how did this person push and persevere through this? And I get all teary-eyed just because I kind of empathize with what they must be going through and it gives me the space to kind of grow that empathy and not be ashamed of it, and that takes a lot of practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, it's a different culture than probably many of us were brought up in, that it's okay to have emotion, it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to feel angry. You're not going to get stuck there, especially if you allow yourself to feel those things and then let them pass, let them go. But that's not really what we were taught.
Speaker 2:No, I mean we're not taught to express emotions. Men between men. I have friends now that when? Well, a few, very few, but there's a few friends who are kind of in touch and at the end of our conversations love you, bro. And it's not a homosexual thing at all, it's just a love for another person. That would never happen growing up, I would never say, hey, love you bro. They'd be like what Everybody's uncomfortable, Everybody gets uncomfortable. But now that's something that I feel comfortable to say.
Speaker 3:So this is really a way of building emotional resilience.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, being able to feel the full range of emotions, not just some that are acceptable, but all of them. We're here having the human experience that includes having the full gamut of all emotion. Positive and negative, positive and negative, and being able to do that, I think it makes us easier to. It makes it easier for us to face discomfort, you know, because without having to push it away, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Why? Why does it make it easier?
Speaker 3:Because you're able to, when you're able to, navigate your feelings and it feel okay, you don't feel shamed for it, you're not trying to be sad and also feel ashamed because I'm sad, or be angry and also feel ashamed because I'm angry. It's like what if you're just able to feel sad and you could just kind of move into that discomfort of being sad or being angry or being whatever it is, and then let it move, let it go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and use your tools self-soothing tools to kind of move through the process.
Speaker 3:I think it's about not pushing it away, not pushing away the emotion, and when we do that, imagine what your relationships could look like your friendships, your significant others. It's being able to process and feel your emotions and allow them to do the same, or encourage them to do the same. Emulate how that looks and create a safe space for the people around you to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think you know we started with how I thought being woo-woo was, you know, super positive, but in actuality what we do is, you know, encourage people to deal with their emotions and it's it's. It's the exact opposite of toxic positivity. Yeah, it's actually like it's undercover in a way, let's go into all the shadow stuff. Well, if I seen the label of serenity, COVID would be like oh, serenity, you know, but then we deal with a lot of hard things and it doesn't always have to be.
Speaker 3:How do you think you get to serenity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, let that shit go Part of that is surrender. Oh, part of it, I mean shoot all of it. Most of it, most of it is surrendering to your vulnerabilities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to let that shift go every single day. You know, start small, but start asking yourself, like I want you to ask yourself how does it make you feel when you see someone cry? How does it make you feel when you feel like you are going to cry or you are going to have an emotion that maybe doesn't feel acceptable to the people around you? What gets triggered in you? Are you okay with it? Or do you instantly try to like shut it down, push it down, push it away? And starting to notice, because if you're doing that, you're holding stuff in. That holding stuff in leads to pain, chronic pain, anxiety, depression and all of that is really a lot of that is undigested, unprocessed emotion.
Speaker 2:And it's so isolating.
Speaker 3:Very isolating, very lonely. You can be in a room full of people and feel alone when you're trying to just kind of and there may be somebody in that room willing to hold space for you.
Speaker 2:But if you don't give them the chance, like I said, some people are I'm so sorry that I let myself get to these emotions Like why would you say sorry for that? And that's a very I would say that that's more common than somebody saying thank you for holding space for me. It's I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm having an emotion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a more common response than thank you for holding space, and that's a sad culture, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And you know what If you expressed your emotion and your so-called friend shut you down or they just made you feel bad about it? Then maybe it's good that you found out right then that this probably isn't maybe a friendship you'd like to continue, or maybe there's more conversation that needs to be had about what you need.
Speaker 2:Or are there just main? I mean because I have friends that aren't capable of holding space but, I think they're genuinely good people. They're just in their own world, in a sense.
Speaker 3:What if you were the one to first example it?
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I'm trying to do yeah. Yeah, lead by example. Have you found that when you do that, lead by example, you're? Have you been surprised by how many people then open up to you? Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2:I mean a couple of years ago, when I made a post, it was like an explosion of like, oh man, I did not know, that was going on with you and all these things, and I was like, well, yeah, I was holding a lot and everybody thought I had this perfect life. Yeah, and in a lot of ways I do, but there was a lot of holding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, holding back, holding emotions, holding past experiences, and I remember people reaching out to you and saying hey, can I talk to you about this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the beginning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and sometimes somebody just has to go first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and with physical things I usually am.
Speaker 3:Emotional things.
Speaker 2:You got there, you're there, that's something I've been trying to take from you know that's something that I want of yours is the ability to go first with emotions, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're right there, bro.
Speaker 2:I'm getting there, I'm getting there.
Speaker 3:I'll be the judge of that.
Speaker 1:All right, that's been another episode of let that shift go podcast. I'm Noel.
Speaker 3:And I'm Lena. Let us know what your questions are and we'd love to use them on a future episode. Or check us out on Insta at let that shift go, or visit our website, serenitycovetomeculacom.