How to Stop Being Controlled by Your Emotions and Start Using Their Power!

Ever feel like your emotions run the show? One moment you’re calm, the next you’re spiraling? When emotions go unchecked, they can hijack your mind, your mood, and your relationships. But your emotions aren’t the enemy — they’re powerful messengers trying to show you something deeper.

In this talk, I share how to stop being controlled by your emotions and start channeling their power for clarity, confidence, and peace. You’ll learn how to recognize what each emotion is really trying to tell you — and how to turn emotional chaos into personal strength.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in emotional loops, constantly reacting instead of responding, or drained by the ups and downs — this talk will help you take your power back.

✨ It’s time to stop fighting your emotions — and start using them as fuel for growth.

For FREE Resources, Book Link, 1:1 Mentoring, KB’s Self-Love Merch Shop and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Chapters: 
00:00:00 Introduction
00:09:43 There's no "bad" emotions
00:11:27 When emotions are left unprocessed
00:15:27 How effective processing helps everyone
00:18:44 Why some struggle to identify emotions
00:22:28 Overcoming emotional avoidance
00:28:43 What healthy processing looks like
00:29:28 Where emotions come from
00:35:50 Core emotions and their messages
00:40:17 When others share their feelings about you
00:47:37 What anxiety is telling you
00:51:10 What fear is telling you
00:54:42 What guilt is telling you
00:55:50 What anger is telling you
00:56:20 What frustration is telling you
00:58:35 What loneliness is telling you
00:59:57 What gratitude, love and joy are telling you
01:05:52 Spiritual bypassing

Transcript

Kristen 0:01

Well, hello there. Thank you so much for joining Empower Hour with KB. This is a podcast for the Sacred Rebels and the Courageously Curious, for those who crave growth, long for deep transformation, and are ready to do the inner work to get there. My name is Kristen Brown, and I'm a personal development and self-healing author, healer, and mentor. I'm the author of the international number one best-selling, The Recovering People Pleaser. And through a blend of lived wisdom, neuroscience, and universal truths, I help people rediscover their true worth and reclaim their personal power. My motto is all change happens on the inside first. And when you change your inner world, you change your life. This topic was inspired by a conversation that I was having with a loved one yesterday. And this loved one was going through a little bit of a difficult situation and was feeling the emotion of anger towards something that was happening in their life. And so we had a conversation because what was coming out of this person was, let's just say, reactions and an energy and language that probably wouldn't have helped the situation when another conversation was had that needed to be had that was part of the situation. And so I allowed this person to vent a little bit, explain more about the situation. And then at some point I said, let's look at what this anger is really saying. And what we what could be things that you could do that could support this anger in a positive way that could actually perhaps promote a different outcome, at least for you. And that's important to understand here is that when we process our emotions effectively, this doesn't always mean it's going to fix the situation or it's going to make everything better. We're going to have rainbows and butterflies, and everybody's going to get it and skip off into the sunset happily. Sometimes this just means that we are taking care of ourselves in the most productive way that we can, the most effective way that we can. But I have seen many times that through our own emotional regulation and intelligence, that this actually bleeds out in a positive way into the individuals that we're dealing with and the environment that we're in in a way that can actually heal or help or up level or evolve a situation. Sometimes it's subtle, but it's there. And I've had enough of those experiences in my life that when they first started coming, I really wanted to double down on that because I realized how much what how I handle my own emotions really can influence and affect the situation as a whole. And like I said, sometimes in the beginning it was subtle, but over time there was this long-term shift that started to, or I'm sorry, there was a shift that started to reveal itself in the longer game. And I get excited about these things. You guys know I'm a huge nerd about this stuff because I know how much it works, that I started to see my emotions and actually even difficult or challenging situations that I was going through as an opportunity. Instead of getting pulled into the downward spiral or of whatever was happening or how my emotions were in that moment, and really just blowing them up and focusing on them and making myself more upset in whatever capacity it was, because I'm not always talking about anger here. This is just the example that I used to open this podcast today, this episode today. But to really take that opportunity to challenge myself to grow and to lean more into not only love of myself, but universal love and to see if I could get a different outcome. And because I did, and peace was the result. Sometimes I said just subtly short-term. Sometimes it turned into this long-term peace where there was just a greater understanding of everything. Which to me, that's peace when everybody's kind of for the most part on the same page, because there's no absolutes in what I'm talking about, but for the most part on the same page, or just have a better understanding. I I saw how so many of my situations and relationships shifted in a positive way. So today we're going to be talking about how emotions are not our enemies. They are actually our messengers and what this means for us. As a society, and I I venture to say I don't know this because I'm not international, that this would probably be worldwide as well. That so many societies, so many cultures, so many people in the world have viewed emotions as a bad thing for many reasons. For one, because some of them just don't feel good. So I'm going to go distract or do something that actually could be harmful to me over a long period of time, that could eventually turn into an addiction, because what I'm trying to do is to avoid this emotion. Now I'm not an avoider of emotions, but I'm using the first person just to explain that. But this is what can happen because we have deemed emotions as bad or wrong. And two major ones are that men are not allowed to fear, and women are not allowed to be angry. Those are two of the main societal rules, if you will, that have been put into place, which has really hurt individuals on the long term, but also our cultures. Because emotions are all purposeful. And when we change our perceptions about emotions, what they really are, and understand that they're really just a signal from our inner world, that they are a messenger rather than a problem, our life is going to upgrade in miraculous ways. Because we're going to see that our emotions are actually guides. They're not something to look down upon. I want you to consider this too on the broad scope of things. We came here to this existence with particular aspects of our humanness to help us along, to help us to survive. And one of those things is our emotions. Because emotions are purposefully placed within us. They're not just something that we have that we have to contend with that's annoying. They're here for a reason. So what if we looked at our emotions as purposeful rather than a problem? What if we started to really dive deep into what it is that we are feeling and what this means, and how can we shift ourselves or view something differently, which often leads to a shift in behavior, so that we can respond differently to not only our own emotions, but to the emotions of others. Now, in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser, I start out, I have a whole chapter on this, by the way, which I love to tell this story. It was not in my original outline of my book. And one time I when I started to write a particular chapter, because I write outline first, you know, just like I want this point, this point, this point. Those end up being my chapters. And I sat down to write a particular outline point. And as I'm writing this thing, I'm about four pages in, and I stopped and I pushed away from my desk because I had re read through it and I said, What am I writing? This has nothing to do with this outline piece that I had chosen to write that day. And because of that pushback, it's kind of figurative but literal as well. I just sat there kind of like in my chair, and I thought, wait a minute. There's something else that's trying to be revealed here. I need a chapter on emotions. So that's how this chapter came to be in this book because of a quote unquote mistake, if you will, I guess. But I was just flowing through this and just I was writing like crazy. It was coming out of me, but it wasn't what I thought I was writing. And I believe, this is my thoughts on this, that source energy was working through me and saying, girlfriend, you forgot something major here. And that's where this chapter came about. And in the beginning of that chapter, I talk about positive and negative emotions. That's the terminology that I use. But I don't see emotions as positive or negative. I only use that to help the reader understand because that's the terminology that's used in the world regarding our emotions. And in this chapter, I do a little switcheroonie. I'm not even sure how far, I don't think it's very many paragraphs in. And I say, but here's the deal: I view emotions as light or heavyslash dense. Because some emotions like joy and happiness and freedom are very light-filling. They're very, they feel light within us, right? It's like we're not, it's like we're carrying a feather. But there's some emotions like anxiety and anger and resentment that feel very sticky and heavy. So I wanted to change up that terminology so that individuals can understand that this is not for us to view emotions as if they're positive or they're negative. I mean, in the respect that, yes, they're positive in the respect that I like to feel these emotions, and they're negative in the respect that I'm not super in love with these type of emotions. I get that. But I'm kind of a stickler for this type of terminology, and I want you to start viewing your emotions as light or heavy and dense. And that way, you're not judging what's coming up for you, you're seeing them through an observation mode and through a feeling mode rather than this is good, this is bad. So when emotions are left unchecked or unprocessed, and I'm talking mostly about the heavy and dense ones, they don't disappear. They will actually intensify, they will distort, and they will transform into something that is more destructive than just feeling the emotion itself and processing effectively and learning from that. So I have a few examples here of some of the lower heavy, dense emotions that what can happen if they go unchecked. And these are just examples, they're not across the board for everybody. Okay, it could go on the ones that go unchecked for you could present in a different way. But I just wanted to give you an idea of what can happen, for example, if anger is left unprocessed and unchecked. So let's say you keep keeping the peace at work or at home, but on the inside, you're just getting more angry and more angry and more angry. And then one little tiny small thing triggers an explosion that is out of proportion to the stimulus. Ding ding ding. Anger has been left unprocessed. So let's say you, for in the sadness example, that you've suppressed grief after a loss, telling yourself to move on, telling yourself this is not okay, you should feel better by now, or whatever it might be. And then months later you feel numb, you feel disconnected, or maybe even depressed. Ding ding ding. I haven't given my sadness the airtime that it needs. Let's say fear, for example. Let's say you avoid tough conversations out of fear of conflict. Eventually, the situation gets worse and worse and worse because you were fearing having an open-hearted conversation. And maybe you even start fearing any confrontation at all, even the small ones, because you're not in the practice of it. Let's say that you're confused and you're staying in an unfulfilling job or relationship because the clarity never comes. But it never comes because you're not pausing long enough to get clear, or you aren't trusting your inner knowing. So the result is confusion. So when someone says, I'm very confused, I can't seem to figure this out, that could be an indicator that you're not trusting yourself, or you're not being honest with yourself, or you're not following inspiration, or you're not aligned with your own morals and values. So these are just a few examples of how when our emotions are not processed, when we don't get the information from them that could be helpful and serving to us, that they can turn into something worse. And I've had this experience in my own life, and I've had this experience, and I've seen it in other people's lives where other people are doing the same thing. And really, what if there's just a simple answer? And that simple answer is to say, what is it that I'm feeling, and what is this emotion trying to tell me? What is it signaling me to? What is it guiding me to? And what do I need to open my eyes about so that I can actually show up for myself? Like I said, when we process emotions effectively, it's going to be helpful to us first. And this is part of being the change that you want to see in the world. The famous Gandhi quote Be the change you want to see in the world. We have to start within. We have to start with self. We can't fix anything external to us, but we can work on and heal what's going on inside of ourselves. And like I had mentioned, I started to see my outer world start to change, my relationships start to what's the right word, to get more healthy, to go deeper, to have greater understandings and to have more peace when I was paying attention to me, and I was giving myself time and attention and love. That's when things started to really shift for me. And like I said, it made me want to double down. I want more of this. This feels good, this is working. Okay, we got a back channel message from Deb who said, and don't shoot the messenger, right? Exactly, Deb. And Rachel said, I think this is she just sent this in a regard to when I was talking about relationships. She said, they intensify on an emotional level. And I agree with that. And they get clearer. And we stop bleeding these negative, dense things onto other people, which others might deem us, quote unquote, difficult. Because we might be that person. We could be that person in their life. They're like, oh God, they're so annoying, they're so difficult. Because we're walking around with unchecked emotions that we're not processing through, and then it's showing up in some way in the world that maybe it is annoying to somebody else. Emotions excite me. I'm to the point now in my journey where I actually sit with myself and I ask myself a lot of questions. And there has been times where I've had difficulty naming exactly what it was. Sometimes it was a mix between two. And this is why I created, this was a while back, but it's still on my Linktree. I created Cultivating Emotional Intelligence free resource. This is a two-page resource. This is not complicated. It's pretty though. You can find that on my Linktree by clicking on my profile picture, going to where it says my Linktree, and then you'll see it there listed. And you can sign up for that. You will get the download sent to your inbox. If you're listening on another platform, you'll find that Linktree link in the description, the show notes. It's a very simple thing, but what it has also of 68 emotions. And it can be extremely serving when you're in a place of not knowing to go whip out that list. And I also have some instructions about what to do after that. It's all within the PDF. And put your finger down and just scroll down and say, What am I feeling? I had a client once, she was such a brilliant person. She was actually a Christian minister, to believe it or not. Well spoken, sang like a songbird, funny. She was great. She was great. And I coached her for quite a while. And I remember asking her one time, what are you feeling right now? And she said, legitimately, I have no idea. And based on her backstory, she had a pretty rough backstory, pretty rough the way she was parented journey, and was put out on the streets and all kinds of things. I can't remember her exact story. And she was in such survival mode her whole life that she never took the time or nor was she taught to go within and to ask herself about her emotions. So here I was, her coach, saying, Okay, well, what is what are you feeling right now? Like, what's the emotion? Let's name it. A lot of times people want to say what they're thinking. And I will gently guide them back. Those are thoughts. I remember this. She just sat there and she just dropped her arms. Like, she goes, I really don't know. I said, No problem at all. And we whipped out the emotion sheet and she read through it. And God bless her, she's reading through this, and she goes, I don't know what half of the Things mean. This woman was in her mid-40s. And I'm telling you this story for you to feel validated and understood on some level if you're a person who were not taught to be in touch with your emotions or how to process their emotions, or you've lived in survival mode your whole life. Survival mode can be a habit. It's something that we could go into in our childhood and other various times in our life. But in this instance, I'm talking about her, where she entered survival mode into her childhood because she needed to survive, literally. And then we'll carry that forward because that becomes our brain programming. And we'll just do the same thing over and over and over again. And nowhere in that programming was check in with myself and see how I'm feeling. Because she needed to live. And it doesn't have to be a situation that is that heavy for you. Maybe you weren't put out on the streets, maybe you were. It could be other situations. But it led to this point in your life where you're disconnected from yourself and your emotions. And when that is the case, we tend to autopilot response, respond to life and to situations, to people and conversations, whatever's been programmed, but it's not actually serving us. Because there's a time when we're wondering, why does blank keep happening? I have this pattern and I don't know why this keeps happening. Going with it and asking, so I went through, and I don't say this snarkily at all, and I explained each emotion. And she said, I think it's this one. She pointed to one. I said, Okay. And then we started to work with that. But she was a person who had talked her way so much through life, because that's by being the pleaser, the entertainer, the happy-go-lucky one, that even within our sessions, she would try to not go deep. She would try to talk her way and entertain me through our sessions. And I'd have to pull her back because that was old programming. That's how she got through her youth. That's how she got her needs met. Even if you have some type of programming within you that is to avoid emotions, it's overwritable. You can overwrite it. It's not forever. The brain is neuroplastic, which means we can rewire it in many different ways. And you can rewire your deflecting, your avoiding, your denying, and your ignoring by just getting in touch with your body and saying, What is it that I'm feeling? And oftentimes our emotions come with a physical body tell. I call it a tell. And that means when you're frustrated, I use an example in my book. One of my loved ones said when they were frustrated, their, I think they said their, they felt like their brain was tingly. I can't remember the exact example. And I'm like, perfect. So when your brain gets tingly or their scalp or whatever it was, I really don't remember. That's your tell. Ooh, I'm frustrated. Some people clench their jaw when they're overwhelmed or angry or holding in something. That's a great tell. I'm clenching my jaw. What does this mean? And this is why, again, I'll bring meditation in. Why slowing down, meditating, slowing down the brain wave patterns, creating space between the thoughts is so incredibly helpful. And I recommend to every single person on this planet to meditate on the daily. Because it provides that space for us instead of running from survival mode to survival mode to survival mode, run, run, run, rush, rush, rush. We actually slow down and we can get in touch with ourselves. I'm trying to think just off the fly right here, what are some of my tells? Sadness to me feels like my eyes are heavy. Feels like my eyes are heavy. And I feel just on the verge, but not quite to the point of crying all day long. So that's when I know I've got some sadness that's creeping up, or maybe some grief that's creeping up. And I will recognize it. Okay, what are you feeling right now? Okay, this just feels like sadness. Are you sad about something? Yes, I am. Or I'm grieving this, or I just thought about my, I'll see, this is making me tear up. I thought of my my oldest brother who passed away in 2020. And how much I miss him. I wish I could talk to him. But you know, wishing I could speak to him, wishing I could, he just was such a full, full, full of life, very energetic. But you know, sometimes those things, thank you for the love that came up, sometimes those things come up for me and they're random. And I don't want to push them away because I don't want that unchecked emotion, that unprocessed emotion to lead to something else. Sometimes it's not at the most convenient time, is it? Let me ask you guys this. Have you ever been? I'm sure you have, and I want to see by a show of emojis. Have you ever been watching a movie that you know a little sad or, you know, and mostly you'd have maybe a tear or two form in your eyes, but all of a sudden you're you just want to sob your full head off? Or you just literally could put your head in your hands and just like in, yeah, okay. Thanks, guys. I remember I was watching a movie once with my first husband, and he's like sobbing, and it was teary-eyed to me and kind of sad. He was like, Why aren't you sobbing? Well, this was touching, it was very reminiscent of his childhood. So this was touching something that was in him. So he found he found himself sobbing in this movie, which I'm proud of him for doing that. But I remember him looking at me, not saying this in a mean way, like, why aren't you crying? Like, this is so sad. Because it wasn't touching in me what it was touching in him. And there's times that I'm watching movies and I'm like, oh, that's sad, and nothing comes up for me. And there's times I'm watching it, I'm tearing up, and I'm like, wow, this is making me emotional. And there's times I feel this buildup just wanting to burst out of me. And you know what I do? I hold it down. Because I'm in the middle of a movie. And part of my thing, I'm gonna tell you, and I'm gonna work with this. I'm gonna let the sobs rip and roar here. This is my challenge. I'm gonna report back to you if this if this and when this comes up for me. But part of it's because I was a single mom for so long that if I cried, people like didn't just hold space for me. They were like, what's wrong? And everybody got like all intense about it. And so I remember recently, you know, after my parents died four months apart, very close to my parents my whole life. I told my kids one day, I said, you know, I feel like I haven't fully grieved papa and grandpa. So I know that sounds weird, sounds like the same name. My youngest named my mom papa. She called all elderly people papa. I was trying to say grandma, grandpa, she's papa. So we now my mom's name is Papa, and then my dad was grandpa. I love it though. My mom loved it. She loved being called Papa. But anyway, I feel like I've been too busy in life. There's too much happening. I'm didn't say this to them because I want to feel guilty, but tending to all their needs and their mental health and things like this, that I I haven't properly grieved them. So I just want to let you guys know that if you find me vacuuming one day with my earbuds on and a song comes on and all of a sudden I'm sobbing, don't rush to me to stop it and say, stop crying. I need to cry. I need to let this emotion out. I net it, I need to let it be what it is. And what I have found 100% of the time is every time I did that, it came and it went. I didn't stick around for six years or even 60 minutes. Because I fully felt it and expressed it. And this might sound shocking, and then I was good. Good to soldier on, good to carry on, good, good to keep going. Because I fully expressed it. I just felt the sadness though. I didn't tell my stories in my head about the thing. I just express the grief and the sadness. See what I'm saying? Because we can tell ourselves stories and that just perpetuates the emotion, perpetuates the emotion because emotions follow thoughts. This is fact. Okay, emotions follow thoughts. So if we have a thought that creates an emotion, we're gonna have more thoughts that continue that emotion, which creates more thoughts, creates more emotions. What if you just sit and just sit in the feeling of it? Sit in the anger, sit in the sadness, sit in the guilt, sit in the loneliness, sit in the whatever is coming up for you. Just sit with it and let it express through you. I tell the story in my book and have told this on this platform as well. I was so angry at my tsunami ex. Oh, the betrayal was real. The verge of homelessness, broken homeless with three kids in tow, was real. And the fact that someone could be so careless and nasty and selfish, I was angry. And I remember one day driving in my car, and this was just head turned left onto the street behind my mom's house. I was very close to her house, going 20 miles an hour, just so you know, this was a safe thing. I said to myself, I need to let this anger out. I need to let it out. And I, no one's in the car with me in my mom van at the time. And I was holding onto the steering wheel, and I remember just, I'm not gonna make all the sounds and do all the things because it was loud, but I was like, ugh, yeah, and I started raising my voice and cuss words flying left and right, and name calling flying left and right, and a tear, one tear came out of my eye, and then it stopped. And I had maybe drive driven one house length, and these are acre lots. And I made a right onto the street where my mom's house was. Remember thinking to myself, there's gotta be more. That's that can't be it. Because this anger's been in here for a year right now, so I you know there's gotta be more. No, because it's just energy. Emotions are energy in motion. That's it. So when I allowed that to move through me, I even tried to cultivate more. There's gotta be more. And I went into it to get more, and there wasn't more because that energy just needed to be blown in a safe and healthy way that doesn't affect other people. Because when we're carrying that around, it was affecting other people in that household. Not, I'm not, I'm not a person that's a huge jerk. It probably was like snappy or you know, little remarks here and there, mostly probably just tone with me, but I recognized that I was behaving that way. I think mostly to my mom. And I'm gonna tell you this story too. I remember one time, this was an angry moment too. I was in my bedroom at my mom's house. My eldest was in there, she's probably 16, 15, I don't even remember. And my mom was in there, and we were talking about a situation, and this frustration and anger just welled up inside of me. And I remember just and hitting the bed and hitting pillows and taking a pillow and chucking it across the room. And I just said, I'm so mad, I'm so frustrated, or I'm so angry, or whatever it was. And they both just sat there. They didn't say a word. Like, yeah, I imagine you are. And it was 30 seconds, if that's it. But I expressed it in a healthy way that had nothing to do with anybody else. And from that point, I learned, you know, I don't even need to do that around people. This is what 2010, 15 years ago. I can do that myself. And now, if I'm feeling that frustration, I go into my room and I vent it out into a pillow. We can move this energy, it's just energy. So let's talk about some core emotions, you guys, and what they're trying to tell us underneath the surface. And these, again, there's no absolutes. It could be other things that they're trying to tell you. But this is to get the juices flowing, to get the your brain, those little wheels in your brain turning a little bit. And maybe sitting with an emotion that you have right now and asking yourself, what does this mean? So I know for me, when I'm feeling anger, it is an indicator that there has been an injustice, that something is outside my moral scope that somebody else is doing. It means that either a boundary has been crossed physically, emotionally, in some type of way, or there is an injustice. And that makes me feel anger. Somehow, something or someone has been violated. And this has shown me to pay attention, to protect what matters, to take further action where I have the power to do so, maybe to use my voice, maybe to have a difficult conversation. It's leading me to another step, whatever that step might be. Here's how it is for me. I'm curious how it is for you guys, too. At this point in the game, I don't get Rip Roar and red-faced angry. At this point, it's like, ooh, that makes me mad. That's what it looks like. Ugh, that makes me mad. I was watching a show the other day, and whatever was happening, and I remember thinking, oh, that makes me mad. It was, it was fiction. Where in the past, especially being younger and fire, more fiery than I am now, things would make me angry. Now, here's the interesting thing. I would go do the right thing. But I didn't always do it from a healthy, if you will, perspective. Okay, so maybe if someone did something wrong, and this is in my youth youth, you guys, I'm thinking about high school right now. I would go up and confront somebody, but it might be very attacking in my youth, instead of coming at somebody with better words, clearer words, maybe a better tone, which is what I learned in my life. And I believe that's part of emotional intelligence. It's the core of emotional intelligence is really recognizing and processing your emotions effectively, but also the emotions of other people. And boy, I was pretty, what's the word I'm looking at, affected by other people's emotions when I was younger, especially the emotions of with somebody else's anger. And I believe that was because my father, you know, he really showed no emotion or anger or frustration, kind of went hand in hand with him. So I was very affected by other people's emotion of anger back in the day because it was triggering me. It was touching something inside of me. And so, like that would rise up inside of me because that was what my body was trained to do based on dealing with my dad's little outbursts. And so I had to learn they're just angry. This has nothing to do with me. Now, a lot of times my dad's anger was coming out on us, he was yelling at us. Okay, it wasn't physically abusive. He didn't walk around beating us. You know, we we got our swats and things here and there, but it was just the rage and the look on his face and the anger and calling us names, calling us slobs or something like that for not picking up our stuff. And I'm sure he's right now up in heaven looking down, saying, I regret all of that. He had a really sweetheart. He was not emotionally intelligent. That's all there was to it. In his era, that boomer era and the era before that, they just weren't taught those things. You know, especially our men, okay? I give him grace for all of that. So when that came up for me, when people would get into that, like I would, oh, it would send me into a place that I didn't want to be. So I started to look at even other people's emotions just as information. Even if they were angry at me. Because they're allowed to be angry. People are allowed to be angry at me. They're allowed to have any feeling they want regarding me. It's their brain, it's their processes. But if I would join that anger and maybe get defensive and that type of thing, then that would create more of a problem than if I just sat with them and understood that they're just having some energy in their body right now that they need to move through. And I can help them transmute this if I sit with it and not take it personally. Now, I am one who will not allow verbal abuse at all. Every conversation can be done in this tone of voice in Kristen's world. Never needs to be anything other than that. And so if a person is in some way, and this doesn't really happen in my life, but if in some way they're being aggressive or it's it's where I'm starting to kind of cringe and close, like, you know, blink my eyes. You know how you kind of cringe and, you know, when something's coming at you and you kind of hold your head back a little bit, you're like, ugh. If I'm feeling myself doing that either physically or internally, that's my cue. That's my cue for me to speak up because this is not okay. You're allowed to have your anger. You're allowed to have your feelings, your thoughts around the situation have at it. I will show up for you. I love you. And that's a no, if you get what I'm saying. I actually like when people share their feelings with me about me, because that gives me an opportunity to clean up whatever it is. And there's times when it is something that I did and I see it and I own it, but there's times when it's not. That it's literally something that's going through their filter and their wounding. And it's that's a hard one for me, to be honest, when people are seeing something that is blatantly not there and did not happen, but that's how their lens has skewed the situation. But I also look at these situations as an opportunity for their healing. So listening to them through whatever it is that they're going through and fully listening and letting them express. And then on the backside of that, saying, Okay, can I tell you what I see from my perception? It's I've seen some really cool stuff happen within my family, even where I've gone through that process with them. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, and the thing never comes up again because something inside of them had been healed. This also allowed me to think about that people, everybody is going through a lens. None of us, well, not none of us, how should I wear this? Like, we're not always on the same page with other people, you guys. We might think we are, and people might smile and wave and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they believe or agree with us, but they have no idea what we're talking about. They don't see the way that we did it. And I've realized that, my goodness, people see things so differently. And it's all through their lenses. And this is this the statement comes from this, I believe, where everybody's right. Have you guys heard that statement before? Everybody gets to be right. And this is why I believe that that is true, where everybody gets to be right. There's, I could break that down like crazy because that's what my brain does, but I'm gonna say this very topically, okay? Everybody gets to be right because based on their thoughts, their histories, everything about them, their DNA, their personalities, this is true for them. And this something total polarity could be true for you. So for me, it's about finding that breaking it down and finding what's actually the reality. What's the reality? I've been, I have been accused of some things that just absolutely blew my mind. They were like no part of Kristen Brown remotely, like at all. And I remember people, some people saying this, I've just like saying these things to me and me thinking, wow, where the hell did that come from? Because that's not me. It wasn't because I'm so adept at owning my stuff. I own, if it's me, I'm gonna own it. Even if it's just me and it was like a not even a 10, it was just a one. It was part me, yeah, I'm gonna own it. Because I don't want anything in my closet. I don't, I am all about healing that shadow. So I don't want anything in there. I'm gonna look and own. But sometimes it's so out there, it's almost laughable. And I have to tell you, I've there's been times when I've actually like giggled. I'm like, you think I did what? You know, like, what the hell? Like that kind of thing. Like, do you know me? And what's interesting is I'm thinking of one individual in particular who would, they would almost like it rocked their boat because once I said something like that, they saw, I'm just gonna use this word, the lunacy, the ridiculousness of what they were saying. And it kind of started to make them feel, and we worked through this, but it started to make them feel like like something was wrong with them because they saw things that really weren't there in reality when there was so much evidence day to day to day to day to day of that not being true. And that's where the conversation came in that there's some unhealed wounds there, and you're seeing people through this filter. Uh, you think you think you see you're seeing what you're seeing, but you're really not. That's not it. So that can be a little off-putting to someone they when they first start to realize, wow, I'm not really viewing this correctly. I'm seeing this completely differently than what it is. Something as simple as, you don't love me. Now that wasn't said to me, but I'm using that. Let's say someone says to you, you don't love me, and you're looking at them like, oh my God, I'm programmed in such a way to look for the evidence of where they weren't loved in their past. So they're saying, here it is, here it is, here it is, here it is. And you may not have done that thing, but you're doing all these other things that are obvious evidence of love. And then when you show them this is what love is, this is how love is, this is how I love, and you show them all this evidence, and they sit there like, uh, like they don't even know what to do with themselves because, well, where did I come up with such a crazy belief? It's because it went through the filter of the unhealed wounds. That's a celebratory moment, not a self-shaming moment. That's a moment where we go within and we think, okay, I just uncovered something brilliant, amazing, remarkable. This is awesome. I just revealed some of my shadow. I gave a shadow talk, couldn't tell you when, I lose track of days, but it was, I think it was last week. It was about um the shadow that we have within. And it I talked in depth about the shadow. And I highly recommend you jumping over and listening to the shadow, that shadow talk. It is so good. It's gonna reveal a lot. A lot of people said they had never even heard the term the shadow. And some people said, Well, thank you, because I thought the shadow was this big, hairy, scary monster, and it's really not. I'm like, no, it's just part of us that we have denied, ignored, or hid from. That's it. That's all it is. It's just the disowned parts of ourselves. That is it. So understanding the shadow and recognizing what's going on in the unconscious and what we have not been paying attention to, I will tell you something. You bring something to light, boom. Sometimes it's healed immediately. I'm just letting you know. Sometimes it takes a little bit more consciousness around it. But keep it's when it's we're keeping it in the dark, just like these emotions, they're gonna run the show on a level that is not yielding us the best results. It's not getting us to where we want to go. It's not helping our relationships any. In fact, it's probably working against those relationships. You guys hear my stomach? I hope you can't hear this. This this is going crazy right now. I don't even feel particularly hungry, but that's why I eat right after my talks. All right, you guys, we're gonna talk about, let's say, anxiety. Anxiety, you're anticipating something uncertain or uncontrollable. Remember what I said that anxiety is rooted in future tripping. The what if, what if, what if, what if? What if equals anxiety if it's in the negative context. Okay? So we are anticipating something uncertain or uncontrollable that's going to create anxiety within us. Well, then what? Now we're feeling anxious. What does this mean? It means to ground ourselves in the present. You're trying to control the future. Come back to now. Come back to this beautiful, generous present moment. Anytime I start a future trip, it's it is the I always say this, you guys: the healing journey is not complicated. It just requires discipline. And I will shout that from the rooftops. It is not complicated. You have to discipline yourself. So when I'm anxious, I get present. The end. Now, sometimes it can be a little challenging to get present because you're so anxious. But I will tell you, once you start to do it and you start to feel the re the positive effects of it, you're gonna be like, okay, that was cool. More of that, please. Then you're gonna start to double down. Well, hopefully you do. That's where the discipline comes in. I shared a meme on Instagram that I saw and it was perfect. It said, everybody wants to be healed. Everybody wants healing until they discover that it requires discipline. It requires discipline. My very first book, I talked about the mental discipline that is required for this journey. We've got to be willing to follow through on the things. Not just say, oh, that's a great concept. I love that. Here, you do it. I'm gonna be over here and be anxious. No, do the things. And that's what I talk about all the time. And that's why I call you self-healing superstars, because we have this ability to heal ourselves. Period. We just do. And that's why I give the talks that I talk that I give because I want to give this information to people so that you understand how doable this is. You do not need to suffer through life. We do not need to suffer from life. It was the message that I got 15 years ago when I started this healing journey. I've always been open, I've always been a seeker, but this really conglomerated, um, condensed healing journey that I call my College of Christian. I came out the other side going, oh my God, we don't have to suffer. Like it is literally a choice. We don't have to suffer. Now, of course, there's some things, because I know y'all, some people in the listeners lounge can be like, How can you say that? My this happened to me and that happened to me. Yes, there is suffering. Okay. But there is a lot of self-imposed suffering that that we do not have to live through. There's pain that happens to us. Yes, I've been through it, you guys. I could, I could list a hundred things. But I'm talking about there is a choice here about how long we prolong it, how long we stay a victim, what we do with it, and how we manage it. Because there's unhealthy ways to manage this, and there's healthy ways to manage this. And I want you happy, I want you thriving, I want you to grab life by the cojones and go. Because you have the ability to do so. All right, so let's go to fears. Fear is a signal that there is a potential danger, real or imagined, and your system wants safety. So fear. I'm feeling afraid right now. I'm feeling afraid right now. Okay, there's a threat, there's a fear, there's something out there, and it's either real or imagined. And here's the crazy part about this, you guys. Oftentimes it's imagined. Yes. We're imagining worst-case scenarios. Now, I'm not talking about hiking on a cliff and there's a cliff and you're scared. Okay, normal, normal. You get what I'm saying? It's all normal, by the way. But of course, it's it's understandable that you're walking and you only have two feet of walking space and there's a cliff on the other side, or the mountain, you know, drops off. I get it. Or you're walking somewhere that's dark and desolate and it's in a bad part of town because you ran out of gas. I get it. Talking about the things that we imagine in our head. All these things, sky's the limit of what we can come up with that are scaring us. Those are imagined threats, but yet the body, the brain is saying, fear, fear, fear, get to safety, get to safety. So, what is the cure to this? What is this fear trying to tell you? What is the message? Is to slow down, to assess, to ask yourself questions, to go within, to say, is this real or am I making this up? And sometimes you guys, we're gonna say something's real and it's not. Oh no, you don't know. I know that person, or I know how this group is, even something you've never done before. Oh no, you don't know. This is real, is it? Is it? Or is it a story you're telling yourself about the situation? There's times when I have switched my mindset. This is real, where I was in anxiety and fear about a particular situation. I remember being in my 20s going to a wedding reception. Gosh, now I'm looking back now. This is blowing my mind. I was doing this before I even knew what I was doing. Oh my gosh, I never put that together right now. Remember going to a wedding reception and thinking negative things about myself. No one's gonna like me, no one's gonna talk to me, no one's gonna, whatever. I don't remember. And then I remember in my brain saying, everybody loves you, everybody loves that you're here, everybody wants to talk to you, people want to hug you. I don't remember, just on and on and on. And I remember leaving that reception and saying, that's exactly what happened. Everybody was like that to me. Kristen, good to see you. So glad you're here. I just love you. You're so awesome, whatever it was. I was in my 20s when I did that. I'm just remembering that now. So I guess I've been reframing longer than I think I have. I often say that I was I've always been on a healing journey. I didn't know it at the time. I didn't call it that at the time. I was just trying things on for size. But then it got really condensed and I really worked on it. But see how I went from fear to a different energy? I moved out of it. Who's to say that all these people don't like you? Most of them don't even know you. Who's to say that no one's gonna want to talk to you and you're gonna look like the person in the corner? I had my husband at the time with me, but you get what I'm saying. Who whose mind who where's this coming from? It was coming from me. That's where it was coming from. So let's move on to let's say guilt. Guilt is is a signal. Remember, all emotions are messengers, and it's saying you think you've done something wrong, or you fear you have disappointed someone. Guilt. I think I did something wrong, or I've disappointed somebody. The message is did I actually cross a boundary or a value? Did I actually do something wrong? All right, that's all it is. It's an indicator to reflect. That's it. Is this true or not true? Being that I was a huge self-guilter and other people that manipulated me through methods and language that would inspire guilt inside of me, it wasn't hard to control me in certain areas back in the day until I started to feel the guilt and asked myself, is this appropriate guilt? Is this appropriate? Is this called for in this particular situation? And if it wasn't, then I chose a different action that supported empowerment rather than the guilt. Let's go on to anger, we kind of already talked about that. Means the signal is that a boundary has been crossed or a value has been violated or there has been an injustice. And what is the message? It's to pay attention, it's to set a boundary as needed, is to speak up if you need to. It's just an indicator that there's probably some action that needs to happen here that hasn't happened. Let's talk about frustration. Frustration, the signal could be that you're blocked from achieving something important. You could be dealing with a repeated problem, or you feel misunderstood. So you're feeling frustrated. So the message is to adjust your approach, to realign your effort with what's actually in your control. So anytime that I've been frustrated, I literally say to myself, okay, this isn't working. Let me try something different. So it's just a message telling me that whatever it is that I'm doing or is being done is not working. That's all. But so many times people hold that frustration in, they hold it in about their work, they hold it in about their relationships, they hold it in about whatever, and then they blow this on other people, and then they look like a lunatic, or we start to think there's something wrong with them, or they're a narcissist, or they're crazy, or what have you, when really they just have a low EQ, emotional quotient, emotional intelligence. So this is why I really aim in my life with my people to have them identify what it is that they're feeling. And if someone says, I'm really, really frustrated, I let them vent it out first because sometimes people just need to vent. If that's their way of moving the energy, brilliant. I won't sit with them for six hours venting the same story. You know, help that help them to move through it and get to a place. And then when I can tell that their energy is deflating, like a lot of the dense energy has gotten out, and I can tell there's been a shift there, then I'll say something else, something to the effect of, let's say, in regards of frustration, I'll say, so what are you gonna do differently? What can you what can you try? Like, is have you thought about that? And then that starts a whole nother narrative. That's all starts a whole other conversation. Does that sound good? Sounds good to me. I like that. All right, so let's say you're lonely. Okay, I'm feeling really lonely. The signal is simple. It's that you are needing meaningful connection or belonging. That's what it means. I'm feeling lonely. So, what's the message? Reach out, be seen, talk to somebody. We're not meant to do this life alone. We're just not designed that way. We're designed for community. Just like horses are designed to be in packs, or if that's what herds or whatever you want to call them, makes me very, very sad when I see horses standing alone in a stable or a corral all by themselves and like they need their people. Okay, we're the same way. We need our people. So if you're feeling lonely, it's giving you a message to go do something. Go reach out, go have a conversation, join a club, go to a sporting event and talk to the people next door to you. So you're both cheering on the same team. Emotions are indicators. That's all they are. They're like a little flashing light going beep, beep, beep, beep. Pay attention over here. There's something out of balance. The flip side of this, so let's end on a positive note if you're feeling gratitude, that means that you're recognizing. Goodness, you're recognizing connection, you're recognizing the abundance, you're recognizing what's amazing in your life. And the message is stay here. More of this. Be present and flow in appreciation. Let's say you're feeling love. The signal is that you're connected to someone, to something, to your truth. Your heart is open. That's the space I like to be all the time, to be honest with you. Gratitude and love. Those are amazing spaces. The message is to open up and to let it flow both ways. More of this. Love is our natural state. Shocking, isn't it? Love is our natural state. We are love. And we are loved. One of my favorite mantras. That mantra, I didn't know how much that thing was going to do for me during my College of Christmas, Kristen, College of Christmas. But I said it all the time. It was such a grounding affirmation for me. And I didn't even understand it remotely to the depth that I do now. But that's the power of it because it's truth. And I would say repeatedly, I'm love and I am loved. I am love and I am loved. I am, don't know where I got it from. But I repeatedly say that I always felt myself deflating and getting grounded. It's like pulling a balloon down to earth. That's how it felt like to me. All right, let's do one more. Let's see if there's another positive one. Joy. Joy. It's signaling that you're aligned with what nourishes and fulfills you. Mmm. Feeling joy. The message is yes, more of this. This is what feels true and alive for me. I want more of this. I'm feeling joy. Whatever's happening right now, this feels alive to me. This feels true to me. More and more and more of this. So our positive emotions are signaling stuff stuff to us as well. Most people are more concerned with the lower dense emotions. So that's what we talked about more of. But please pay attention to your light ones too. The ones that feel amazing. Double down on those bad boys and girls. Double down on those. Wow, I'm feeling so much gratitude right now. Where did this come from? What was I thinking? How did I cultivate this? How does it feel in my body? More of this, please. I'm feeling so much love right now. I do my best every single night to fall asleep with love and gratitude. And I sometimes envision things that I want to experience in the future. Visualization practices. Love and gratitude. What a great way to fall asleep. And I feel into my heart, and you guys, here's another thing. People might I can't cultivate that. Yes, you can. You have this ability. It might be covered with mud and and rocks and leaves and debris, but it's there. Dig it out. Go find it. Go on the exploration. Be the adventurer. How can I find love today? Get curious. Challenge yourself. I love to challenge myself in all kinds of ways. Because once I realize that things get better and I can feel better, I was like, this is a thing. Are you kidding me? This is actually a thing. I was all about it. What more can I do? Because I've suffered plenty. I don't want to suffer anymore. And this is not about a spiritual bypass, by the way. Spiritual bypassing means we, it's kind of that toxic positivity. Those two words kind of go congruently together. It's just acting like something's not there because you don't want to, you don't want to deal with that or whatever. No, we're not talking, as you notice, this entire conversation was about feeling the feelings, identifying the feeling, the emotion, feeling what the emotion feels like, expressing, expressing it in a healthy manner, and then take the message that it gave you and implement that. That's full and healthy processing. That's emotional intelligence. And it's you and your community and your loved ones in such a beautiful and impactful way. And don't forget to download, if you haven't yet, the free resource cultivating emotional intelligence. It's on my link tree here in my profile. You can find that by clicking on my picture. If you're listening on another platform, you'll find it in the description. Click that, you'll see it. Download that. It's a two-page PDF. Really, really simple. This is like basically emotions 101. We're gonna identify the emotion, we're gonna feel it through to fruition, we're gonna find out what message it is giving us. All right, two page PDF, really pretty. I enjoy making my little free opt ins. So hopefully you guys download that free resource. And I look forward to talking with you all tomorrow. Much love. Have an amazing day. I'll see you then.