EP31: Emotional Regulation - Navigating Intense Feelings

Your emotions are valid — but they don't have to run your life. 

This episode walks you through how to identify and navigate the intense feelings that come with abuse and recovery. 

We cover healthy coping mechanisms, the important difference between emotions and facts, the grief that comes with loss, and when professional help is the strongest step you can take. 

You are not controlled by your emotions — you are capable of mastering them.

#EmotionalHealing #NavigatingFeelings #HealingJourney #CopingWithTrauma

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome back to the Irene Cares Podcast. Today we are going to talk about emotional regulation and navigating intense feelings. So once you've been in an abusive relationship, your body responds to things in a different way than maybe it used to. We're going to talk about profoundly human yet challenging, especially when you've experienced abuse, our emotions. So your emotions are very valid, but it's okay to rethink your emotions too sometimes. The intensity can feel overwhelming, and learning how to navigate them is a powerful step towards your healing. So we're going to learn about today about developing healthy coping mechanisms for the intense emotions that arise during and after you've been in an abusive relationship. These feelings are valid and they're a natural, natural response to intense, difficult experiences. So when you learn how to manage your emotions, that gives you power and control over your actions and your responses to scenarios that happen instead of being controlled by those scenarios. So this isn't about suppressing your feelings, but it's about understanding and skillfully guiding them. So let's talk a little bit about some emotions that might come up. Actually, first of all, let's let's think about this while we're going through all of this emotional stuff. Learning to manage your emotion gives you control over your oh, I just we just covered that. Okay. Identifying your emotions and moving beyond. I'm fine. How many of us have said that when we're not really fine? I know I have. Abuse often forces us to suppress or generalize emotions. So I'm fine or I'm just angry, or you know, phrases like this are kind of survival, survival mechanisms, making it hard for us to identify our specific feelings later. There's a lot of nuance, so just understand that we might be talking kind of generalized, but you'll know when your body is responding or reacting to something that maybe is a little outside of your control. That's a time when you can really think about those emotions. For me, it still comes up sometimes, and you know, trauma never is over for the rest of our lives, but the effects of trauma on our bodies is something that we can learn to manage in a better way. So for me, a few weeks ago, I just was feeling these feelings, and I ever since I've been on a healing journey, I have tried to, when something comes up for me, I try and identify what is this emotion and what is the cause of this emotion. Like where is this coming from? What is it that I need to pay attention to? Because emotions are signals to us. We should never disregard or try to numb out or try to ignore emotions because emotions are telling us something about ourselves. So for me, even if it's a negative emotion that's being triggered by something, I want to check in with myself and I want to see: okay, can I do something with this? Is there something that I can change in my belief, in my response? Is there anything that I can do so that when this emotion comes up again, I can manage it in a better way?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

So um there's imagine emotions as like a wheel.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

So instead of sad, consider that you're lonely or disheartened or despairing. Instead of angry, consider frustrated, irritated, resentful, outraged. So sometimes we use like basic words to describe something when there's a deeper emotion or a deeper feeling to it, to that emotion. So it's good for us to get in the practice of saying, okay, am I really fine or am I not fine? And something's bothering me, but I don't want to burden anybody with that. So I'm just gonna say I'm fine. For me, I have learned to always express how I'm really feeling, especially like to my husband or to a close friend when I'm feeling a certain way about something that they've said or done. I express that. I'm not saying it's their fault, but I'm expressing that to them because that helps me to be able to do better in the future. If I can identify that emotion, then I can do something with it once I understand what it is, where it's coming from, and then explore a little deeper and understand why I am responding this way to this certain emotion. Um, some practical strategies for identifying your emotions is like a body scan. Like, where am I feeling this emotion in my body? Are my shoulders tense? Um, am I like sick in my like do I have a knot in my stomach? Is my heart racing? So I've felt all three of those. And it just depends. Like, good stress in my life sometimes causes my shoulders to be tense, which is something that I still need to address, even if it's a good emotion, because stress in your body looks one way, it feels one way to your body. Good stress, bad stress affects your body the same way. So managing like where's this stress coming from, and how can I reduce this stress? What can I do to like calm my body, calm my nervous system, bring me back to a place of calm and peace? So notice the emotion, and don't ever judge the emotion because, like we just said, emotion is your body talking to you, your body telling you something about your situation, about your mindset, about um something you're experiencing. So emotions are just kind of like the way that our body communicates with us and gets our attention sometimes. So I am feeling X rather than I am X. So I'm feeling anxious rather than I am anxious. So it goes back to what we talked about last week with your mindset and changing the way that you talk to yourself and changing the way that you think about things. So when you say I am this, then you're telling yourself that I am anxious, and that reinforces anxious feelings. Where if you say I am feeling anxious, then you can identify where that anxiety is coming from and maybe rethink things so that you don't feel anxious in that situation. Because a lot of times anxiety comes from a fear of control about something that might happen in the future. Um, and also instead of saying I am anxious, saying I feel anxious can actually change the intensity of that feeling. So that emotion can be there, but it depending on how you identify it, determines how your body responds to it. So that's very powerful. So when we say I'm feeling this way, our body knows feelings come and go. So that's an emotion that can maybe drop the intensity, and then we can identify what is causing me to feel anxious in this moment, and then what can I do to reduce that anxiety even more? Um, the next thing that we want to talk about is healthy coping strategies for intense feelings. So we've all felt really intense feelings, especially if you've been in an abusive relationship. You don't have to feel like that forever. Your body might feel like it's gonna always respond a certain way, but you get to retrain your body. So there's things that I do. I like to go for a walk. I like to even sometimes just sit outside in the grass at my house. I'll throw a blanket down, sit on the grass, put my feet on the grass, and just kind of ground myself. That's a really simple technique to do. Doesn't take long. Uh going for a walk, like I said, I like the fresh air. I live in a place where it gets really, really hot in the summer, but sometimes I'll still go for a walk when it's 100 degrees outside because that's what I know that I need at that time to kind of help ground me again. Uh, you can do box breathing, which is you can Google that. It's just breathing in to the count of four, holding it for the count of four, and breathing out for the count of four. And doing that, like you'll notice in the moment, especially if you put your mind in a place of peace and calm, while you're doing that breathing, you'll feel your nervous system and everything just kind of calm. Um, so the the breathing technique kind of I'm gonna just read it, activates the parasympathetic nervous system. So it calms your body. Um, and it helps you to just in that moment bring everything down to a place where because sometimes when we have intense feelings, like everything just feels big and everything feels overwhelming. So just taking that time to just kind of bring all of those intense feelings down a little bit, it gives you this space so that you can calm your mind as well, and it can help you to kind of navigate that emotion for a moment and really look into it and say, why am I feeling like this? And is this a real thing that happened or is this my thoughts? Because sometimes it's just our thoughts around something that causes us, because think about like I can think about a lot of different things that take me right into an emotion. I can think about when I lost my father, and that will bring me right into an intense emotion where I like because I truly miss my father. It it gets easier as time goes on, but it's interesting how we don't even have to be experiencing something, we can just think about it and remember those, those, that time in our life, and those feelings will come right up to the surface.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

So um let's see. Creative expression is also another good way.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Um, I'm very busy with work and and what we do here at Irene Cares, and so sometimes when I'm done with work for the day, I try to find some sort of I I love being very creative, so I try to find some sort of ways that I can be creative at home because that shows me like yeah, all there's all this busy stuff happening, but you still have time to take care of yourself and take care of the things that you love doing for yourself. And for me, it's like um, I love to sew, I love to um I love to build. I my father was a carpenter, so he taught me how to build. I love to build, I love to, I just love to create things with my hands. So um journaling, drawing, painting, if you have a music talent, that's beautiful. I tried to when I was younger, but I never fully finished practicing my piano, so I didn't really gain that one for myself. Dancing, poetry, just find something that can be a creative outlet for you because that can also be very, very calming in itself. And when you're in a in a mode where you've left an abusive relationship and everything feels very chaotic, it's so important to tap into the things that bring you joy just for yourself. Even if if it's for like 10 minutes a day or an hour a day or whatever time you can dedicate to that, it's so important because these little things that we can do to take care of ourself can also help with emotional regulation. Um, exercise and movement. That's a big one for me. I love to move my body every single day. It's the first thing I do before I do anything else is I wake up and I go and I work out because I have found the most calming thing to me is putting music on that I love and taking care of my body. Now, sometimes it doesn't feel comfortable while I'm doing it because I'm really pushing myself. But while I'm in that act, I feel the love for myself that I have learned along my way. Because I took time to fall in love with myself, and me working out in the morning is a way that I just care for myself in a deep, deep way. Um, walking, running, yoga, stretching, dancing, those are all forms of exercise that you can use. Find something, some way that when you move your body feels right for you. Like, what's the best thing for you? Some people love yoga, Pilates. I mean, there's all different ways that you can exercise or get some form of exercise. When I was younger, we had a group of women that would play basketball, and me being a six-foot-tall woman, that was my sport. And so when I could go play basketball, we'd let our kids run around and we would just play basketball, and it was just for fun. But it was a way that I could get exercise without feeling like I was exercising.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Um, let's see.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So let's also think about distinguishing between emotions and facts. Feelings are real, but they're not always facts. So, like, I feel like a failure, that doesn't mean you're a failure. In that moment, you might have that thought, and it might be coming from a former place where someone used to always tell you that you were a failure, always tell you you weren't a good mom, always tell you you weren't a good uh friend or daughter or sister or whatever it is. These feelings can come from a place that aren't yours, and that's the beautiful part is you get to check with your intuition and know. I I'll I'll be bold and I will say that nobody is a failure. No one is a failure. If you feel like a failure, that's not a fact. That's a thought, that's something that's been sometimes implanted in your mind by someone else. But what I like to do when I have these kinds of thoughts, because I still have thoughts where I'm not good enough or I'm not smart enough or or different things like this, when I have those thoughts, the first thing I do is I start searching for things to prove it wrong. So, like, I'm a failure. I know I'm not a failure because I get up every m every morning and I go to the gym, I take care of myself, I take care of my family, I cook dinner for my family. These are all important things to me. I I might have moments or days where I feel like I didn't do enough, but I'm doing my best. And I always always give myself grace because giving yourself grace is what you need, especially while you're healing, especially while you're trying to reset your nervous system to respond differently to emotions. So my emotion is telling me that I'm a failure, but the facts are, and then just start listing all the things, all the reasons why you're not a failure. My emotions are telling my anxiety is telling me that I'll mess up this interview, but the fact is that I prepared diligently. So anxiety gives us like um a scenario is gonna happen, and we already predetermined that it's not gonna go well, so we feel anxious, or we're not gonna have control, or we're not gonna be able to handle it, or whatever it is, our brain sometimes gets hijacked, and we tell ourselves a lie, and that causes us to feel very uneasy and and uncomfortable in a certain situation. So instead of saying, I am this emotion, saying I feel this way, and then but the fact is, and then come up with all the reasons why that's not true. Because we all have that, and we can all do that, and that's a really good practice because again, the more that you teach your brain to look for facts instead of locking into an emotion and holding on to that emotion and becoming that emotion, you get to look at that emotion and and go, okay, I'm feeling this way, but here's some facts that say that this actually isn't true. And a lot of times we can flip it on its head and go, Oh, I am not that thing, because I just listed 10 ways that I'm not that. Um, and then the last one is seeking a distraction. So healthy temporary distractions can be valuable for intense moments. So sometimes it's watching a movie or reading a book or calling a friend or doing a puzzle. Find some little activity that you can do that just kind of like gives you reprieve from that emotion for a minute. We're not suppressing and we're not ignoring, we're just like taking a taking a breath, taking a moment to distract ourselves from an intense emotion so that then we can, because I feel like for me, when it's very intense, it's sometimes it's hard for me to analyze it. Sometimes it's hard for me to see the fact. And I'm just like stuck in this emotion. But if you can take that little space and do something for yourself, that gives you the space that you need to be able to go, okay, now I can look at this from a better view because I've decreased the intensity so that I can see it more clearly for what it really is. It's not about avoiding it. We just want to process it more effectively. And to effectively process, sometimes we got to take it from here to here. Um, we're gonna also now talk about the role of grief in healing. So grief isn't just for death, grief is a natural process to any significant loss. So even when you've been in a really abusive relationship and you know now that that person was very bad for you. They treated you horribly, they said awful things to you. It's okay to grieve that loss as well because there's a real true thing called a trauma bond, which we've all heard of, that connects you to that person. But that doesn't mean that that person's good for you. So it's good for us to understand, okay, I will experience grief and loss, even over a person that I no longer want to be with, and it feels very confusing to us. Very confusing. Would you leave this person? But then a part piece of you is like, did I make a mistake? Did I do the wrong thing? Am I gonna ruin my children's lives because I've you know separated our family? Like all of these thoughts are so valid, but they're not true. The connection that you have with that person sometimes is created through a trauma bond, meaning they hurt you so intensely, but always would pull you back in with a little bit of love. And every time they'd pull you in, you created a little bit of a bond with that person and a little bit of a bond with that person. And each time it happened, that that feeling of love in that moment felt good, and then you're constantly seeking that that good feeling because after the good feeling, we all know comes more of the garbage that we don't want to have in our lives. So um let's talk a little bit more about losses associated with abuse. Um, the hopes, the dreams, or the perceived good moments of that relationship can be can feel like a huge loss. Like you saw this person, you saw such good in them, you saw their potential, you wanted to be loved, you wanted to have this beautiful family together, you wanted to have a mother and a father in your home and take care of these children and raise them up to be beautiful, like wonderful contributing members of society that feel loved and taken care of by their parents. And all of that has fallen away. That's a loss, that's an intense feeling of a loss. And then you start to think, am I ever gonna have it again? Is anyone gonna ever love me again? Am I damaged goods? Like these are thoughts I had, and like you can spiral there, but the more you you grab onto those thoughts, the more you're gonna feel those things. It's okay to have those thoughts and go, they might be somebody better out there for me. I need to work on healing myself and loving myself so that I can find a person that is worthy of me. That's what I did. When I left, I first forgave, then I started working on loving myself. And as soon as I truly fell in love with myself, I found somebody that complimented me in my life, and things haven't always been easy. And marriage isn't easy, it can be hard, even a good marriage, it can be hard, but we've come together and created this beautiful family with these beautiful, wonderful children, and that's possible for everyone. But I want you to remember like it's okay to feel that loss in that moment and those intense feelings. Practice some of the things that we're talking about today so that you can feel a little bit more confident in those next relationships that you're going to have. Loss of the future. So you envisioned your future with this person and it's gone. Loss of your self image or your identity. Sometimes, when we're with somebody and the abuse is happening, they kind of start stripping away who we thought. ourselves to be or who you know how we identified and that can feel intense and that can feel like a lot grieving is a vital part of healing so it's okay to allow yourself to grieve it's okay to feel sad angry confused or numb and there's no right way or timeline for grief so as you're healing say you're healing and you have another friend who's in a sim has been in a similar situation and you're both on this healing journey never compare your healing to theirs because your situation was completely different than their situation and we're all so different that we all grieve and we heal and we we you know figure out these different emotions that are coming up in our own way and for some they can process quickly and understand and move forward and for others of us it takes time we have to really like sit in it and understand where does this come from and how do I get rid of this and how do I make it so that this isn't affecting my choices every day and I don't feel this heavy burden on me. Like these are all things that come up for all of us just in different ways. So just focus on your healing journey and if you have a friend and they feel it you feel like they're ahead of you on their healing journey how beautiful is that they've walked this path before you and they can be a help for you. It's also okay to seek professional help for your emotional support. So you might need support if your emotions feel consistently overwhelming or unmanageable. If you just don't know how to get ahead of it if you just don't know how to like what do I do with these emotions? They feel so big and heavy and everything just feels so confusing in my mind. Talking to a professional a therapist can help so immensely there's so much that they can do to kind of help you process those things that you're feeling because they've done a lot of work in learning about emotions and learning about healing. So seeing a professional is a beautiful thing. Like I think that as time goes on we're learning more and more how essential almost it is to have therapists in our lives. Difficulty functioning in daily life that's a great time for a therapist if you have thoughts or behaviors of self-harm first I want you to know you are loved it is never okay to hurt yourself because you are loved God loves you and we here at Irene cares we love you we want you to know that you're worthy of the most beautiful life persistent feelings of hopelessness or despair it's a great time to see a therapist if you rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms substance abuse or ice isolating yourself and depression sometimes in when you're in the depths of depression it feels like I don't know how to get out but I promise you I promise you if you try to see somebody use every ounce of motivation you can find in your body and talk to somebody when you're feeling these intense emotions I promise you it can help remember that you're worth healing and nothing is so intense and so broken that it can't be fixed. Some other types of professional support are support groups so a group of other people who are kind of dealing with some similar things not a place to just dump and live as a victim in this toxic atmosphere that's not the healthy way a peer group where you're where you're surrounded by others other women who men or women who have been through what you've been through who understand the intense emotions and feelings that you're feeling sometimes knowing that you're not alone can be so so healing just in and of itself knowing look I'm not the only person that's been abused I'm not the only person that feels things so deeply and so heavy and so intensely in my mind and in my body that it it overwhelms me. Like we've all felt overwhelmed by these emotions before find a group not a group that's toxic because if you want to live as a victim you're gonna feel gross every single day. If you want to go, you know what, this happened to me but I'm not gonna allow it to control the rest of my life I'm not gonna allow what this person said or did to me to keep controlling the rest of my life. So once you get to the point where you can acknowledge that and be a part of a group that supports and lifts you and helps you to see I'm not alone I have these other people in this group that can really support and help me which Irene Cares has a group coming and we're going to announce that very soon. It's so close. Psychiatrists so sometimes a little bit of medication to just kind of decrease some of these big heavy huge emotions that's something that you would discuss with a psychiatrist. And then also if you are doing some of these behaviors like self-harm thoughts self-harm behaviors or maybe you have substance abuse or isolation there's always a hotline that you can contact for immediate crisis support. So we normalize seeking help because everyone at some point in their life is going to need help. So when you isolate and you don't seek help you're putting yourself in a position to just go deeper and deeper into a dark place where the real strength and beauty lies when you can acknowledge that you need help and you pick up the phone and you make that phone call. Again, you are worthy of all the help that you desire and I know that when you seek out that help that you can feel a shift in your body and a shift in your emotions so that you can see that little bit of hope that maybe you need to see in that moment. Find something that feels good for you a way that you can connect and feel empowered in yourself because every single one of us that have been through something so dark and so down in the dumps and so so heavy once we pull ourselves up a little bit we start to see our own resilience and our own strength and our own power in conclusion I want to talk about navigating feeling intense feelings is a skill that takes practice and patience. So it might not happen overnight but even if you just put little notes up in your house of ways you can turn thoughts around or maybe just happy notes like little post-it notes. This is something that I used to do for myself because sometimes I would find myself sliding down the slope is I would just put you are worthy you are loved or or change it to I am worthy I am loved and every time you see it make a practice to say it out loud every time you see one of those sticky notes and just little reminders all around your house or your room or wherever you want to remind you of your worth and of your value. Give voice and power to the positive things about you and take that power away from the negative thoughts about you. You're building emotional resilience when you practice these things every day. Each time you engage with these strategies you're taking back control and you're empowering yourself. So you get to decide how you feel it's no longer going to be hijacked by someone else but it it takes some action from us. We have to take little steps to retrain ourselves to see the beauty in our life to see the worthiness of our souls because everybody has this infinite worth no matter what somebody has done to you that does not define you. What defines you is your soul and who you truly are and that is a beautiful daughter of God I want to challenge you guys this week to find one strategy that will help you in coping with intense emotions. So pick something from this episode that you feel resonates with you. Even if it feels a little uncomfortable I I want to challenge you to try. Try to do something for you that just shows you a little bit more how much you love yourself because you're so worthy of loving yourself. And it sounds funny to say out loud I know because there was a time when I'm like I don't understand what that means to love myself because I always felt like love was for every everybody else but when I started to really tap in and choose me first and take care of me the most and love me so intensely then everything in my world started changing. Try a gratitude journal. If you wake up every day and the first thing that you do is write down 10 things you're grateful for your mind the rest of the day is going to find things that you are grateful for. And every time you show gratitude in an area you feel love for yourself and you feel love from God for you because he's here to bless you with all the greatest things that you desire sometimes we have to grow into the person that accepts those things but they're always there available for us. Your feelings are valid valid and you're capable of developing healthy ways to manage your emotions you're on a powerful journey of self-discovery and healing and we're so grateful that you're listening to our podcast and choosing to grow in a way that makes you feel like the most beautiful worthy loved woman that ever existed we here at Irene Cares love you so much and we're so grateful that you tuned in. Have a blessed day God bless you