Feeling It vs. Becoming It: How to Actually Process Your Emotions

You've been told your whole life not to let your emotions control you, but nobody ever showed you what that actually looks like. Lexsi and Amber are finally having that conversation.

"Don't let your emotions control you" is one of the most repeated pieces of advice out there and also one of the most useless, because no one ever explains what to do instead. Lexsi and Amber dig into what it really means to feel your emotions without either suppressing them or spiraling into them. From hustle culture telling women to mute their feelings, to the 90-second science of how emotions actually move through your body, this episode gets into the stuff nobody taught us growing up.

They talk about the difference between feeling sad and being sad, why naming your emotion out loud is more powerful than it sounds, and what it means when anger is actually just fear or disappointment in disguise. Lexsi opens up about the toxic 13-year relationship that taught her what real anger felt like, Amber gets honest about what happens when her emotions build up and explode, and they both make a case that maybe emotional intelligence isn't about control at all. It's about finally learning to listen.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, it's your girl, Lexi Lewis. And it's your girl, Amber Borzotra.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

And welcome back to Occasionally Princess. We talk a lot about emotions, but I don't think we actually understand them. Somewhere along the way, we were taught that being in control means being unaffected, that strength looks like staying calm, staying quiet, keeping it together. And anything that's outside of that anger, sadness, overwhelm gets labeled as too much or dramatic or emotional. But what if that's not control? What if that's really just well-packaged depression? Because the other side is we've all also been told to feel everything, let it out, process it. But no one really explains what that actually looks like in real life. So where's the line between feeling your emotions and letting them ruin your life? Between processing and spiraling, between self-awareness and self-indulgence. I think a lot of us are just like stuck right there. Like, what do we do? Trying to be evolved, but also avoid falling apart, trying to be present but not overwhelmed, trying to feel without losing control. So today we are gonna get honest about that middle space. What it actually looks like to process your emotions in a healthy way, not suppressing them, not performing them, but actually understanding them. Because maybe emotional control isn't about having less emotions. Maybe it's about having a better relationship with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Amber, what do you feel about today's episode? I don't know. I'm an overthinker. Listen, I'm a very, very, very emotional person. Anyone that knows me knows me. No one even really know me because I'm an emotional person. So yeah, this is a good one for me today. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

We're always taught if you want to be successful, get your emotions in check. No matter what you wake up as, you gotta be consistent. And I don't feel like that. I the flow of what you need to do in your daily, it's your emotions are important. I follow the hustle culture, is way more mute your emotions. And when I get in the I'm gonna grind or whatever, and you try to get into that, fuck how I'm feeling, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna do it. I don't believe in that fully. I think that's bullshit. Business is so stacked to flow like a man, and a man has a 24-hour hormonal cycle, so he goes through all of his hormones in that day, and so they can be the consistent person every day. But as a woman, our hormonal cycle is 28 days, so I can't perform during my period the same as I'm performing when I'm two weeks out ovulating, and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm ready to make life. It's just so different. So I hate this idea that oh, you gotta control your emotions and keep them in check. No, because they're also telling me some shit, especially if I'm getting disrespected, I'm feeling type of way. Those emotions are telling me that I don't like something or or look.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I know. One of the things I hate the most is when someone says, Don't let your emotions control you, but no one teaches you. Like, what is that? Is that yeah, what does that mean? What does it look like? Like, how are you supposed to tell me how I'm supposed to feel? Yeah. Why can't I cry? Why can't I not overthink? Why can't I not dissect things? Why can't I not process it how it works for me? I do get sometimes though, I am wrong to where I need to talk about something, right? Yeah, because it's gonna eat me up. I can't wait till tomorrow or the next day. And then that's stacked emotions. Then I become like, yeah, I'm mad.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

No, but it but the thing is exactly what you just said though, is like they tell don't let the emotions control you, but then they don't tell you, well, how do I do that? Right. Like, what is that? What does that mean? Like on paper, like what does that mean? Like, what's the action of that? There's no rule book to Yeah, no, but there there are things we're not taught that. We just say, don't do that. Okay, but show me, it's just like even in raising live and stuff, like at this point tell her no a lot, but like a lot of when she was when she's younger, I never say just no, don't do that. I always say you shouldn't do that because, and then it's explaining to it. So when they're like, don't let your emotions control you, then show me how to control them then. Like I don't know, tell me what to do. Right now, what do I need to do? I get that if I'm mad, I shouldn't just go beat up the person that pissed me off. Right. But what do I do with my anger? Yeah, what do I do with that?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Or like you're about to explain. What do I do?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

So that's like the conversation today is just like the what do I do? Because that is the issue with everyone just saying, don't let it control you, but okay. Then it gets to the point where that's how I felt last year, where I wasn't letting emotions control me, but I felt like I was numb. Okay, we can feel and be successful, please. Right. Okay, so what's the numbness? What is it's not processing it or not, I don't know, facing it. Were you taught to process emotions? Yeah, or it wasn't even suppress them. It wasn't even my house, it's just like not an emotion house, you know. I've never seen my mom like have emotions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it wasn't a thing. Like you don't cry in front of people, you don't say I'm mad or you when someone is just like oh my god. When I did something and my mom was very disappointed, she didn't even talk to me about it. She I told her the thing. She walked out of the house, yeah, and left for the rest of the day, and then she came back and never mentioned it again. That was her way of so we don't talk about things. It's not, you know, so it was definitely a surprise house.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Like figure your shit in private, whatever. But I figured out my journal was my thing. Oh, I didn't even know that I had a healthy mechanism. That's so crazy that my little eight-year-old self knew to like went to that. Yeah. Oh, okay. I was so woke. I was so vokey. Right. Little A, look at look at you. If someone watched how you handle your emotions, would they say you feel them or boy then? This is so silly for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Oh my gosh. I feel them a hundred percent. Yeah. I can't, I don't know how to avoid.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

But what do you think it's only because when we even say emotions, one thing that one emotion that I was playing with was like happiness and joy and all that. So when you say you feel your emotions, do you think it's like the whole spectrum of it?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, your happiness is ooh, and then yeah, it's one big exclamation mark on all my emotions. But you're gonna know like what day I'm like yeah, yeah. This is this is for y'all. I feel like it's a whole uh, you know, a spectrum of like emotions for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, I agree. I agree. It's really weird. I'm very weird. So do you think that you actually feel your emotions or do you feel like you're reacting to them? Both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I think I've I've very both. I've definitely always feel them. Now I have to, as I'm getting older, I'm learning to pick and choose the battles in my head. Yeah. When it comes to those emotions, because it's so hard for me to suppress anything. I don't know if it also is something from my childhood. There's things I remember, but a lot I don't remember. I feel like I've just always been a crier. Like I've always been a people pleaser. I've always wanted to um be someone that's been it where it's been okay to uh fill everything because I don't know why I am that way. And so I'm always wondering does it come from a place like of like being around an emotional mom? Yeah. My mom's very emotional. My mom's very, she she's the same way, fills everything, all of that. And so, like, and also it was just her and my sister kind of grow, you know, just an all women's home, like the household. So I'm like, maybe that has a lot to do with it. Cause like I feel like as women, like, I don't know, you know how men they can't people tell men you can't cry, you can't do this, you have to, you know, suppress. Like, you know, that's like the one of the main words today, I guess. And with women, I've it's it is okay. It's like uh not my house.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No, not it's not that it's not okay, it's just that it just doesn't like. I think I've heard my mom cry once, but she's not, she's very much kids are kids and parents and adults are adults, and just now a little bit kind of does she talk to me about things after I had a kid, it became a little bit more than I'm a person and not her child, but still very much she is not. I don't know things that are going on with my mom. I always like find out through something like random. Yeah, my mom isn't that at all. So see, my sister's not that.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

See, it's me and my mom, but like I was kind of I kind of my I am, it was her first child, you know, and then kind of went through a lot of things with her. Um, so I don't know if that was kind of like that bond and those things, and she was a friend and a parent and that sister all in one. Um so definitely emotions from pull from all of that. But my sister is like emotionless, she won't cry. She'll look at you be like, okay, you're mad why. Though when I reach anger, I am a ball of everything. I am just like to the point. It takes a lot for me to get to that point, but when I am, it just anger is my hardest emotion to process. Yeah, I I'm feeling it all. I'm like, I love you, I am mad at you, I want to cry, I wanna shout, I want to scream, I don't want to see anyone. I don't talk to me. Like, I just it's just one flame. I just want to Yeah, no, anger.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Anger is the hardest thing for me. Not like instant anger, like not like road rage or like that. The the one of the relationships that I was in that was so toxic, that was like this on again, off again thing for 13 years. I could not get angry at him, but he just treated me so shitty, like he was just way older than me. So it was just a lot of mental gymnastics, it's just bullshit. Mental gymnastics. I had so many reasons to be angry, and I just couldn't let myself feel angry. Just one day I was just like, I I hate you. Like I I hate and I felt it. I I felt the hate when I said it. And I was just like, You got me so fucked up. Like who who the fuck do you think? And he's not there. I'm just I remember just feeling it in all of the anger. Like, you you're playing me like that, you treat me like that. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, and I just started to get so angry that I'm like, why would you even talk to someone so young, you fucking creep ass? Like, I was like, I was just so on it. But I just remember sitting in the car and I was getting so angry, and I just was like, I will never talk. And it was like the thing that made me feel I'm never gonna talk to you again. This I'm finally never going.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Anger gives that point.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, it let me, it was like my oh, I've hit my point of no return, but I had so much literally I've dealt with him for 13 years off and on, and it was just so much. And it was just sitting, and it just until I was like, Um, I fucking hate you. I fucking like until I said it and I really just sat in it. I don't even remember. I don't remember he hadn't done anything particular. I think it was just it was like the same shit. It was the same shit that he was. There was nothing spectacular about whatever had happened in the instant. I just was sitting with the adult, and some me finally just being fed up, or I don't know what it was, but I just remember feeling like I felt the anger. I literally felt hot. I felt it in my chest. I felt like it, and I'm like, and then it was like turned to disgust. Like, what the fuck? Then I was angry at myself for letting me like, what am I even entertaining this stupid shit for? So first the anger went to him, then the anger went to me. But I literally felt it. I remember feeling hot, and literally now I didn't talk to him for years, and now I I see I can see him in my life as like someone that's just been part of my life for so long, but the idea of ever being with him in any capacity, he literally just looks like a clown to me. I'm like, how could I ever what? And I just remember like I it's crazy because you think about feeling emotions, and if I sit and think about like how I feel in certain emotions, and it is crazy how anger really makes me hot.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Like, but that's ears ringing, but I was looking it up and it was talking about somatic, it was somatic some shit. Let me, I think I wrote down. Hold on. Somatic. I really wanted to remember because I when I was reading about it, somatic mapping in your body, and that's one way that you can kind of notice what you're feeling. But when I think about it, it was so true because I'm like, when I'm angry, I do run hot. Like your body, the temperature literally rises, or at least it feels like it. And you know, when you're scared, you feel it in your stomach. You're like, oh, like you that even at the end, the edge of a cliff, and you get too high, you literally feel it in your stomach.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Or that, like, that feeling if you find out something right away and you're hungry all of a sudden that just drops and yeah, yeah, your body tells you.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I want to study that more because it was talking about how that's such a good way to sometimes people know they're feeling something and they're just like, What am I feeling? But there's certain body cues that are like pretty, like I guess, like when you're mad, you get hot. And if you could start picking up on those cues, you can identify that feeling more, and just saying it and being able to identify it is the first step in processing it, is being able to actually identify and you can identify it from there on. Yeah, but especially as a suppressor, it's very hard to define what the feeling is. I'm like, something's happening.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

That's so crazy. Suppressor, definitely an overthinker. Yeah. And a, I don't know, I internalize and then I no, I don't internalize at all. I'm thinking at all, girl. What I think what I'm when I'm saying I internalize, I kind of process in my mind how I should approach things or how I feel or where I go. I'm hearing this. I can't internalize it anymore. So I like I kind of like hold on to it and then I like No, you let stuff grow. I get to a point.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, you let stuff grow. Yeah. Um, that's what it is with with how like with your emotional thing. Because I emotions are they like the the chemist the chemical release of your emotion is the 90 seconds to go through your body, right? So you really only have the 90 seconds actually having it in your body, but then it goes into your head, and that feeling of anger or sadness or whatever, then that's when especially you your flooding of all those thoughts turn it into more sadness or more anger or more whatever. And that is that's what you do. So when you're saying you internalize it, it's that like thinking about it more and more.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

That's what I'm saying. I'm such an overthinker.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I dissect every little thing. Yeah. One of the things they want to talk about is like what does it actually look like to feel your emotions without losing control and without suppressing them? It's hard to say what that balance is of I want to feel my emotions versus I don't want to deal with that right now. I don't want to have it affecting my day to day. Have you ever felt like a time where you're feeling your emotions and it's becoming too much?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Me? Yeah, yeah. I have to get to the point where I'm like But what do you do? I shut down if it's too much. I have to go to someone, like I have to have a person, like a therapist or just a friend? No, I don't need a therapist. A homeless man? Yeah. At the grocery store. Different day. Okay. That's what happens. Yeah, I'm talking about a homeless man at the grocery store. We becoming friends. I'd be supporting his life. Um, no, but um, yeah, I really I know me, and I can't sit with myself when I get to that point. Like I have to let that out. Like I have to vent, I have to. Emotions are meant to be understood, processed, and guided, not treated like an enemy. When I treat my emotions like an enemy, that's when the anger comes in. That's when I want to explode. That's when because I'm not truly being myself. I'm not truly processing. Your anger is that the person that's making you feel like you have to suppress your emotion? Or yeah, I'm not or myself. I allow people and their judgment on how I process things bother me a lot because I am big. But how do you process it? I cry a lot, I cry so much, and I have to like again, my wills turn up here. I'm like, and if I don't have anything helping me balance that that anxiety, yeah, that um I get hot, I don't have an appetite, my ears ring, I get it, that anxiety chest like weight on me, and I I'm just a different person. I shut down. Have you ever meditated regularly? I have, and it does help. Meditation does help.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, because that's one thing that I was liking about when I was even looking up the somatic stuff was a lot of stuff, especially as an intellectualizer, like I can understand why I should feel sad. I can understand why I should feel angry, I can understand why I should be happy. Like, I can be like, that was fun. I mean, I'm a kind of person, I mean, I laugh all the time too, but I also definitely sometimes be like, that was funny. And instead of laughing, I literally state the emotion without actually feeling it. And so I've noticed that when I do things in my body, a lot of times it helps me get out of my head. Because as much as emotion is like feeling it in your crying, having that heart beat or whatever racing, mine is I'm in my head. So a lot of times just making myself meditate and focus on my breathing and my literally my chest going up and down and the air feeling my lungs, that helps me so much. Now I can sit and process it how I need to. But a lot of it too is journaling. You said you don't journal, and I feel like you would.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I used to journal. I haven't journaled in so I think you need to journal.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

I feel like everything you always say would be so good for a journal because again, it's so surprising when you start to journal regularly. What comes out? The thought that I was scared of all this newness felt so stupid. Like when I was even writing it, I was like, oh that's what, and I didn't even, I didn't notice it at all. I always do a catch-up in my journal. This is what's been going on since I saw you last, and you know, and I was going through it and I was asking myself, well, how do I feel about this? And what is this? And I was like, wow, I'm doing a lot of new things. Yeah, this is kind of scary. And there's just going back and reading your actual thoughts because when your thoughts are in your head, you're not holding on to it. And a lot of times you'll see in in your journal, you you're seeing your thoughts out, and you're like, I was thinking that, yeah, I was feeling that. It takes the emotion out of being, I am the emotion, I am angry, or I am sad, or I am, and it makes it like I was feeling this way. So you're not the emotion anymore. You know, you're you were feeling that you are a person that was feeling that, but it's not I am sad. And I think having the identity in myself, and then knowing that that's just descriptive word versus having my identity and my emotion is so much easier to see when I'm being able to actually see what my emotion was on paper. Yeah, you should try it.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

No, I love journey. I have old journals. Uh-huh. I don't know what happened, honestly. I don't know if like it's a big thing. They always that's like a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

It's a mystery of journals. They always I still have them all. They're stacked up. Like Yeah, they you should go back and read them. Yeah, it's so silly. It's it actually, I feel like it's a good mechanism for your brain to remind you that half the shit is just some bullshit. Because you'll read about something that you're caring about that was so heavy, and you're like, that was nothing. What is that? You was working oh my god, but it that's like a it's a good reminder to yourself, and I think it will help you in the future to like remember like it's not that much. It's not that much. Yeah, there's the point when there's oh, I've always done something, and is this the best way to do it? I'm always questioning myself, is like, is this something I always done and this is how I am, or is this because this is just how I've handled it and processed it? And I'm always looking for ways, again, my intellectualizing, but I'm always looking for ways to be better and do better. And I definitely know that when I'm not journaling, I'm less connected to my emotions. But I'm I'm actually pretty good of with some emotions. I know if something's starting to give me anxiety or something like that, I'm very much like, I gotta meditate.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Yeah, I gotta meditate.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

I should go on walks, I feel it, and where I'm like, no, I gotta meditate now, actually. Or I'm gonna really need silence for about five minutes, or something about to explode. Well, sometimes it's just like changing the environment, but it's definitely I gotta find a way to get out of my head. Cause if I start letting thoughts go, and that's why I love meditating too, because it really gets you to the present. What's happening right now? What is the actual right now situation versus am I worrying? Because like they I think they say, like, isn't it something silly? Like 95% of the things that we worry about never happen. Yeah, something ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

It is a big amount, it's huge, and it's because you're just sitting worrying about something that's like and then your thoughts sometimes become those things that you didn't want to happen because you thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

You're literally making yourself suffer more just thinking about what might happen, and it's never even happening, and you're sitting here suffering right now guilty of that because it's not something and it literally never happens, and now I spent three days suffering for something that didn't. So it happened to me. Your body feels like it happened. It's all that, but it's not that. So we gotta figure out ways to get out of that pattern more. It's like sunshine really helps too. Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Sunshine. Listen, I go Chicago. Every day I'll be outside if I cannot wait till it warms up. If I'm out here in nine-degree weather, feeling like negative two.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

That's so disgusting. I can't. I wish I wish I could. That's one thing I've been looking for. I'm a big walker. I'm also a person I like I literally go read at the park all the time too. And so not being able to be outside has it does a lot. It sucks. It sucks. I'm not surprised that I'm like a emotionless bitch right now. I just need some sunshine to warm up. Yeah. Oh, what's the difference between feeling something and acting on it?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Feeling is processing, thinking about it, dissecting it, acting on it is I don't think. I just go right away.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

My daughter's narcissistic, dad. He literally he likes to trigger, and it's fun for him. I know everyone says they're narcissistic, but he actually is clinically, like he's it's terrible. And he wants to get that explosion out of me. And so when I say I'm feeling it, and I'm like, no, I I don't want to engage, and he just won't stop. And I realized that I can't be around those kind of people that won't give you time to process. Because it, I mean, I not giving him any credit. I do understand wanting to, we're having a conversation right now, but if you respect someone, you have to know that there are conversations that can't be always in one sitting. You can't control how someone processes it. I've also had people that like I've pissed me off and then I react a certain way, and they're like, that doesn't even make sense why you're acting like that. I said, you don't get to tell me how I get to be angry. My anger is how the fuck I want to be angry, you know? And like you fucked up. You can't tell me how I'm supposed to act with you fucking up. I'm gonna act how the fuck I wanna act. And like, well, it doesn't make sense. I don't gotta fucking make a sense, you know? And but if I get to someone that's triggered me like that, I'm like, no, I can't be around you because you're not giving me space to process. And because I'm very much where I won't talk to you for something, and then I will come back and I'm like, okay, I couldn't talk to you because I this is how I was feeling, this is what I was at. And this is me now at the place where I'm like, I know that's part of my process with some anger and irritation things. Yeah, I can't, I I feel it. I'm like, oh, I'm getting hot.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Like I could never be the person to poke. I'm the person that okay, this has happened so many times about to explode. Like, and then I just I just go in. It's like there's no more.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

I've been uh not the so I'm very I'm confrontational when it comes to bullies. You know what? This one girl, that's the last fight I get I ever got in, but this girl kept trying to fight me on campus. And I remember if you get fight on campus in college, you get kicked out of school. So she would always try to fight me on campus. So every time I'm gonna go back to the case. But yeah, she I remember she kept, she kept trying to fight me on campus, and I would I'd be like, security, security. And she kept telling everybody that I was scared of her. And I was like, I'm not fucking scared of this bitch. I'm just not getting kicked out of school for this bitch. And I just remember, I feel like, oh, because I instantly was went to I'm not handling this right now. Oh, I was so happy when I saw her off campus. But but, anyways, uh she knew how to wear it. I beat the fuck out of her. It was all year, it was all year. I told her that I wasn't gonna I'm not trying to be like she was a bully, huh? She just every time she was always trying to start stuff. I didn't see her off of campus the rest of the year. We just kept having shit on campus. Then, like, it was over with Guy, of course. The week before, me and him get together and we're like, we're good, we're a good thing. I'm like, I won. So I was like, you know what? If I see her off campus, I won't even fight her anymore. Then like a couple days later, I finally see her off campus again. My whole, my body was literally like my leg was shaking. Like I had so much built up, like, this bitch doesn't fucking know. And I remember I said my friend Alexa, let's just go sit in front of her. Sorry. We were in an auditorium at another school and we were watching a show, and I sat right in front. I remember sitting down, like, sitting down right in front of her, and then me and Alexa were sitting, literally, I'm right in front of her. I'm like, me and my Alexa are my friend Alexa are being so extra. And her friends are just behind me, oh, this is a bold ass bitch. This bitch is so bold. Isn't they talking? They're just the whole performance. At the end of the performance, I turned around to her. I said, You're lucky you went to security that last time, or I'll beat the fuck out of you right now. And I walked away, and I don't know, she leaned and hit me, and then I literally saw red. I was yeah, I saw I didn't see it blacked out. I was like stomping her with my heels. It was bad.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

And you wore heels?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Yeah, I had the heel boots on. I was like, Oh dang. I remember the crowd pulled her me off of, I mean the crowd pulled me off of her, and then I like was like this, and she was on the ground, and I was still kicking her in her chest. Like, oh my god, it was really bad. I was this is why I don't like what people give me to there. But don't get me fucked up. Like it was very bad. That's why I don't even want to, but I'm so good at I think that's kind of why I'm scared of my anger though, because I do get blackout and I do like to that point. I can be mean. Like, I can say things that's like, damn, like I don't know. Whatever insecurity you have imagined for yourself, like you think that someone else sees, but you're like, no, no one sees it. You make it 10 times worse. Oh, I know. I feel like I just something in me knows whatever your biggest insecurity is, and it just gets it. I haven't seen that side of you. I don't want to be, so I'm like, I take, I didn't, I know I need to walk away, but I feel like I feel like every emotion is valid. And with anger, people always like, you need to control your anger, but anger lets you know that someone's crossing a boundary. Yeah, you know, so I don't think that you just throw away anger because well, you need to control it. Yeah, I don't need to go fighting bitches, like I'm not trying to go to jail. I have a child, but I don't need you like to be crossing my boundaries and be in my space either. And there's a definitely, thank God, I mean, we don't live in a time where it's as well, and I don't usually have to be physical or anything like that. But I don't think that people people write off anger like you, you're like you shouldn't feel angry. And I'm like, no, it's just letting you know that you something in your boundary is being crossed. And we gotta fix that shit.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, yeah. No, anger's valid, it's just it you shouldn't have to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah, well, it's no, it's really not that the point of it, it's just like that's the reaction part. That's when you're letting it control you. It's like I'm literally, because to the point, even in that fight, I'm I blacked out. So I'm like that heat and that everything they usually don't even feel anything. All of that is like adrenaline. Yeah, that's letting that's I thought I am angry. Right, right. That's me. My identity is the anger and that queen, you know. It's not this is what I'm feeling. I'm anger, bitch. This is what I'm anger incarnate, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Red panda. What's the red panda?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, literally, and it's that's what you don't want. That's the reaction of it because the healthy thing is me feeling, oh, and I need to walk away. And then I can process this, like, they had me fucked up. They had me fucked up again when they said this, you know, and then being able to process that and say it, and then be like, you know what, you made me angry because you were doing this, this, this, this, and that, you know. And then, and from that, I now I can make a choice of dealing you with you in whatever capacity I need to, depending on what the angry thing is that you did. But that's the difference of like, oh, feeling it and seeing it and processing it versus like, oh, I'm gonna let this shit control me. And that's scary to think of, especially with blacking out with you don't want something to do that much to you that yeah, it's controlling you in that way, right? Think of it.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

It can be control because like when you when you're angry and you black out, some people don't even know what they're doing. That's yeah, I mean, murders happen. Yeah, people are out here like getting to the point and like don't even know what happened, but they just yeah, get to that point. That's crazy. That's beyond I don't know. Yeah, that's anger, that's anger to its highest. I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah, I mean my daughter's dad really makes me angry. He's actually that's why I can't even talk to him. I was like, I've never met a human being that can it's fun to him, like to push the buttons and to be it. I'm like, I don't, it's so because he he gets mad because I he's like, you think that you're so like nice and kind, all those things and stuff. And I'm like, I know I am like, no, that's how I am. So he likes to like bring the per part of me, he's like, Can see now it's the classic, I'm gonna trigger you that you're gonna be like, like you're not allowed to be in the right. And you're gonna react. And then it's like, see, this is how you react. It's like it's con the classic manipulation or whatever. And but it's crazy to be around someone that does that when you know that that's so not your nature. And but I think that's kind of me realizing the awareness of certain things can pull emotions out of you. I avoid situations that make that emotion come out of me because I I want my anger to be because okay, I'm seeing a boundary, not because you're like picking for it. Yeah, that's not an emotion I want to just be doing regularly, you know. But someone that's picking for your anger is no, I scary.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

I think mine's different. Like when I film and some of my castmates get me to that point, it's just like, oh, you're why are you so nice? Or like, why are you crying, or why are you so emotional? That's what it makes me feel. It's like why, why, why? But then when I get angry, it's like I'm you know what I mean? I'm just like, it's it's like that, it's like they like it. It's like they like for me to get to the point. They're like, Yeah, see, you're not nice. Or you're not this or you're that, or you you cry to manipulate, or this. No, like you're hurting my feelings. Like I really do feel this emotion. Like I'm a crier in my everyday life. Like, yeah, I'm just living with people I normally probably would not talk to ever or associate with that don't ever speak to me outside of a game, you know. So of course I'm allowed to feel this way. I can't vent or reach out to family or people when I need to and let have an outlet besides suppressing or going to my room and letting that build up. So and do it. I feel like that yeah, the emotional part of that, the mental, that's the part I have to be prepared for before I say yes. Yeah. But I I I know that I can do it. I've been there, went through it, got through that. But that's the part. It's like I'm not used to I usually steer clear from people that make me feel that way. So I really can feel it. I can feel when someone is good for me, not I just ought to have that intuition.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Or it's like, what person do you bring out of me? You know, again, it's if I'm around this person and then they always bring out my anger, there's definitely a part of me that's that needs to learn to not be triggered or that way. But I can also know that, oh, if they're absolutely trying to, then I can't be around that person because I don't want to be that person. I want to be around people that bring out my kind side, that bring out my nice side, they bring out my fun, silly side. And that's part of finding people that love you. It's like you kind of fall in love with the version of yourself that's with them. Yeah. And I want to be those emotions.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

I feel like overall, you're basically allowed. We're all allowed to feel our emotions. We're allowed to feel anger, sad, happiness, whatever, you however you're feeling, but don't let it ruin your life. Yeah. I've gone way too long with letting one thing just sit in months. Like, and it just has ruined me. Yeah. So I feel like when there's a healthy part of dealing with emotions, and then there's very well.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

One of the healthiest things to process it and start is actually just naming it and just saying, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm witness, and I don't know if you've ever noticed, but if you think about it, I was sitting with that thought of when I've actually again back to that time when I was really was like, I'm angry and I'm and I let myself feel it. It's crazy the power that saying it makes you it's kind of like it's coming out of you. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's and but saying that is such a good way to just start the processing of it. Like if you're the suppressor like me, or even if you were like you when you say that you get big emotions and stuff, sometimes saying I'm sad, how we've talked about before, just saying I'm not okay, the saying of it just is such a release. There's so many studies and talks about how our words are so powerful, how we talk to plants are so powerful, but there's something that's in the just the power of naming whatever that emotion is that really just you can feel a release of just it's so crazy knowing it.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Because even when I said I'm not okay, yeah, and I said it again to you know the doctor or the therapist, everyone, everything started to be better. Yeah, it was just like okay, I need to such an acknowledgement of this is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm feeling. How do I move from on from this?

SPEAKER_01 35:24

In therapy, I'm one of those self-aware people. I'm like, oh, I did this because of this, this, and this and this. But that's not me feeling it. So there's definitely the part of processing and saying it and naming it, but it being in that feeling of okay, I'm sad. Yeah. And saying I'm sad, that is like a release. And then being able to just sit and say it and just sit and not try to think of like, okay, what can I do to stop being sad? Because I instantly do that. Like, I instantly go into like, okay, so maybe I need to go on a trip, or maybe I need to stop working so much, or maybe I need to change this, or maybe and and there is a point to get to that because whatever your feeling is means something is off and something does need to change. So you definitely need to get to that space. But just letting yourself take 10 minutes sometimes and saying, I'm sad, I'm angry, whatever, and not try to fix it and just sit and be like, I'm sad.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

And I think that's what's interesting with being someone that's always trying to fix something.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

You're allowed to just be that just feel it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Feel it. Because if you envisioned your life a certain way, if you are going through a breakup, if you are you had your house in a fire, you know what I mean? Something happened to you where this isn't part of the plan, this isn't the normal, it's making you feel something, it's okay to feel that. Yeah, I think you don't want to sit in it too long to the point where it becomes your identity. And now I am sad versus I feel sad, you know. But when you take it out of yourself as an identity and just saying this is what I'm feeling, this is how it is, and just sit in that, that's good. And then after a time, then you can go to the okay, what do I need to do with this feeling?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah, it's not feeling emotionless, it's yeah, feeling it to the point where you become uh what is it? Like where you get to the point where you don't feel that anymore. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Okay, yeah, and I well just just you're letting yourself process it, and process it is feeling it, but it isn't feeling it to the point where it becomes your identity, you know? And then that's the difference between saying I am sad versus I feel sad. If I am sad, then it's like I'm putting that identity into everything that I do and everything that I am, everything is this, but no, it's just I'm feeling this way. I it's not my identity, it's not who I am, yeah, but it is something that I'm feeling, right? And I think having that distinction between this is me and this is just a feeling of me, that's another part of the process. Detaching from the identity of my sadness or my anger or my hurt or my betrayal or whatever the emotion is, is just like this is a feeling and I'm going through it, and it's because these things happened I'm mad and I'm about it, you know? And it's okay to be in that.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

And you get over it too, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

We get that's not naming it, not making it your identity, then going to the part of okay, would it be how we gonna fix it?

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Me, I go to instantly like, let's try to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Like understand your emotions enough to where they don't control your actions. Yeah, yeah. You gotta get to the point where you're like, I need to understand who I am when these emotions arise. So now that they've come up, how do I deal with that? So it doesn't control what my whole being, like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah, your mind, your physical. With my anger, it's very easy for me to be like, I have to walk away. And I literally, and with my when I'm getting anxious or overstimulated, all that stuff, like meditation is my one big thing. I think for me, the the bigger emotion, I mean the the deeper emotions come out when I journal because then I can look at the words on the paper and see them as like almost like a not like that it's a different person. I could just see myself as a person. You process that. Yeah, I see it and I'm reading it. It's almost like I read it as this is a character, even though I know this is about myself, obviously, but I get to see myself in a way that I don't get to see myself when I'm in my own being, you know, like seeing it on paper and almost reading it like a story.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Kind of looking back at yourself, like you're looking at yourself.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah, I'm getting like from someone else's point of view as a viewer of myself versus this is me. And then you kind of detach from it controlling you and you're seeing, like, oh, this is something that's happening in the story. I can see it from a bird's eye view, I can see it from a different perspective. Like I get to see myself from a different perspective hovering over your old self.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, and I'm looking reading.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

But not even just my old self, even my current self, because it's it's what I'm journaling in that day, but I can see it as a someone else, and I can see an overview versus just like I'm in it.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

I must start journaling again, I think. Yeah, I think it's good. I keep one with me, which is crazy. I just it's blank. It's see, no, it's your subconscious thing, you can't. I all I have one with me. Yeah, that's why when I got one with Liv, because for Liv, when I travel, that's when I journal the most. I also have not traveled in years.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

That's what I said too. I hadn't even been journaling, and then I was like, I need to journal today. I think different places have different energies. So I always like, I want to write on this trip because I feel like you know, there's gonna be a different energy here. But sitting with it, I was like, oh my god, I forgot. I think that's the other thing too, is finding ways to process that work for you and and realizing that certain things need certain certain emotions need different things. Like I journal and I run and I meditate. Those are all different things to help me.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

I don't know if if I'm like being toxic happy, what brings me in. Toxic happy. Like if I'm just being, I I don't feel like I do that too much anymore.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, I'm not as toxic happy anymore either.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I have a kid, so it's like I used to be on a different yeah, like I didn't go home for three days. Yeah, like I'd be like, oh, tonight I have to be here, there. Okay, I'm hopping on a plane. It's so funny. People, I always meet people today, and I'm like, yeah, that's easy. I can drive there, and they're like, that's kind of a big trip or something. I'm like, is it? Right? I don't think about like I uh know. We're well, we're different in that way in general. I'm always gonna be hopping on a fight to do something random, but not as impulsively as I would when I was 24.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Well, maybe the summer we won't have the girls for a little bit. Maybe summer. Maybe we might be stepping out on some flights, some jets, uh, jets plural, plural. Maybe in the end, maybe it's not about controlling your emotions, yeah, but maybe finally listening to them. Yeah, and that's what I need to do. Me taking something away from this whole conversation, this whole episode is like, you know, I need to actually listen to my emotions and be okay. And because sometimes I'll also suppress because I don't want to be judged. I don't want to, I'm like, I'm just gonna hold this in, and then it finally gets to the point that's when it builds up. Yeah, like you said, because I'm like, now it's big because I I didn't want to be judged anymore. I didn't want to feel that in the moment. I wanted to try this and that, you know, and everything else until I it got to that point. But yeah, it's still something that's it.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

It's gonna come out eventually somehow.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yeah, I need to be honest with myself when it comes to my emotions and it be okay, but not let it control me. I do allow my emotions to take over my whole being sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, I I saw one thing too. It was it was when I was looking at stuff and it was talking about being honest. Has you have you ever felt like you had to be honest? And I think that's interesting that you said you're like sometimes I just have to say something, and this is me too, yeah. Where I'm like, oh no, they need to know this. And then I've had to slow down and say, do they need to know this? Or is this something that I need to know? And I have to process why I'm feeling this way about something, because sometimes too, my feelings are about things that I want, or I I felt a certain way about it, and I have to like reanalyze if it was because they crossed a boundary or because they did something, or is it because of how I'm looking at it? Really, yeah, and then so I think sometimes in just okay, naming it, I go back and I try to figure out what it the true feeling is too because I feel like it's kind of easy to be like I'm angry, or but sometimes anger is actually like disappointment or or being scared or fear, you know. So I think also sometimes I need to go deeper and like what's the actual feel feeling that this is? Is it betrayal? Like, do I feel betrayed? Did I and is that because I expected something of this? And then, you know, I think getting to that too, it's a little too intellectualizing a little bit, but I think not judging my feelings, and it's like, I know I'm feeling this way, and trying to understand it in a non judgmental way, you know what I mean? And just being like What is this trying to tell me? What is this emotion trying to tell me?

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Why do I feel angry? Why do I feel this betrayal? Why do I feel devastated right now? Why do I feel numb? Why, you know?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

They are all kinds of emotions. My daughter, my little Sonny bunny. Little Gemini. She's teaching me even emotions I didn't even know I could pull out of myself. But I I know that this is her and her big self and her being like, I'm a human that I don't, and I'm in this a little human in this big world that I don't know much of yet. And I know with me trying to process also her and myself and feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed. I find myself also being more calmer than I thought I would be. But there was a point where I wasn't. I think I just had for her, I just had to be like more. Well, you're just learning and growing. Yeah. It's it was a it was a lot though. Yeah. Because I wasn't just feeling my emotions. It was also a kid that I uh I love and care about.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Well, also, there's a lot of when you're neodivergent and you have children, a lot of the masking that we're able to do before we have kids gets dismantled through motherhood. That's why a lot of women actually get diagnosed once they have kids. Well, part of it is because their kids show signs, and then as they're analyzing their kids, you're like, wait a minute, that's me.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

It cracks open your masking. And all of the ways that you've been able to cope, you can't now because you can't just get away from this person. Even with Livia, she be touching me, and I'm like, I'm getting overstimulated. I'm like, girl, um, and and I'm so thankful that she's at an age now where I can tell her, I'm like, Livia, I'm getting overstimulated, so I really just need a minute. And she'll actually listen to me. So like on the trip to a couple times she did that, and I'm like, Thank God. But it's hard when they're younger and they don't understand that yeah. It's like, oh no, mommy needs a minute. They're like, Yeah, what do you mean, a minute? Like, I don't even give you a second. Right. Like, no, it is hard because you can't just have an understanding conversation with your toddler.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Like, yeah, and it's a balance of the that every day. And I constant, yes. Yeah, so I'm I'm in a transition of trying to do all of that at once and then finding it very yeah overwhelmed. You know, I I have been a lot more overstimulated and like overwhelmed lately.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

But I it's gonna be good though, because you it gets easier and then you have got more practice in. So I mean it just it's a shock though. It's a shock when it first happens because they are so it'll be out of nowhere, huh? It really teaches you though to be like this isn't working for me. So you have to find your mechanisms more in motherhood, and I think it makes you in my like motherhood makes you have to confront things that you could you could go away from before. And now it's like, no, I I need it's in front of you. I need some way to process this. I need it ASAP, I need to know things that I do. I need to tap my chest and do a little dance. Like, I don't know. Yeah, I know what you're telling me. I don't know, honestly. That is actually a good way. If you're like ever really down, sometimes I just work in the mirror. Girl. It's so healing, it's so healing. I'm a baby. No, I don't say I let the rapper speak for me, but I'm like, I no, I like I really do love dancing, dancing in the mirror, like even sometimes it's not even rap music, sometimes just like sensual, sexy music. Like, and you just like you look at yourself and you think that like I seduce myself in the mirror, like, okay. Um, but it actually really sometimes I'll have especially on full moons, um, you know, I'll just do the full moon and I'll like dance and stuff, and literally the next day I'll feel like pretty and then and stuff. It's that powerful. Yeah, because sometimes I don't know there is an interesting thing of especially again getting out of your head as an intellectual person, like that it's always trying to figure out something. Um I just need to move and do something with my body. Yeah, that's important. And it won't and your kids make you be like, yeah, I gotta do something because otherwise I'm about to I'm about to snap. Girl, these kids.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Oh, so do we do we are we healing our emotions then right now?

SPEAKER_01 48:28

What are we doing? I feel like I'm I am a suppressor, but I'm I'm definitely I remind remind myself that I need to journal. That is one thing that was on that trip that I made me be like, I I know I need to be doing this more because I the other thing I like about journaling, not all of the beautiful things that I already mentioned about it, is that it's not a person. So you don't have to, I don't want to be heavy on someone else all the time, you know what I mean? And there are therapists who are good, but being able to walk away from judgment of I'm talking about this person and telling this person. I don't want to be gossiping. I think what I want to know is if anyone has an audience has ways that they deal with them that are physical. I'm very interested in physical ways. I've heard about some people do like I don't know what it's called, like the chest tapping.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

When I have panic attack, it kind of puts me back in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Really?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

I'll start, I'll literally be.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

It's a presence thing. I I know it.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

I'll breathe and I'll put me back in the moment. And it'll be like, oh, the sky's blue. I see yellow flowers, like a bird. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Like it's a presence thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Yeah, that's what it is, and I tap.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

It gets you out of your head and it gets you into that. I also know there's like even in meditation, there's different hands that are supposed to trigger certain things. I mean, different fingers, excuse me, different hands. Well, they're good. Uh different fingers trigger different things. So I definitely, if anyone has some any, but particularly, I'm really interested in hearing about different physical ways to deal with whatever is happening in our body to get it out.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

Yeah. I I would love to know more things too, because I know that this definitely helps me. But again, um, it it isn't about controlling your emotions, it's about understanding them so they don't control. And remember, please go to our community circle. Let us know what we can do to help with our emotions. What do you like to do? Um, let us know like tips, comment, let us, yeah, just let us know everything. Yeah, I want to know how you process things, what can help me and Lexi and everyone else in our community. So come say hi and until next time. Until next time. Bye.