Welcome to Episode #161. I'm your host, Kristi Angevine, and today's episode is about moving from avoidance of emotions to trust and curiosity with your emotions. Let's jump right in.

Welcome to Habits On Purpose, a podcast for high-achieving women who want to create lifelong habits that give more than they take. You'll get practical strategies for mindset shifts that will help you finally understand the root causes of why you think, feel, and act as you do. And now, here's your host, Physician, and Master Certified Life Coach, Kristi Angevine.

Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I know that some of you are new and I'm so glad that you tuned in. Thank you for checking the podcast out. After you listen to today's episode, I encourage you to scroll back and choose other episodes that address topics that you relate to. And if there are things you wanna hear more about, make sure you join the email list. It's at https://habitsonpurpose.com, join the newsletter, and then just press reply to any email and let me know what you'd like to hear more about.

So I just got back from the Women's Physician Wellness Conference that happened in the Grand Cayman. And if you haven't yet gone to one of these conferences, it is like a glass of water when you are parched. You should absolutely go.

Now, if we recently got to meet there in person and we hadn't met in real life until then, you know who you are. I'm just savoring how great it is to go from having a virtual acquaintance, virtual friends, to real life connection time. So I'm so happy that we got to do that.

In Episode #159, I discussed the sneaky habit of pushing aside things that are too much and what makes it hard to be present with what's actually real for you.

The habit that was explored there was the tendency to chronically compartmentalize, chronically dismiss, and repetitively ignore things that we don't like in a way that actually blinds us from acknowledging what's actually going on and leads us to feel all sorts of flavors of not-so-great, and then scratch our heads and not quite understand why.

In that episode, the focus was on identifying what emotions and what experiences you habitually set to the side and maybe don't welcome with open arms, and then reflecting on why that might be the case.

In this episode, we're going to build on that theme of avoidance, and we're going to get into another aspect of this stealthy habit.

So today, we're going to focus on a habit that so many of us miss. I know I do. It's really easy not to notice this one, which is why I like to bring a spotlight to it. And this is the habit of specifically avoiding certain emotions.

And what I'm going to do in this episode is I'll explain exactly what I mean. I'll share the problems with this particular habit, and then I'm going to talk about why we do it and invite you to a different way.

So have you ever noticed that you bottle up a feeling and then that feeling that you've been bottling up all day long just bursts out of you bigger than you expected, like frustration that piles up and then comes out later on as yelling, or a sense of discouragement or overwhelm that you've awaited all day long, one too many times, and eventually, it bubbles out with just sadness and crying that you didn't see coming and that frankly was very inconvenient.

Or maybe instead of just feeling feelings in real time, maybe you have a habit to dismiss emotions.

Say you have a flash of irritation and your reflex is, oh please, it's not that big of a deal. I've seen worse, you know what, big picture, this is not a problem. You know, why am I even irritated? Honestly, my irritation, it's so silly. And then the irritation recedes only to come back. And if we had a real-time emotion camera on your psyche, we might see that when it resurfaces, you brush it aside like you would brush aside an annoying bug or mosquito. And eventually, when it surfaces again, you reflexively maybe distract yourself from it with work or scrolling or food or a glass of wine or exercise or one of those novels you buy at the airport.

Or let's just say an emotion you don't enjoy shows up. What do you do? Have you ever noticed that maybe your expectation and reality didn't line up and you get disappointed, but instead of just noticing and feeling disappointed, your go-to is to intellectualize? Intellectualizing looks like talking about the feeling instead of feeling it, making a map to maybe explain why you feel it to the tune of, let's see, I hoped X would happen, but Y happened instead. And you know what, it makes sense. I've got some disappointment. And really, that's just what humans do. It's just coming from my thoughts, but you know, it's temporary. It's not a sign that I need to stop, you know, and frankly, it's not even noticeable now. So I guess that's just that.

Or maybe you have the tendency to push your anger away. The oh so common emotion that I see so many clients avoid is anger. And it almost deserves its own special weekend to address, which as a heads up in the future, I'm actually gonna be doing a special anger workshop, kind of an intensive of sorts to help change your relationship with anger. But have you ever avoided your anger and noticed that you go from zero to 60 and then you snap or yell and wonder, what the heck just happened? Or have you ever felt so mad and when there's a chance to name what's going on, you actually find you cannot speak but you feel overcome with tears? Or you stew and sulk and mutter under your breath.

Avoiding anger can have the precursors of feeling appalled or irritated, frustrated, bothered or annoyed and squashing it down, kind of suppressing it or resisting it, telling yourself, I shouldn't feel this way, kind of shaming yourself or judging yourself, saying things like, you know, nobody else is bothered, what is my problem? And then not circling back later on to see why the feelings were there in the first place.

So if any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone. It is a very human response to want to avoid pain, to avoid discomfort over which we feel no control, to pull our hand from a hot stove burner. And when no one has taught us to do differently, of course, we're going to try to get away from certain emotions that don't feel good.

So if you had to pick, what feelings do you love and what feelings would you say are really fun and pleasant to feel? Contentment, connection, peace, joy, determination, surprise, love, confidence, ease? And how about emotions that you don't really like? How about shame, discouragement, sadness, anger, exclusion, insecurity, guilt, rejection, frustration, feeling out of control, feeling fear? Most of these emotions that we don't really like to feel are some variant of sad, mad, or afraid.

Now, as we continue to talk about emotions that we don't like and that we have a tendency to avoid, I want you to bring to mind the emotions that you don't like and that you have a tendency to either dismiss, avoid, resist, or numb.

Now, the first thing we need to get into is let's talk about what the problem actually is when we avoid emotions we don't like. Like, is it even a problem? Yes, it is. A resounding yes, it is a problem. If avoiding emotions that were uncomfortable wasn't a problem, we would just continue doing it without any underbelly. And in fact, I would have a whole podcast episode recommending the different ways that you can avoid emotions because it was so effective.

But here's the thing, avoiding emotions that we don't like, it has several problems. And the way I see it, there are four main problems that you really have to keep in mind.

Number one, when you avoid your emotions, you hide from yourself what is really going on.

Number two, we don't learn how to listen when our system speaks, which perpetuates the avoidance.

Number three, the implicit message we give ourselves is that our emotions are invalid, unwelcome, or too much.

And number four, our emotions, they will eat at us, nag us, drain our energy, weigh us down, and sometimes they will bubble over just like water coming out of a boiling pot that has a lid on it that you wish wouldn't. And they will do this at the most inconvenient times.

But, you know, it really makes sense that we avoid them, especially when we don't know what else to do. It also makes sense when our experience of emotions is either that they're easy to brush aside, so why not? Or when we are with them, they're gigantic. And so we see our emotions as these big problems because when they're exploding out of us, they are inconvenient tears in public, or they're rage and fury that hurts somebody else and leaves us apologizing.

Or maybe we've had depression or panic and we worry, if we just let these emotions be here, they're gonna lead to these big awful moods we can't get out of, or these intensely dysregulating experiences, and they're gonna escalate and we'll never come back from that.

So what is one to do? Well, let's first spend a little bit more time talking about exactly why we avoid emotions. In addition to the human tendency to wanna seek pleasure and avoid pain, and in addition to the understandable desire to avoid screaming at people we love, to avoid getting pulled into an inescapable gloomy mood or emotional dysregulation or having untimely huge emotions come out when we're not prepared, we've also been socialized to see our emotions as problems.

Now, in general, there are a lot of messages from society about the negative connotations to emotions. Simple things like, don't let them see you sweat, suck it up, buttercup, or he's such a crybaby, or don't be so sensitive, toughen up. These sentiments convey emotions show that you're weak, dangerous, unreliable, and they basically imply that If you are logical and rational or trustworthy, you are good and you're probably more likely to succeed.

Or how about this? Just be positive, look on the bright side, good vibes only. You should be grateful. Other people have it worse. You know what, this is such a first world problem. These well-intended tropes can lead to invalidation of real struggles. They can even lead to toxic positivity, whitewashing, and ultimately denial or avoidance of processing real feelings.

Then there's the entire category of social messages around gendered emotional stereotypes, where basically masculinity means no emotions except anger are okay, and femininity is associated with being overly emotional in a problematic way. We hear this in comments like, "man up", "boys don't cry", "she's just hysterical", and "you're acting like a girl". And the impact of these is that for people socialized as men, emotional repression is paramount. And of course, this can lead to all sorts of challenges, mental health struggles, difficulty with intimacy, difficulty with anger, struggling to communicate about feelings other than anger.

And then for people socialized as women, emotions are again considered a sign of being irrational, being unreliable, unpredictable, and basically bad, and should therefore be suppressed. We also have cultural messages to "just get over it". I'm doing air quotes here that you can't see, but to "just get over it". And these convey that emotions should be quick and controllable, and if they're not, and if you're struggling, it's your fault. We hear this in comments like, "you should be over this by now", "that happened so long ago", "move on", "it's not that big of a deal". And these sentiments can lead people to feel guilt for struggling, or feel like they're broken if their emotions aren't there in the first place, much less if they have emotions that recur.

And then there's an area of my personal interest, which is the social messaging that demonizes anger. The messages we hear about anger is that anger is bad, is problematic, and it's unprofessional. And anger is equated with things like fury and rage. And what happens when we get these messages about anger is anger does not get dealt with in a healthy way.

Rather, it becomes internalized, which means it can later on present as passive aggressive behavior, as resent, and then sometimes even fearing expressing anger, even anger that is justifiable because you worry about the backlash. Especially if you are a woman, especially if you're a BIPOC woman, and particularly if you happen to be doing this or residing in a community that happens to have very strong stereotypical gender roles.

Now, we can also erroneously link privilege and safety and having basic needs met with emotions like contentment. And then we see any discontent or any negative emotion as a sign of lack of gratitude. And this is because the message is, If you're successful, you should be happy and happiness is the goal. So if you are unhappy, you're failing. And if you have a great life, why are you sad? You've got no reason to be upset.

Now, these reasons alone are sufficient to realize why we would be hesitant to notice and acknowledge our emotions, but there's more. We also have the cultural message that emotions are a burden. That it's not okay to not be okay. That expressing feelings is selfish and annoying, possibly inconvenient to others. So you better keep them to yourself.

Did you ever grow up hearing, you're too much, stop dumping your problems on everyone, nobody wants to hear about your feelings.

Now, lastly, there's also a stigma around getting support for emotions because, and I'm saying this in air quotes, “therapy is for the weak.” I.e. If you need help with your feelings, there's something wrong with you. Emotionally strong people can handle everything. And we hear this with statements like, you don't need therapy, you're fine. Or talking about your problems won't change anything. What's done is done, just move on.

So with all these socialized messages, it makes sense that we don't have an ease with our feelings. So much sense. So we're gonna take a minute and we're gonna step back from any socialized messages and talk about what's actually true when it comes to emotions.

So emotions are simply messengers. Emotions are signals of important information. Every emotion we feel makes sense even if initially we don't get why it's there. No emotion is bad. Emotions do not make you irrational. In fact, you don't lose control when you feel emotions, but you can lose control when you repress them.

Emotions are not a sign of weakness and feeling them does not make you weak. All humans of all genders experience all of the emotions. And there's no such thing as masculine and feminine emotions.

Men who learn how to acknowledge, honor, and process all their feelings don't have to expend so much energy hiding what's human. And anger, anger isn't bad. Anger is simply an emotional cue that a boundary has been crossed, that an unfairness or an injustice has been witnessed, or a core value seems compromised.

Anger is just as healthy as any other emotion, and there is a way to have a healthy relationship with it, and honestly, a nourishing experience of being angry. Negative unpleasant emotions house critically important information that we can only access when we don't brush them off or avoid them. Emotions sometimes take a while to tend to, and that's okay.

Happiness is one of the many emotions we can feel, and it's not synonymous with success. Emotions are not burdens, unless you've been socialized to see them as such, and perhaps you've been socialized to see them as such for a good reason. But the truth is, they're not burdens once you open up to that possibility.

Some emotions and emotional experiences, for example, grief, are not easily navigated alone. And just like we never fly a plane without a co-pilot, we never need to feel feelings in isolation. And to really emphasize this, I wanna just repeat, emotions are messengers, and they are communicating really important information that we would be really wise to acknowledge.

And in this way, emotions often behave like people. They show up kind of like a knock on the door or a tap on our shoulder, basically asking for attention. And just like if we are on the phone and busy and an emotion showed up and we ignored it and it comes back again and then we blow them off again, they might just like a person get a little bit annoyed with us and then unpredictably barge in and yell at us to try to get our attention. Or they might just stay really quiet, boxed up until just the right moment when our guard is down and there's an opportunity for them to leap out. And like people, if we can slow down with our emotions and notice their presence and acknowledge them, and maybe even at some point, listen to whatever it is that they're alerting us to, usually they won't explode at us at inopportune times.

So what is it exactly that makes emotions bubble out when we've suppressed them or we've ignored them for a long time? Well, it's what I call the beach ball effect. You may have heard this analogy, but along comes a feeling and you are in a pool and you bat it away just like a ball. It bobs back and you kind of flick it away and it comes back again. And you take this beach ball of an emotion and you squish it down under the surface of the water and you hold it just right. And it's no problem until you get off balance just a little bit and boom, it shoots up, water goes everywhere and it's a big mess. And if it's an emotion, there's crying and yelling and you might be surprised at how completely sopping wet you are.

In the absence of a healthy model that sees all emotions as welcome, sees all emotions as repositories of precious information, when we push them down just like a beach ball so that we don't feel out of control, so that we're not perceived as bad by others, so that we don't butt up against our identity as, you know, I'm not a disappointed or angry person. When we do that, they will burst out just like a beach ball does when it's shooting out from underneath the surface of the water where we've tried to hold it down.

So what do we do instead? If we were to treat a feeling like a person with an open, welcoming, nonjudgmental stance, like you might meet a guest that you're welcoming into your house with open arms. What do you think would change? Take a minute and think about the emotions that you prefer to not feel, that you avoid. What would be different if you just welcome them and let them in and listen to whatever they were trying to alert you to?

It is a radical departure from the usual dance of judging, suppressing, ignoring, rushing to fix, and shifting to greeting, welcoming, and befriending. It is a big shift to meet your emotions with curiosity.

It's, heck, even a big shift, even if you don't go to curiosity, but maybe you just allow a feeling without minimizing or suppressing it. To even simply name and notice something like, hey, here's that carrier pigeon and it's got some important data. Just that makes a huge difference.

So this may feel like an advanced move, but what I'm gonna offer to you as an alternate to avoiding emotions is to welcome and befriend them. And I'm going share with you an example that I learned from a teacher of mine, Ana Vicente, and she so nicely conveys what it could look like to deal with anger differently. And it conveys what we normally do and contrast that with what we can do when we are welcoming and befriending it.

Now, if anger is not an emotion that you struggle with and you have a pretty healthy relationship with anger, I want you just to think about any emotion that you routinely suppress or ignore that you like to avoid, and think about what it might look like for you to mimic this type of response.

So here's the example that Ana gives. So imagine you have told a child no, and you've told them no a couple times, and they keep asking you again, and they're basically not taking no for an answer. They keep asking and asking and asking, and you keep getting more frustrated, more irritated, kind of angry that they're not taking no for an answer.

And as that anger builds and you kind of push it away and push it away, eventually, when they ask you for the 10th time about the thing that you've said no to nine times, you explode and you yell at them, maybe you shame them, and then you feel bad and they feel bad. And this is an example of what happens when we take something like anger and P.S., whenever we feel irritated or frustrated or bothered or annoyed, those are just different words for light anger.

So whenever we take something like anger and we push it down and push it down and push it down and push it down, or try not to feel it or try to avoid it, eventually it does this. We snap at somebody that we really care about. We get more harsh than we intend it to.

Now, I do wanna mention that there's a time and a place for being harsh, a time and a place for being blunt, being very clear, for raising your voice, for being firm. And is it the worst thing in the world to yell at somebody you love? No, but oftentimes, as common of a phenomenon as this is, oftentimes we don't feel great. We don't feel great during it, we don't feel great after it. The person who we yell at, whether it's a kid or our boss or a colleague or a friend or a partner, they don't usually feel great hearing it.

And so what I wanna offer to you is an alternate to feeling like an emotion bursts out of you because you've tried to avoid it for too long. So the alternate experience that Ana outlined so beautifully is you've told your kid no, and then you hear them ask one or two more times, and you notice you feel a little bit of tension. Maybe you feel a little bit of what feels like irritation. It's kind of light. And you pause and you check and you go, huh, I notice I'm feeling irritated. Oh, you know what? Irritation is basically light anger. This is a precursor to anger. Huh, what's going on?

And you notice that when you're looking at your child, you're kind of looking at them like somebody who's attacking you. You go, oh, okay. Hello, anger. I know you're here for a good reason. And you just check and you go, you know what? I'm experiencing some displeasure. I wonder what I'm not pleased by. Some boundary must have been crossed, some value must be compromised, maybe I'm seeing some injustice, what's going on? And you're basically checking in with yourself as opposed to focusing on your kid.

And as you slow down, you might realize, oh, it seems like I'm being attacked by my kid, so what part of me is being attacked? Oh my goodness. It's the part of me that wants to feel heard. Oh my goodness, I actually feel kind of sad right now. Communication's important to me. This feels like I'm not being valued. I'm not being listened to. Okay, that makes sense. No wonder a part of me is mad. You know what, that's really reasonable. Okay, I get that.

And then from this place where you've done all this sort of like self-talk on the inside, when your kid comes and asks you again, says, hey, da, da, da, da, da, and asks you for the thing you said no to, from a place that is so much more calm, where your anger has been acknowledged, whatever's behind it has been addressed, you can then say to your kid, hey, I notice you keep asking me about the same thing. How come this is so important that you keep asking? Or you say, hey, kiddo, listen, a part of me feels really unheard. Can you help me understand, what part of me saying no about this isn't making sense? Or you can say, I noticed that you're not taking no for an answer. And I want you to know, I am not gonna change my mind. And I don't want you to ask me again, How is that for you?

Now, notice all of these answers. They are honest, they are open, they are kind, they are not invalidating your kid, and they're also not like candy coating how you feel. They're leaving the door open for communication, open for connection, open for learning, and they're not invalidating your anger. These responses are possible only when you really validate your anger and go, okay I'm feeling a real emotion for a real reason and I wonder what that reason might be.

And this is what it looks like to welcome and befriend an emotion. And think about it, how do you feel when somebody welcomes and befriends you? When somebody validates you or validates your experience? Versus how do you feel when you get the sense that you're unwelcomed, that somebody is rushing you or invalidating you or trying to fix things before they just acknowledge that you're feeling a certain way? It's so much nicer, isn't it, to be welcomed, to be befriended, to feel validated?

And so when we can do that for our own emotions, we can learn so much more. So here is my action step that I'm going to offer you for this week. I want you to start noticing any emotions that you invalidate, judge, dismiss, or avoid in yourself or in others. And then see if you can start asking, what piece of information might I learn if I wasn't in a hurry to feel differently? And that's it. Basically, you're gonna start noticing emotions that you typically avoid and just ask, what information is here for me to learn? What would be here if I wasn't in a rush to feel differently than I do?

And I hope this places your less than desirable emotions in a context that makes them make sense. Because all of your emotions, all of your parts, all of your thoughts, they all make sense in the context in which they formed. So even if they don't make rational, logical sense at first, trust me, once you spend a little time with them and are able to understand the full story, they will make great sense.

And here's something that might reassure you if you're worried that your emotions will be too big or too much to handle if you pause and check in with them. Emotions that we actually just sit with and feel. They really only last somewhere between 60 to 90 seconds. Once we just let a feeling be there, it's more like that emotion is like a puffer fish that's all blown up and then deflates.

Once we just allow it to be there and welcome it, it is so much more manageable and so much less difficult than we think it'll be. So until next time, we'll talk soon.

Are you a woman physician interested in being more intentional in your life, being more deliberate with your habits? Maybe you're feeling a bit frayed on the edges with all the pressures of work and life, and you may have a tendency to overthink, people please, second guess, or feel so much guilt when you do something for yourself.

Perhaps your charting takes forever, you bring work home, and you're just not as present as you would like to be. Maybe you scroll, or shop, or emotionally eat, or you use a drink to wind down more often than you'd like.

If you can relate to this and you just want to feel less reactionary and more in the driver's seat of your life, you need to understand the root causes of your habits. Habits like perfectionism, a harsh inner critic, people pleasing, numbing, ruminating, overcomplicating, procrastinating, and so on.

And that's exactly what you can work on in the next round of small group coaching called Habits on Purpose for Physicians. Habits on Purpose for Physicians, or HOPP for short, comes with CME and is a small group of women physicians who meet weekly for six months.

And in HOPP, you get practical, deep dive coaching and teaching from me. And I come at this from a perspective of cognitive, somatic, and Internal Family Systems informed approaches in a way that is not only accessible, but applicable to real life.

And you get a ready-made structure that you don't have to create on your own, and you get probably one of the best parts is a community where you can connect with other physicians doing the same work.

Enrollment information and the link to join the waitlist can be found at https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp. And when you go there, get on the waitlist, because when you're on the waitlist, you'll get access to early enrollment and some bonuses only available to those who sign up early. And the reason why this is important is spots are limited. So signing up sooner as opposed to later is really smart so you can ensure that you get a spot before they're full.

Also, if you are interested and you want to join but you find the price is a barrier, there are scholarship options so don't hesitate to fill out the easy application for either a partial or a full scholarship that will ultimately be linked on the main sign-up page when we open up enrollment.

In the Habits on Purpose for Physicians group, you will unpack and unlearn old habits so that you can create new ones that are sustainable. So I hope you'll consider joining. The signup page with all the details will come out closer to enrollment for the next round, but go to https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp to get on the waitlist. I can't wait to see you there.

Thanks for listening to Habits On Purpose. If you want more information on Kristi Angevine or the resources from the podcast, visit HabitsOnPurpose.com. Tune in next week for another episode.