Welcome back!
A few blogs back, we talked about a system designed to help you respond to a triggering situation in a healthy way, rather than reacting in a negative coping reaction. Some of the steps were pretty simple, but there were two that may have felt hard. One of them was how to have that hard conversation that made you feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. If you’ve been following along with these blogs, then you know the last few we went deeper into that topic. But now I want to dive deeper into the other harder step: PROCESSING YOUR EMOTIONS.
For many, this will feel gross. Talking about emotions, or even acknowledging them, is seen as some weird voo doo stuff. Only the weak talk about their emotions, right? Nope! Actually, the stronger and healthier ones are the ones who talk about emotions.
This idea that being vulnerable is for “Sissies” is only adapted when a child isn’t allowed to show their emotions. They grow up believing that in order to be loved and seen as “good,” they have to be “strong” and tough out those hard situations that feel hard or scary. Crying and voicing your insecurities may have been seen as an inconvenience by our parents because it felt like one more thing they had to deal with. But then we grow up into adults unable to maintain healthy relationships and feel alone and unseen or unloved, and don’t understand why they can’t find LASTING joy.
We feel anger and lash out often, isolate and feel alone, or turn to addictions and extreme coping mechanisms because we don’t trust others. Anxiety and depression set in and we continue to believe that voicing our emotions will only annoy or bother others. We stay silent out of fear that telling someone how we feel might make them leave us or we become very loud, and even mean, about telling others how we feel because we believe it’s the only way we will be heard.
However, I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t have to feel alone and it doesn’t have to feel scary. And you most certainly don’t have to be mean to be heard. All you have to do is be able to understand what you are REALLY feeling, vs. what you THINK you are feeling.
You may be thinking “what in the world are you talking about”, so let me explain. Our feelings lie to us. They tell us things that line up with our coping mechanisms. They tell us how to react or what we need to do to protect ourselves. Our feelings comes from a place in our brain called the limbic system. If you have followed any of these blogs then you have heard me talk about this. This part of our brain is designed to keep us safe. So as a child if you touch a hot stove and it burns you, the next time you feel something hot you will probably have a reaction to pull away.
This happens with our emotional wounds as well! So, if a need didn’t get met as child, or if you haven’t dealt with a trauma, your limbic system will create reactions to situations that feel similar to those past memories that cause you to pull away or fight back. A.K.A. fight or flight mode! Our coping mechanisms are our limbic system’s way of keeping us safe. But in reality what happens is, it keeps us stuck. These reactions make it impossible for us to grow and develop into who we are supposed to be. They make it impossible to truly feel whole and at peace because we are constantly in protection mode.
BUT, when you are aware of this and possess the ability to trick your limbic system, you then have the power to overcome these strongholds and old wounds! You can then strengthen healthy relationships and walk more confidently into who you are supposed to be! You no longer have to feel that pain of rejection over and over again! Now I’m by no means saying that you will never be hurt again! We are all humans, and not very many have this information or awareness to become healthier. But by having the awareness and no longer being stuck or bound, you no longer have to carry the weight of that pain!
So, how do we become aware of what we are REALLY feeling? By asking questions!
This is honestly best done with someone else who understands how to effectively process their emotions. And if this is something you struggle to do on your own, please reach out to me. If you are someone who’s coping mechanisms were an addiction of some sort, I would recommend you only dive into this with accountability because the last thing I want you to do is fall back into something because you start encountering something hard from the past and don’t know what to do with it! So, PLEASE, reach out! But for anyone else, here are some questions to ask yourself when you are trying to process your emotions!
— How am I feeling? Are you in fight or flight mode?
— Do you feel angry? Another word for anger is fear. The only time we can experience anger and it not be fear related is if it is righteous anger, meaning something immoral is happing. But any other anger is ALWAYS coming from a place of fear. So, what is the fear you are feeling?
— Are you feeling rejection? Or not good enough? Are you feeling like someone is telling you that you are dumb or don’t measure up?
— Name the fear or the feeling behind the emotion.
These questions aren’t going to bring healing, I’ll touch more on that later, but these questions are going to bring you into a healthier mindset. Your emotions are going to trigger a coping mechanism or a fight or flight reaction. But when you can focus on the actual feeling behind the emotions, you now have the control to respond in a healthy way. If you have followed the BREATHE system then you know that after you have asked yourself these questions, the next step is to acknowledge the differences between what happened as a child and what is happening now. Remember, this part isn’t necessarily about healing, it’s about responding in a healthy way to something that triggered you.
So, now that you have recognized the true feeling behind the unhealthy emotion you’re feeling, the next questions are going to help you to recognize if this is in fact a situation where you need to protect yourself or not. And if it is, what are the healthy ways to do this?
— When did you feel these things growing up?
— Who put those wounds there?
— Is this person the same person who put those wounds there?
— Is the exact same thing ACTUALLY happening or does it just feel the same?
— Has this person always hurt you? Are they typically a malicious person?
— How is this situation making you feel about yourself? Did they ACTUALLY say those words to you or are you making assumptions/ mind reading?
The answers to these questions are going to help you be able to decide if this situation is a one you need to protect yourself from. MOST of the time, we are just reacting based on past situations that hurt us. But if this person does always put you down or this person IS the person who put those wounds there, then you will definitely want to check out my previous blogs about setting boundaries or knowing when to walk away.
Setting boundaries or walking away from an unsafe relationship is the healthiest way to protect yourself. Isolation, being mean, and/or going numb are all VERY unhealthy ways to protect yourself and honestly, they aren’t effective ways to do so. It may feel like it in the moment, but it will only hurt you more.
If you have asked these questions and that person is not typically someone who triggers you, is not a malicious person, and is not the person who put the wounds there, then a conversation needs to happen. However, before that conversation happens you want to make sure you are in a healthy head space, which is what we are doing now!
Once you can recognize that you are feeling hurt rather than anger, and you have recognized that, while yes what they did hurt you, the level of pain you are feeling did not come from that person, then you now have the awareness you need to calm yourself down and CHOOSE how you want to respond.
Pain is pain, regardless of the depth of the pain. So. by no means am I saying that whatever happened in this current situation that hurt you is now justified. You are very valid in the way you are feeling, regardless if you are right or wrong. No-one can take that away from you. But now you have the ability to respond vs. lash out. From this point what you want to do is ask yourself a few more questions:
— Before I felt this pain, did I want this person in my life?
— Before I felt this pain, did I trust this person?
— Before I felt this pain, did I feel love for this person?
— If I caused this person the same type of pain, would I want their forgiveness? Or would I want them to give me the chance to explain myself or to say I’m sorry?
— Is this person a malicious person? (Yes I added that one again for a reason lol)
Basically you are just taking yourself out of the emotion and reminding yourself of who they are and their role in your life. If this person isn’t a malicious person and up until this point, you loved and trusted, and you are feeling like you need to tell them off or shut them out, you are still acting in an unhealthy place. Space may be something that is necessary depending on the situation, but grace and a conversation is still necessary. Which btw, grace doesn’t mean you right someones wrongs, it just means that you still love them despite it and despite what they deserve in that moment, you are choosing to love them like Jesus loves them. And I am ONLY recommending you continue pursuing that relationship if this person is someone who doesn’t typically hurt you.
Remember, we are all wounded people. And people will always hurt people. But it isn’t always intentional. Walls don’t have to be built every time someone pokes a wound. So, asking yourself these questions and reminding yourself of these truths is what is going to keep you grounded in healthy responses! Which just happens to be the next step in the BREATHE system!
Later I want to dive deeper into actually healing from these wounds that have caused these fight or flight reactions, but for now I really just wanted to help you better understand how to get yourself to a healthier mindset in those moments where a wound is poked and you feel triggered so you can have that healthy conversation! I know right now this feels like a lot, but once you have a better understanding of each step of BREATHE, this will all just flow naturally and organically! You will still have moments where you feel triggered but you will FINALLY feel like you have control over how you react/ respond to them!
I hope that these last few blogs have helped you feel like you had a better understanding of the BREATHE system! We will be moving on soon and into deeper healing, so stay tuned! See ya next week!
