Ep 6: Empowered Emotions for Introverts

Hello, my beautiful introvert friend. Welcome to episode number six, empowered emotions for introverts. This is such a powerful topic because feelings are a huge part of being human and most of the time we feel that our feelings are not under our control. It's kind of like the weather. Some days we wake up and we have a rainy day. Some days you might have a hurricane of a day. And then sometimes you might have a beautiful sunny day and it feels amazing. So in your life, this might look like going to work and feeling okay. But then you have a conversation with a colleague and it doesn't go the way that you would like. You feel awkward. You might've said something that you weren't happy with, or you might not have said what you truly had to say. And so afterwards you're feeling bad about it. You're feeling doubtful. You start to overthink it. And if this happens a few times, you might start to think that, Hey, this job might not be the place for me. So you start to question your job, you feel uncertain. And it creates a lot of Unhappy weather for you. And so then you try to manage this unhappiness, this discomfort. And a lot of us, for example, we'll turn to alcohol. We'll go home and have a drink. I'm reading a book right now are listening to it rather called Agatha raisin. And it's a little mystery series that takes place in the English countryside. And a lot of stuff happens and they are constantly going to the pub. To have a drink and calm down. Their solution is almost always a gin and tonic. And while this is. It's pretty normal, right? This is the emotional status quo for humans. So it's really like nothing has gone wrong. If this really resonates with you. It's normal human behavior. But it puts you in a position where the only way that you can control your emotions is to do things like like having a drink every time you feel upset. And then also complaining a lot. Right. Complaining about your coworker, your job, or yourself, and that also does not feel very good. Complaining is not terribly empowering. In contrast to this, we have emotional empowerment or empowered emotions. What this means is recognizing the agency and the influence that you do have over how you feel And taking loving action to support yourself both before stressful events during stressful events and afterwards, so that you feel more not just more supported, but more of the motions that you want to feel in your life. Because emotions are what create the experiences that we have, whether they are positive or negative and whatever kind of emotions we use on. On either end, you know, peaceful, joyful, connected, sad, lonely, self doubt. We actually have a lot of influence to create emotions for us. And we're doing it all of the time. We just don't realize it. So empowered emotions is realizing this, this power, this potential and lovingly practicing it. So that you can go to work and have that conversation with your colleague that is a little bit awkward. And you might feel some self doubt come up. You know, you might feel some uncomfortable emotions, but they don't become the entire interaction you recognize, Hey, there's my pattern of self doubt. An awkwardness coming up, but actually like I am doing okay, I'm here. I'm listening to this other person. And maybe I don't like what they're saying, but I'm recognizing that they are really thinking about themselves. Not about me. And then afterwards it doesn't turn into this huge existential crisis about whether you're fit for the job or not. It was just a moment. That happened part of being human. And you don't create additional stress. So you're able to continue your work show up the way you want. Or make a decision to change your work because you really truly actually want something different from yourself. But for yourself, but it's not coming from a place of stress and self doubt. It's coming from a place of support. So in this episode, we're going to break down what empowered emotions mean. We're going to start with defining what feelings are. In where they come from. Then we're going to look at the emotions that are most important for introverts to cultivate. And we're going to look at how did you that on a mind, body level. Those emotions are feelings like confidence, acceptance, self-love. If you felt these, if you cultivated these consciously lovingly would transform not only your experience today. But what you create for yourself in the future. So before we go too far, if you're joining me on YouTube, this is Lovely, and my cat, she was just like around my feet. And really wanted to snuggle cause she loves to snuggle so silly. That's her. I'm going to put her over here to the side and hopefully she will be happy there and will need to be on the podcast anymore. But if she wants I will show her to you again. So yeah, I am on YouTube also last week. I figured out the tech to make it happen. Now you can see the video component of the podcast. If you like to. To see my face or just like being on YouTube. Listening to stuff. Okay, so feelings. What are feelings.? How would you explain a feeling to a child? To an adult? In life coaching we say that a feeling is a vibration in your body. It is. Or even a sensation. So you actually feel it, the feeling in your body, in your chest or your belly or a general sensation. People can experience feelings in different ways in their body. Some folks have a little more access to this than others for various reasons. If you have trauma in your past, this can affect the way that you relate to your body. And so there, it might be a little bit different to access them. But as a human being, you have the potential to feel your feelings. In a safe way. Feelings are also what happens when your brain processes information and then decides what it's about. It'll send messages to the rest of your body, to really S hormones, neuro-transmitters all the things to change how your body is working, whether you are under stress or experiencing pleasure or something in between. Feelings are incredibly important in driving our actions. Because we are either trying to seek pleasure or avoid pain. So we're either trying to take actions to create more pleasure. That's where the gin and tonics come in. Or get, create less pain. That's also where the gin tonics come in. In the example of having the awkward conversation with your colleague repeated times. Where it's just uncomfortable. Your brain starts to think, Hey, I need to get away from this job in order to solve this discomfort. So, the discomfort is leading to you changing your job. Feelings come from a few different places. The number one place that they come from is your brain and the meaning that your brain makes about what is happening in your life, about the situations that you have in your life about you as a, as an introvert. When your brain decides if something is good or bad. It will then communicate that to the rest of the body and thats, when the feelings go forth. The awkwardness from the conversation, it doesn't come from the conversation in and of itself. It comes from your brain, judging it as, as awkward, as it going in a way that it shouldn't go, or that's not ideal to go according to some external standard. And then your brain will say, Hey, this is, this is bad. This is essentially an unsafe or threatening situation for, to keep it in the black and white. And then that will create stress. It will create self doubt. And whatever other patterns that you tend to turn to, but that your brain tends to turn to those older stories that you've been running off. You are narrative. Those narratives are also a source of emotions. So let's say you're talking to the colleague and that triggers an old narrative of I'm bad in conversations. this is a story you have, it is in your library that your brain tends to reach, to, to explain. What's going on in your life. Explain that conversation. And so within that story, that includes like a list of checklist of feelings that you feel when you're experiencing that story. So they're not actually generated by the situation by the conversation they're generated when you go into that story. And another way of looking at this is that these feelings are stored in your body. And we see this, we have this understanding this mind, body understanding in yoga, where the body acts as kind of storage space for certain emotions that we can access sometimes just through movement, just through yoga postures. We will access a pocket there and we will experience it. An emotion. This can also be called a trauma pocket where it is past. Experiences of past story. That is, it is. Associated isn't quite the word, but for a stored in, in the body and that you access it through. One of the ways is through yoga postures. So I hope you can see now that your feelings are often already with you, right? They're already within your. Your lunchbox of emotions and that you have a tendency to go to those same feelings repeatedly when you are in a repeated circumstances. And the such your emotions. Aren't actually the truth of the situation. And it's not the situation that is creating them. And this is amazing news because it means that your emotions are within your domain, within your agency to understand and work with. Not from a place of fixing ever. First from a place of acceptance and appreciation that, oh my gosh, this is how I work as a human being. No wonder, I feel self-doubt a lot like that is just here in my lunchbox. Like I've got this story in my library. And because it is in my library, I have the power to, to evolve it, to, to really understand and in this understanding you grow so much as a human being, as someone who is in relationship as someone who works, who has an impact in the world. In Ayurveda and yoga, we see emotions like the surface of an ocean. Where, if you are writing up on there, you are very much at the mercy of the waves. But that that is only the outermost external expression. That as you go deeper into the ocean. As you go deeper into yourself. You access. Calm and stability. And balance. That is your true state. That is there a waiting for you to access it. This is why it is always worth believing that you are capable of feeling whatever it is that you desire to feel. If that's more confidence, more connection, more joy. It's all there waiting for you. While at the same time, not denying your human experience, that some days you are going to be on the surface in the hurricane. And that is okay. Nothing has gone wrong. All right. Let's talk about three emotions for introverts. That when you cultivate them. You create an empowered way of being. The first one is acceptance. Acceptance of. Yourself. And however you are as a human being. If you are. Quote, unquote, awkward or quiet or need a lot of alone time. Truly accepting that that is not a problem. No matter what someone else might say. Let's you believing that? There is nothing wrong with you and that yes, you will have awkward days. Yes. There will be days where you are a wallflower. And that that's totally fine. If that feels a little difficult to access for you. That's okay too. It's a process. Acceptance is practice. And you can cultivate it by the second emotion, which is self-love. And this is one that I used to not get at all. I would expect that self-love would be a feeling similar to what I feel for a romantic partner. So underlying desire or attraction happening and that's self love it's more like a relationship you would have with a young child. Where that child might be having a tantrum, they might be learning something. They might be failing over and over at riding their bike. And you appreciate their struggle, but you love them deeply. You are committed to them. You support them. However you can. This is acceptance to the next level where you were proud of them for failing and showing up that you no matter, they can't do anything to erase that support. And internally you experienced this by your self-talk reflecting it. So instead of beating yourself up, instead of going into doom and gloom, compare and despair, You're like. That was hard. I see you. You got this, you can take a time out. It is okay. There is no rush here. The third emotion that builds on the first two is confidence or rather self confidence. With self-confidence, especially when you are doing things that you haven't done before, when you are thinking about making a change about Going outside of your comfort zone. You can lean into your own belief and support of yourself that then fuels you to do the hard things. Confidence, it looks like mentally in your self-talk of believing. I can figure this out. I can evolve. I can do this. I have something special to offer. As an introvert, I can do this my way. And my way will be amazing for the right people. So what I just offered for some thoughts, some empowering thoughts that you can use to create these empowered emotions of acceptance, self love, and confidence. Now you can also cultivate this and I definitely recommend you do on a body level. And that looks like creating safety and less stress for your physical body. There's a million ways that we can do this. But one of the number one ways that we do naturally as introverts is to create space. Loving space for you to deeply rest deeply nourish yourself. This probably looks like not having a gin and tonic, but instead having a nice tea, having a warm bath. Snuggling with your snugly cat. Yoga practice having a calming yoga practice, a yin practice or restorative practice. Where you are regularly helping the body to feel supported. This will not only help you to work through emotions that are in the body. But also to create that safety and homeostasis for the nervous system. We talked about these in former, in the creating resilience for introverts episode. And then also having grounding moments in your schedule where you can create this space and totally unplug. Lunchtime is a great time. If you're at work. You can turn your computer off. Take a few breaths before you have your meal and sit there without your phone. Just eating and breathing and being, and allowing your mind some time to relax. This can look like having a break always mid afternoon or after work. Aiming to have a 10 minute walk where you can let go and come back to yourself. Come back to yourself and to the empowering thoughts of self-acceptance of self-love of self-confidence. Essentially you're letting all of the crappy emotions and thoughts from the day that build up, you're finding an outlet for them. And then you are opening up and inviting in the empowering thinking so that your body can accept and program that in. We do this naturally, you know, we naturally have a feeling to take a, take a walk or have a quiet moment. So, whatever you do build on that, build on what all, what it already works for. Okay. So, what I want you to do is identify your primary emotions that you want to cultivate to experience more in your life, whether that's acceptance, self love, and confidence. Connection, joy, peace, success, impact, whatever it is ask yourself. What you need to think in order to feel that emotion. And then is there one practice, one body practice that also can help you to step into that emotion to receive that, to receive that empowering thinking, the empowering feeling so that you feel it in your body and show up in your life from that feeling. When you create the feeling that you want in your body, independent of what's happening around you. Then you can show up from that feeling and create situations that will create more of it. All right. That's a wrap for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you next time.