Why Avoiding Your Emotion is Blocking Your Next Level [ep. #233]
Hello lovely lady and welcome to The Subconscious Expert!
Are you tired of carrying that emotional backpack up your mountain of scaling your business? Avoiding your emotions might feel like a smart thing to do so you don't get overwhelmed, but I'm here to tell you it's actually keeping you stuck.
In today's episode, I share exactly what happens in your brain and body when you push those big feelings away – from how they physically get stored in your connective tissue to how they create those frustrating patterns of self-sabotage that won't budge no matter how much mindset work you do.
Plus, I'll guide you through a simple but incredibly powerful exercise to feel and release emotions safely – right here on the podcast!
You'll see for yourself that feeling your feelings is never as scary as your mind makes it out to be, and how just 90 seconds of emotional processing can create the space needed for new beliefs to take root. Ready to drop those stones from your backpack? This is the subconscious breakthrough you've been waiting for!
Topics covered on Why Avoiding Your Emotions is Blocking Your Next Level:
How does your brain physically process emotions, and where do they get stored when avoiding your emotions becomes a habit?
What happens in your limbic system when emotions become stagnant, and how does this create repetitive triggers?
Why does your subconscious create stories around strong emotions, and how do these become limiting beliefs?
Guided emotional clearing exercise to safely process feelings that have been holding you back.
Why is feeling your emotions actually safer than you think, and how can you build this practise into your daily life?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quote:
"If you are not feeling it, you are not going to be healing it." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business. I've said it before and I will say it a hundred times again. Your business cannot outgrow your mindset. And if you wanna grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious.
So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve. Hello my beautiful lady. How the devil are you? I have. Another exciting episode coming to you today. You think by now five years on that I still wouldn't get as excited to record a podcast episode, but quite frankly, I. Fricking love it.
Like I still get as excited as I do to record the day I started, and I don't think that will ever go away. I bloody love this podcast. So thank you for being [00:01:00] here. Just wanted to take a moment and thank you for listening to me every week if you are here every week, every Tuesday, or whenever you're listening, but today.
I am actually talking on emotions and feelings, and it's very connected with the subconscious work that I do. I know it's more from Anu, um, a nervous system perspective than the kind of neuroscience and the subconscious. I'm gonna be speaking into all of it, but actually what I tend to do with my podcast is I will really look out for themes that I.
See a lot come up with my one-to-ones, and of recent, I have been doing a lot of feelings work with my one-to-ones, a lot of emotion work and actually making my clients feel safe to feel the emotion to move through the emotion rather than pushing it down or putting it in a box and then a smaller box and a smaller box and putting it on the shelf and then trying not to ever feel that emotion again.
[00:02:00] And it's very tied with the, tied in with the parts work that I do. A lot of the feelings, the big, big feelings that we get that we don't wanna feel, whether that's sadness, hurt, guilt, fear, like those big, big feelings that feel quite scary to feel what we call the exiles. In parts work, we tend to do other things rather than feeling them.
So whether that's scrolling or whether that's numbing out, um, on y kind of Netflix or cleaning one that I have to always watch myself with. We do other things rather than actually sitting in the feeling and allowing the feeling to move through us. And if you are not feeling. If you're not feeling it, you are not going to be healing it.
And that's what I'm going to dive into today. Now, I know that you've probably heard the phrase feel [00:03:00] the feels like, feel the feelings, baby, but that feels quite surface level. And you're like, yes, okay, but what the fuck does that look like? And. Why do I need to feel the feelings? Why can't I just push them down and carry on doing this task in hand because I'm a high achiever?
But today I'm gonna break down why feeling your feelings is actually pretty much a non-negotiable, especially for subconscious reprogramming and how that's stagnant emotion. So when we don't feel the feelings is going to keep you stuck. And then most importantly, as always, how to actually move through it.
And I've got a little guided exercise that you can use right here, right now on this very podcast. So we're actually going to start with a bit of neuroscience. I know I said I'm kind of bringing more of the emotions in, but I just wanted to go a little bit into how the brain works when you are experiencing emotion.
So whether the emotion [00:04:00] is. Fear or frustration or shame or guilt or even excitement. Your brain at that moment in that feeling releases those neurotransmitters, right? And that activates your body's nervous system. So. You can feel it every time, like even with the kind of, um, that, that, you know, like the rush of adrenaline when you're scared, when you, when we'd be, when we're, when we'd be thinking that we're being chased by the lion.
You know that feeling like the tightness in your chest, the anxious, um, I used to get the bloody red face when I used to get embarrassed and like the, my, my face would go like a tomato. My cheeks would go red, like, oh god, it's awful, isn't it? But. These kind of thoughts that you're having are not just in your mind.
They are literally physically embodied in your nervous system. Now, the problem with this is [00:05:00] when you don't feel them. When you suppress them, when you avoid the big feelings, when you distract yourself, when you try and like bypass and change the subject or move on to doing something else, those emotions don't just disappear into thin air.
They actually get stored and they get stored in your body. They get stored in the, like the connective tissue in your body that holds that emotional memory. They get stored in your limbic system, which is your emotion center. I. It's that, you know, memory, emotion, and actually when emotion is stored in that way, without releasing it, without feeling it, it then becomes stagnant and they can, it can physically get stuck in your body.
One of the NLP Neurolinguistic programming [00:06:00] techniques that we use is called parts integration and. The whole concept of that technique is that we bring two parts that don't believe they can coexist together, together, but a lot of those times, those two parts have been lodged in your body. And actually, when we are doing that technique, technique, when I'm doing that technique with clients, we use, I use their hands, I use their arms, we bring their arms together, we put them to your heart.
It's very much connected with where they've become stagnant in their body. So I want you to almost think of this like a bit of a, a bit of a river. And when we know when the water flows in that river, it's, it's vibrant, it's alive, it's moving. We love the sound of it. Does anyone wish they had like a little stream river flowing past their house?
There is nothing better than that sound, but when it's blocked, if we put a big. Plank a wood in there and we block it. It's gonna become murky. It's gonna [00:07:00] become stale. We all know the smell of stale water. It's gonna become heavy, and that's exactly what happens inside your body. And actually stagnant emotion.
Is going to lead to a lot of repetitive triggers, the patterns of self-sabotage that you know so well. The inability to move forward even though you're doing the work, and this is why I pair this with your body. When I'm doing a lot of the subconscious work, I connect to the body as well. You can do all the mindset work in the world, but if you haven't felt through what's kind of trapped inside your emotion center, it's gonna look good for a while.
Like you know that that fresh paint on a little bit of a crumbling wall, but the cracks are still there. So when you experience. Um, like this intense emotion, let's say [00:08:00] for example, fear or sadness or shame, or, you know, we call it the, the five negative emotions, anger, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt your brain when you are feeling that what your brain does and what it's done for a very long time since you were little, is it creates this interpretation.
Around it. So it needs to really make sense of the feeling, so it does what it's wired to do. And guess what that is? Makes a little story about it. It's constructing this story within you and. This is very deeply rooted to the limbic system. Again, like I said, the emotional center of your brain, it's responsible for the memory.
It's responsible for fear. It's responsible for survival. And when you feel an intense emotion, and usually this is where we take on our biggest beliefs, is when we've been in an intense emotion. The limbic [00:09:00] system fires a fricking signal. Like you're on a boat stuck in the middle of the ocean to your prefrontal cortex, and that part of your brain interprets it.
And it labels it, and usually it will label it from past experiences. So if you were ex, for example, um, if you were criticized for a, a as a kid for speaking up, for example, your brain. Might label visibility, eg. Speaking up, speaking your truth, speaking out on social media as unsafe. If you have failed like in the public eye or publicly.
You know, a lot of the times, a lot of my clients go back to when you were in assembly trying to do a presentation and you got the words wrong and everyone laughed. That comes up so many times.[00:10:00]
The that that will label that risk taking, that kind of standing up, that speaking out as dangerous. And what happens is these labels then become your solid truth because your subconscious mind takes that really emotionally charged experience, that emotionally charged story, and it locks that motherfucker in as a belief.
I'm not good enough. I'm not meant for this. Selling is hard. I can't take action. And the emotion itself then becomes secondary. And the story, that belief is what runs the show. I. And your subconscious mind doesn't challenge that story? No, no, no. 'cause its job is to protect it. Its job is to preserve it. It doesn't analyze, it doesn't kind of break it down and, and see what actually happened.
It just does it. [00:11:00] So actually a lot of the time we are driving from an emotion and because when you haven't had the tools. Or the support to fully be seen and held in that emotion and feel the emotion fully and let it pass through you, which we can do, and I'm gonna teach you how to do today. It will, it then gets stuck.
It gets stuck as a belief system. So we want to really have a look at clearing the pain of the past, whatever that pain is, whatever the kind of. Triggers were whatever the emotions are, we want to have a look at clearing and feeling some of that emotion so your body can feel safe in it. And it is safe to feel emotions no matter how big, no matter how scary they feel it is, and it's never as scary as you think it's going to be.[00:12:00]
What I see happening so often is that. What you think is a kind of current trigger. So when my clients are kind of experiencing a trigger that's really like profound for them in that very moment, what actually it is, is this like compounded trigger and I. Usually that is years and years and years and years and years and years and years of this like repressed emotion stacked on top of each other.
So every time you don't allow yourself to feel sadness. Every time you swallowed your fear, every time you have. Voided feeling rejection. It got added to your backpack, and now you're trying to scale your business. You're trying to climb the bloody mountain of growth with a backpack of stones, and we know that's what, what that's gonna feel like.
It's gonna feel heavy, it's gonna feel draining, and most importantly, it's [00:13:00] going to hold you back. And when you experience emotional p pain. And you are not processing it. Your limbic system, again, the emotion center of your brain sends a signal to your amygdala at the fear center, which then imprints the memory with a high emotional charge.
I. And that charge doesn't just disappear in time. In fact, every time it gets re-triggered because your reticular activated system is looking at that. I hope you're still with me here. It is only going to add to the charge I. It is only going to hold on and build onto that emotional memory. And this is why we want to do emotional clearing with the subconscious work.
And every time, even when I'm doing timeline therapy, which is one of the main subconscious tools that I use with clients, as well as a lot of other NLP [00:14:00] language hypnosis tools as well, I always connect with the body too. I always look at where the belief is sitting in the body, what emotions and feelings around the body.
I will do parts work in that feeling. I will get them to see a shape, a color, a texture, move that shape out of the body, bring um, space and, and, and awareness into the body. There's a lot of reasons why we have to connect the dots. We have to connect the dots, so. Hopefully you're still with me. I know this is a bit of a crazy concept to dive into just on a very short podcast episode, but what I'm trying to tell you is feel the fricking emotions and what I want you to do, first of all, just from even kind of.
Listening to this podcast is start to see and start to have a look at where you are avoiding suppressing not feeling because it feels uncomfortable. And [00:15:00] usually what I find with clients is they will go and do something else. So they'll procrastinate or they'll carry on working, or they'll clean whatever that looks like.
It usually comes out in an external, but when actually what we need to do is go. Oh my God. Wow. I am feeling frustrated right now. And instead of frustration, then leading you into the thought and boom, you're on a spiral. What we can actually go do is go, okay, hello, frustration. Let me breathe into you. Let me feel it.
Let me see it
and move through it. And what I actually find when I've done this with so many clients before. Is by even taking one minute to like 90 seconds to sit and actually feel the feeling, and I get them to turn the feeling up really strong, turn the emotion up really strong. It actually surpasses and moves through [00:16:00] so much quicker.
And what happens is you have created space and you've created safety in your body by sitting and feeling the feeling it might have felt uncomfortable, but. You didn't die, we're, we're okay by the end of it. And then you actually can then start to transfer back into the prefrontal cortex where you've got a bit of logic around why you, why you felt frustrated, or where you want to go next.
So let's do a bit of an exercise. So I want you to think of an emotion. Throwing you in the deep end here, I want you to think of an, of an emotion that you have been avoiding or suppressing or, um, doing something else other than feeling it. Okay? So whatever feeling that is that comes to mind. Sadness, anger, shame, fear, guilt, hurt, whatever it is.
I just want you to pick an emotion. We're gonna do a little exercise now. So if you are currently not in a place that you can, um, close your eyes, do it without closing your eyes, you'll still [00:17:00] be able to feel it in your body. Just be safe and please don't put yourself in danger right now. So I want you to just connect into.
The emotion. So you might have to go back to a time where you last felt that, you know, maybe you are kind of, um, thinking of a time where that emotion last came in and you can go back to the time and pull the emotion from there. Or maybe you, you can connect to the emotion quite quickly. Whatever, whatever it is, whatever's happened for you, there is no right or wrong.
So just taking a deep breath in. And taking a slow breath out, and I just want you to feel your body grounded. Maybe your feet on the floor, maybe feel the texture on your fingertips
and just bring that situation that's been triggering you lately, that emotion. [00:18:00] Maybe something that's feels stuck or heavy
and connect to that emotion. And I just want you to notice where you feel that in your body the most. So as you really bring that emotion in, just know that you're safe. And I just want you to notice where you feel that emotion the most in your body. Where is it sitting the most in your body? And just bring your attention to that space.
Just notice it. Just be with it.
Just welcome it in. Even if you say in your mind, hello, insert the emotion. Welcome. You are safe to be here. I'm safe to feel you. And now I want you to imagine that you've got a dial in front of you and on that dial, we are currently feeling this emotion about a two out of 10. So I [00:19:00] want you to turn it up now and I want you to feel that emotion about a four out of 10.
So turn it up to a four, just letting it be in your body. Keep breathing nice and deeply. Turning it up to a six.
Turning it up to an eight. Just feel that intensity. It's okay. You're safe. You're fully here with it. You are witnessing it. You are here with it. Breathe into that space. Let it be as big as it needs to be. Turn it up to a 10. 10 out of 10. Now just feel the breath and I want you to breathe the deepest breath that you have breathed today,
the deepest breath you can feel, and just feel that emotion. It's safe to feel this emotion. I am [00:20:00] safe. I am in control, and as it's gone up to a 10, I just want you to notice the more you've felt it and the more that you've breathed through it, I just want you to start to notice the dial going down. So back down to eight, keep breathing deeply.
Back down to six, even deeper. And then see how low you can get that dial.
And you just imagine that emotion dissolving, feel it leaving your body with every exhale. And as you get that dial down to the lowest you can. And again, I don't want you to judge the number. I just want you to ask yourself. What's the new truth? I want to feed my body right [00:21:00] now, whether it's a belief, whether it's an emotion.
Breathe that in, anchor that in. And whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes, come back into the room. And that is clearing that stagnant emotion, and then we can do work on replacing it with that, that new powerful truth, which we tapped into a little bit, and we can do the subconscious work from there.
But maybe that is just the practice that you needed to get started on. Actually feeling your emotions and giving yourself space to stop and feel them. And like I always said, and when I do this sort of exercise with my clients, it's never as scary as your mind makes it feel because your subconscious is just trying to protect you, right?
So feeling those [00:22:00] big emotions feels scary. So it's not gonna allow you to do it. It'll take you somewhere else to do something else. But now we know. That we get to feel these emotions. We get to be with these emotions, we get to understand these emotions, and that's a whole nother episode for another time.
But really just giving yourself that space, giving yourself that time. And actually now you're probably more, more and most connected to self in this moment, from stopping and grounding and breathing and being in that emotion. So hopefully. You know that this is just the beginning and I almost want you to do this work daily.
This is how we build safety in the body. You know, anytime you feel a big emotion come up, go. Ooh, yeah, I remember Beck said, get the dial. Start to feel the emotion. Turn the dial up. Make it 10 out of 10. Really, really feel it. Really, really be there with it. And then just let it. Dissolve, subside, [00:23:00] get down.
This is how we create space for the new beliefs to take root. This is how we build bloody safety in the body. And we want both. We want both with that. So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. A little bit of a different one today. Um, but I'm excited to. See you feeling the feelings and kind of being there with your emotions and moving through them rather than sticking 'em in a box, making them stagnant, and then not doing anything with them.
I love you so much and I'll see you on the next episode. I love to see you plugging in and listening to the podcast every week. So whilst you're here, I would love for you to spend a moment sharing your favorite episode, reviewing the podcast, and of course, that Juicy five Star rating. These little acts of kindness really help the podcast reach more incredible powerhouses just like you.
Now, if we're not connected on Instagram, add me at underscore [00:24:00] Rebecca Hayden underscore. And for the full show notes and more resources, head over to rebecca hayden.com. I'll see you there.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!