2454: 3 Emotions That Will Help You Grow by Shirley of Daring Living on Emotional Wellness & Self-Awareness

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[00:01:08] Three emotions that will help you grow by Shirley of DaringLiving.com and I'm Dr. Neal. Welcome to another Sunday bonus episode. This is where I like to share an episode from another podcast in our network, usually overlapping a bit with what we talk about here.

[00:01:26] And today's comes from my brother's podcast, Optimal Living Daily. You can find that podcast wherever you're hearing this. So with that, here's my brother Justin as we optimize your life. Three emotions that will help you grow by Shirley of DaringLiving.com.

[00:01:47] If you're a doer like me, you're probably thinking, okay feelings are great now give me practical tips so I can get work done. Am I right? Yes, I get it. Some of us were not raised to understand and express our emotions in a proper way.

[00:02:03] Growing up in an Asian household we do not talk about feelings so I can totally understand. Yet it's crucial to understand our emotions and learn how to manage them properly. In fact, learning about feelings is actually quite practical and useful because your

[00:02:18] feelings drive your actions and your actions create the results you want in your life. Before we continue I want to note that I'm using emotion and feeling interchangeably here. Your feelings drive your actions. Action in action, they're the result of you feeling a certain way.

[00:02:37] If you feel scared, you will hide or avoid. If you feel sad, you will cry. If you feel motivated, you will do the work. Your feelings drive your actions. It's how we function. Even when you think you're taking actions while ignoring your feelings you're actually feeling resistant.

[00:02:55] That's why it's so hard for you to move forward. This is why it's important to learn about your feelings and it's crucial to intentionally choose what you want to feel so you can take the right actions. Embracing useful negative feelings. Positive feelings are great.

[00:03:13] Feelings such as excitement, motivation, happiness, relaxation. We have no problem feeling them. But what holds us back is we don't want to feel the negative feelings. Specifically negative feelings that are useful and helpful for our growth. We don't want to feel frustrated or stressed or uncertain or scared.

[00:03:33] But often these are the very feelings we need to have as we're learning and growing. Some people call this growing pain. Emotions drive our actions. Understanding our feelings and emotions and how to process them can help you live an intentional life and have more self-awareness.

[00:03:51] Emotional wellness is important if you want to create your ideal life. Here are three emotions that will help you grow and how to practice them. Three useful emotions that will help you grow. Feeling committed. Feeling committed means having the willingness to give your time and energy into something

[00:04:10] you believe in. It is a desire to stick with a goal, a plan, an idea until it becomes reality. Feeling committed does not always feel good. It can feel rigid, harsh and disciplined. But this feeling drives action. Feeling committed can help you achieve what you want.

[00:04:29] How to practice feeling committed? Intentionally choose to accomplish a goal, whether it is big or small. Make it a non-negotiable to accomplish it. Have no excuses. You can get saving $1000 each month or it is working out every Saturday morning.

[00:04:45] Whenever you think about this goal, notice how it feels in your body. Practice feeling this way regularly. Feeling vulnerable. A lot of people think feeling vulnerable means you are weak. What they mean is feeling vulnerable means you are exposed.

[00:05:01] Dr. Bernay Brown describes vulnerability as quote an emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty end quote. Feeling vulnerable is putting yourself, your ideas and your gifts out for others to see at the risk of not receiving the feedback you desire. It's true that there is the risk.

[00:05:19] But what I've found in my business and personal life is that whenever I put myself in a situation where I felt vulnerable, often what I get back in return is connection and understanding. Vulnerability means sharing who you actually are and there is so much strength in that.

[00:05:35] Dr. Bernay Brown puts it quote, vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change end quote. How to practice feeling vulnerable? Let yourself be seen. Tell someone how you actually feel. Speak up and address a problem if you need to. Notice how vulnerability feels in your body.

[00:05:56] Do your fingers go cold? Do you feel a knot in your stomach? Describe the physical sensations in your body and get more familiar with it. Feeling courageous. We can't talk about vulnerability without also talking about courage.

[00:06:11] Everyone wants to feel courageous, yet the feeling of courageous doesn't feel good at all. Courage is very closely related to fear. Courage means that you are afraid, yet despite that, you do it anyways.

[00:06:25] I have my fair share of experiencing fear and taking the actions to get me to where I am. Feeling courageous means taking the leap to switch your career path despite the fact that you have to start from ground zero and that people would think weirdly of you.

[00:06:38] Feeling courageous means deciding to let your friend know how you actually feel at the risk of losing your friendship. How to practice feeling courageous? Do something small that scares you every day. Maybe it's starting a conversation with a person in front of you in line or speaking

[00:06:54] up in your meeting at work. Practice the courage muscle so you can be more familiar with it and do more of it in the future. Conclusion Uncommitted vulnerable and courageous. These are uncomfortable feelings that are useful for us to be familiar with.

[00:07:11] We need to create more of these feelings to drive the right actions. These feelings are not easy, but we can do hard things. We humans are so much more resilient than we think we are.

[00:07:28] You just listened to the post titled Three Emotions That Will Help You Grow by Shirley of DaringLiving.com. Thank you to Shirley. There's something in there that was lightly touched upon that I wanted to talk about some more. She said,

[00:07:42] This is why it's important to learn about your feelings and it's crucial to intentionally choose what you want to feel so you can take the right actions. Those words choose what you want to feel is something that I think we don't talk about enough.

[00:07:57] A typical scenario might be like, you're talking with a friend then they say something like I don't know nice shoes. I don't know why I picked that but let's go with it. So here are those words in your brain processes it. Processes it? Processes it.

[00:08:13] Oh yeah, that was right. Now maybe your brain for whatever reason does that with sarcasm in a negative way like nice shoes. Okay, that's fine. Our brains are complex and you can't really blame yourself for that interpretation. It's simply a thought. Well then that's where things get interesting.

[00:08:30] Actually that thought will now sit in your brain and choose to stay a while and that's where it becomes your choice. Side note we heard about this phenomenon recently in an episode from a brand new author to this show Richard Patterson.

[00:08:44] You can check out episode 2091 that was exactly a week ago for more on that. Anyway, the thought sticks and now you're actively thinking about it that your friend talked about your shoes in a sarcastic way.

[00:08:58] And then in reality it is your choice because what you choose to think about is completely up to you. Then that thinking turns to feelings which comes back to this point I was trying to make and that I think we don't talk about enough.

[00:09:12] That feeling really is a choice as Shirley said. It's crucial to intentionally choose what you want to feel so you can take the right actions. So the first time that thought appears maybe it's not your choice but then

[00:09:24] to dwell on it that is your choice and then the feelings that arise from thinking about it that long that's also your choice. Again, you can hear more about this and what you can do about it in episode 2091 so I won't

[00:09:37] go into more detail but it definitely reminded me of that post. So let that have a great rest of your day. Think about what you truly want to think about and want to feel and I'll see you

[00:09:47] back here for the Thursday show tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.