Your Brain is a Bartender

Managing emotions has nothing to do with trying to feel good all the time. I was terrified of feeling emotions. I didn't realize that. I beat myself up for not being happy all the time. I didn't understand that feeling all emotions was part of the whole human experience and that it was normal to feel sadness or anger.  I  became aware that my truth was I was running from feeling. I've also learned that's why I got so good at eating and drinking. 

Fact: feelings are just vibrations in our bodies. 

Eating made me feel full and dulled the pulse, and if I drank enough, numbness could set in. I could avoid the pain of bad feelings altogether- well, until I woke up and realized the emotion was still there, and now I'm exasperated by the guilt and shame that came from eating and drinking more than I should have.

It's a vicious cycle. 

So, how do you get brave enough to feel the emotion? For me, it took learning more about feelings.

Understanding that feelings come from our thoughts was vital for me to understand I didn't have to avoid feeling.

A thought is just a sentence in our minds. That thought triggers the brain, and the brain gets to work acting just like a bartender. It processes the thought and creates a hormone cocktail in response to what you are thinking. If you are thinking a thought that provokes fear, the bartender throws together some adrenaline and cortisol. If your thought creates happiness, the bartender shakes up a little serotonin, dopamine, and maybe a little oxytocin. We relish the good feelings and usually try to avoid the bad ones. But the science behind a feeling allows us to see that the hormone cocktail only lasts about 90 seconds. That's the truth. Of course, lingering on a thought will perpetuate another shot from the bartender, but again that will only last for a moment. Learning that made me brave enough to sit through a feeling. After all, I had given birth to three babies... 90 seconds of fear couldn't be more painful than passing a human through the birth canal, right?

Our thoughts are way more powerful than we give credit. They are the only reason we feel anything and our feelings are what drives every action we take. I work with my clients to help them understand the Think, Feel, Act cycle. I show them how to use their feelings as an ally to help identify which thoughts are ultimately creating their results.  

Spend an hour with me and learn how the Think, Feel, Act cycle impacts your life and the results you have right now. Click here to schedule your free coaching session with me.

Sincerely,
​Donda