Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Let’s show you how feeling your feelings to process emotion will transform your life – and how exactly you can do that. It is ironic that doing this is something most of us avoid because it feels so hard but as you’re about to see, life is much harder when you don’t!

Why Emotions Are Important

The scientific explanation for why you feel emotions is that they help you adapt to your environment and respond to threats, rewards, and social cues. Emotions are complex physiological and cognitive responses to internal stimuli – such as thoughts or external stimuli – such as social interactions. They are generated by the limbic system – a collection of brain structures that include the amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus. These structures interact with other parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for controlling and regulating emotions.

Note that in highly stressful situations your prefrontal cortex is “offline”. You do not have the ability to think clearly and rationally in those moments. So before taking action, practice emotional regulation. The simplest way to do is to focus on what’s present (breeze, smells, colours, and so on) and take deep belly breaths.

How Do Emotions Get Stuck in Your Body?

Your body stores emotions in a variety of ways by changing your physiology. Increased heart rate, changes in hormone levels, muscle tension, and posture are all ways emotion gets stored in the body. That is why, for example, you might experience chronic pain, or feel waves of emotion when stretching or doing a yoga class, especially hip openers. A lot of emotion gets stored in your hips. Emotions can also be stored in the brain and in the form of memories.

You might have heard about how the reason a deer isn’t traumatised after being chased by a predator is that they shake for some time after, releasing emotion. Shaking or trembling, which comes from the limbic brain (the part of the brain that holds emotions), sends a signal that the danger has passed. It is the nervous system completing the process of releasing the traumatic experience from the body. But how often do you shake and tremble for 20 minutes after something deeply uncomfortable or potentially life-altering happens? Almost never. So you need to be proactive in processing your emotions.

7 Reasons to Practice Processing Your Emotions

Here is why you will live a much more peaceful, fulfilling, and empowered life when you commit to feeling your feelings and processing your emotions.

1. Access the best life coach on the planet, YOU.

You have the best life coach on the entire planet inside you – your intuition. You can only access your intuition by surrendering to and walking through your emotions. We usually access our intuition when we feel relatively calm but when we are not feeling calm at all is when we need it most! So that’s why you need to train yourself to sit in emotional discomfort. Your intuition will give you the best advice and the perfect action step every single time.

2. Feel safer within your body and life

When you practice this repeatedly you build a trusting, healthy relationship with yourself. You build confidence. Every time you come out the other end (and you always will), you get a sense of “Wow, I did that”. Over time, as you process increasingly painful emotions, you cultivate a sense of trust and safety within yourself and life. When you are ‘in trust’ in this way, you can make the necessary, otherwise too scary, choices that are necessary to make the authentic and aligned life you deserve real.

3. Be your authentic self

When you’re able to hold your uncomfortable emotions you can be your whole true self and practice radical honesty with anyone you meet. This makes for more meaningful connections with others and of course, greater overall life satisfaction.

We act out from our emotions. For example, if you say something you feel is awkward or unlike you, you were probably just feeling uncomfortable and were avoiding that feeling. Instead, if you were just bringing awareness to the uncomfortable feeling washing over you, you wouldn’t have followed the impulse to act out. So, next time you feel uncomfortable just be uncomfortable – belly breaths in and out through your nose will help you.

4. Improved mental health

Feeling your feelings and processing your emotions help to prevent more serious mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. When you process your emotions they are not stuck in your body manifesting as longer-term mental (or even physical) health problems. Also, sitting with them helps you realise where they came from – the first step to accepting them. If you are already struggling with your mental health in a way that impacts your day-to-day life, consider seeking professional support.

5. Emotional intelligence and better relationships

Processing your emotions makes you more self-aware and emotionally intelligent. You gain a better understanding of your own thought and behaviour patterns. This means you understand that of others better too. This helps you communicate more effectively and more compassionately, creating stronger, more empowered relationships.

6. Improved decision-making

Processing your emotions gives you mental clarity so you can make more rational decisions that are not based on fear or other intense emotions.

7. Emotional resilience

By processing your emotions you are training a cognitive muscle that helps you manage difficult emotions. You:

• Know that you get through it every time, and come out wiser for it
• Become more attuned to your emotional states – noticing what you are feeling in your body before those feelings become overwhelming and dictate your choices (straying you further away from your aligned ideal life)
• Notice thought patterns and the emotions/feelings that they trigger

Emotions are highly complex and you might want to seek professional support to provide a safe container to process your emotions in a healthy way.

How to Identify Uncomfortable Emotions

Awareness is the first step to any sort of healing – sometimes it’s even all it takes.

Emotions vs Feelings

Emotions and feelings can be used interchangeably but they have slightly different meanings. Emotions are physiological reactions to a stimulus or situation. They are automatic and unconscious processes that are triggered by your brain in response to something.

Feelings, on the other hand, are conscious experiences that come from your brain interpreting and evaluating your emotions. Feelings are the way to describe your emotional state to yourself and others. They are important because they are the words you use to describe your emotional experiences. Examples are “I feel scared” and “I feel relaxed”. Feelings do have meaning – you don’t feel anything for no reason. Often when you get to the root cause of a feeling you’ll see that it was just coming from an old pattern instilled from an experience earlier in life or in other words, a neural pathway that you no longer want to exercise. But still, it had a cause that was lingering in your subconscious.

In summary, emotions are the automatic physiological responses that occur in your body, while feelings are the conscious experience of those emotions. What this means is that by feeling your feelings – the conscious experience, you can access and process emotion.

Inner child trick to help you identify your emotions

Checking in with your inner child can help you identify the emotions beneath the feelings you have noticed. When you find yourself in a situation where you feel uncomfortable but sense that there’s more going on underneath the surface, check in your with the inner child. Sometimes on the surface, we feel more or less “okay” (we are adults that have to act as such, after all) but when we check in with our inner child she’s freaking OUT. This trick demonstrates the difference between feeling and emotion.

To offer an example there was a moment recently I felt a little hurt and rejected. On the surface, maybe my breathing was slightly staggered and my heart rate slightly faster. But, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by emotion at all. However, when I checked in with my inner child she was indeed having a meltdown. Screaming, throwing things. When you identify the emotion through your inner child it takes the focus off you and onto them. She needs you right now. Do not try to rationalise what your inner child is experiencing – that is just another defence mechanism. Instead, lie down if you can or take a moment alone, and breathe. Put a hand on your heart space, another on your stomach. In your mind’s eye, tell her you’ve got her. She’s safe and her experience is never too much for you to handle. Let her let it out. Be the best mother EVER to your inner child. This is in and of itself unfathomably healing.

Here are some other experiences you might realise lingering beneath your feelings: loneliness, guilt, anxiousness, resentment, and a sense of inferiority.

How to Feel Your Feelings and Release Emotion

Think of yourself as a big wave surfer. The wave is the emotion. It can be terrifying yet euphoric and you come out the other side better for it: more confident, peaceful, and lighter (I used this analogy in my recent post on self-sabotage). You are not going to focus on the racing thoughts, just the physical sensations in your body. This is a vital distinction.

Harvard brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor says that ninety seconds is all it takes to identify an emotion and allow it to dissipate! As you integrate this practice into your life you will get better at it and be able to access deeper and deeper stuck emotions, so the benefits truly compound over time.

Let us get onto how you can release emotion from your body. Remember to allow yourself to feel your emotions as they come up. Here are some ways you can do this.

1. Lying and breathing

This is the first and often only thing necessary to process an uncomfortable feeling/emotion in your body. Lie down in a comfortable, safe place such as your bed. If you’re out in public, you can do this in a toilet cubicle or any quiet area. Assuming you’re at home, you can also prop your legs up on some pillows for extra relaxation. You can place a hand on your heart and another on your lower stomach if that feels good for you. Feel your body breathing you. Now, bring your awareness to the discomfort you can sense in your body. Where is it? Invite it with your energy to expand and wash over you. Now it is time to ride the wave. Don’t bail. You’ve got this. Remember, it can’t take longer than 90 seconds. Stay with it, breathe. If you find yourself getting distracted, no problem. That’s totally normal. Just bring your focus back. Keep doing that until you notice the sensation has dissipated. Afterward, you might have things that came up that you want to journal about. Go for it!

2. Audible exhales

Inhale deeply through your nose. Visualise sending your breath into any areas of tension in your body. Hold for a second or two. Exhale audibly through your mouth, slowly and fully, and as loudly as you like. Repeat until you feel the emotional tension dissipate. This is great whenever you want to shift your energy, come into presence or regulate your nervous system. For added effect, you can also try shaking your entire body on the audible exhale!

The sound that comes out of you is a materialisation of the emotion itself. And you’ll notice patterns! For me, deep painful suppressed memories that come up such as during an inner child healing meditation often cause a high-pitched squeal, or if I experience anger about something that happened to me I experience the urge to roar! If a memory comes up where I hurt someone else I might make a whining sound – in shame and pain. The most common sound I’ll produce is an “ahhhhh” sound. What a beautiful release!

3. Yoga and stretching

Because emotion gets stored as muscle tension yoga and stretching are great additional ways to release trapped emotion. Yoga will release muscle tension and requires you to breathe properly at the same time – so it is also breathwork if you’re doing it properly!

4. Dancing

You can use dance to release emotions by playing music that elicits a feeling in you and expressing it through movement. This one will work really well for some people and not be a favourite for others. For me, I much prefer lying down and feeling, yoga, and breathwork but it might be exactly what works for you!

5. Shaking

Shaking or vibrating helps release muscular tension, uses excess adrenaline, and regulates the nervous system. I love shaking my body vigorously for a few breaths at the end of an intense healing session, or even just to reset myself throughout the day. I often end client sessions with this too.

6. Breathwork

Because breathwork puts you in a deeply relaxed and trance-like state, suppressed thoughts and emotions can come up and be released. There are countless free breathwork sessions available online as well as paid courses. YouTube is often a good place to start.

7. Contained tantrums

If this stuff is new to you and you’re feeling overwhelmed, not knowing where to even start this one might be for you. Set a container like this: a timer – such as 20 minutes, a safe place – like your bedroom when, and something soothing set up for you after like a bath or walk with a friend. During this time allow yourself to go absolutely crazy. You can punch your pillows and mattress. You can throw yourself around on the floor or on your bed. Punch the air. Make vocal sounds – whatever arises naturally. Exhaust yourself and then notice how you feel.

8. Crying

Crying is a great way to feel your feelings and process emotion. Not only do you somewhat surrender to your pain naturally when you cry but crying releases endorphins, namely oxytocin and endogenous opioids. These leave you relaxed and calm.

What Happens in the Body When We Release Emotions?

When we release stuck emotions, a number of things happen in the body.

Your body may experience a physical release, such as crying or shaking, as the emotions are released. Goosebumps are another sign something is shifting inside of you.

There will be a release of tension and tightness in the body. As emotions manifest as physical sensations in your body, such as in knots in the stomach or a tight chest.

Also, studies show that stress and negative emotions weaken your immune system, whereas positive emotions boost it.

My best break-up advice…

If you’re going through a rock bottom such as a breakup, here are two things that might help you.

Romanticise your pain. Heard the expression “If you can’t get out of it, get into it”? That’s the philosophy here. See yourself like the main character of a movie. Be dramatic and embrace the experience. Cry as you gaze up into the stars. Sulk in your bed over snacks and a sad movie. Don’t rush yourself into getting over it. You’ll only feel this pain once and it is changing the course of your life in a positive way. When you look back, you’ll be more relieved it happened than anything else. You won’t remember the pain so much.

When it is time (and you need to just be hurt first) above, you can take all this energy that has been manifesting as pain and channel it into your next embodiment or in other words your personal transformation. Take action to embody the version of you you dream of and to create the life you really want.

Finally, admire your stunning capacity for holding the full spectrum of human emotion. Know that to feel so much pain shows you how loving you are, and how much love you have to give. You deserve someone that has the capacity to receive all that love and will love you back just as fully. You gorgeous, gorgeous human.

Key Take-Aways

• Feeling your feelings allows you to process emotions
• This will make you more in touch with your intuition, less anxious, and more confident
• The bottom line is surrendering to your emotions as they arise and trusting that they will always pass

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