Safe Expression Of Emotions

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain, to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfilment and contribution, to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it, and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you, during this episode, please send me an email at info at the and Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations happen. Okay, let's get into it.

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Probably a lot of these planets subconsciously be consciously to right, I can just let my guard down and just be who I wanted to be. problem was that I was expressing my anger and frustration from the day at work from all areas of my life, and expressing them in the presence of the most important people in my life. My wife, my kids, the dog, at times, other friends and all the people that I met meant the most to me and I was actually having this emotional reaction, which I hated. And so if you're listening to this, and you're Yeah, that's me all the time, like I have that maybe it's not anger, maybe it's another emotion, maybe you're quick to go to a anxious state or depressive state or whatever it is, then you get caught in that conversation with yourself going, Ah, but I know I shouldn't do that. And so then you try and shut it down, and you try and resist it, and you try and push it away. And I want you to to look at that from a different perspective, because every one of our motion, and every one of our emotions is there for a reason, including anger, including feelings of anxiety, or whatever else is failure is your feeling. And so let's look at anger specifically, were told that, you know, don't be angry, don't be this, don't be whatever. All through our childhood, we have this patterning of been told how we shouldn't shouldn't be. And then we get to adulthood and these emotions come through there is real emotions, his real feelings. And we don't know what to do with it. And we also think that it's a bad thing. So we try and bottle it, we try and suppress it, we try and push it down. And when it does come out inevitably, because that's just What emotions do. Then we judge ourselves and say, Oh, we shouldn't be doing that.

But actually it's honouring our emotions in a particularly if you're someone who's got children and you're coming home and you're having this reaction and emotional reaction for them to see that not only are you conscious of the reaction, but being able to express the emotion in a safe place. And if it does spill over and you do express it in a way that's upsetting to them. Being able to apologise for that is massive. We're having this conversation in one of my group programmes this morning exactly on this subject. And the person I was speaking to one of my clients were saying yeah, they do this from time to time they go straight to that apology to the to their son was like man, that's That's powerful. And we're having the same conversation, okay, now, make it make it It's okay, to be able to express that emotion. Kids want to see that you're human so that they don't care if you make those mistakes. They're more forgiving of us than we are of ourselves. So how do we express something like anger in a healthy way?

Well, this is where I'm a massive fan of meditation because Meditation allows us to explore that space and it allows us to regulate our emotions. But if we're stuck in the moment, then we can't just break away and suddenly meditate. But one of the best skills you can learn is the power of breath. Being conscious of your breath throughout the day, conscious of the times when you're holding, even as I talk about this, some of you may feel that you're holding on feeling that my body now you may feel that, oh, yeah, there are times that you and maybe this is triggering you and you feel this sort of tightness across your chest. Consciously sucking in that air, slowly, deliberately, deep into your lungs, and then slowly breathing it out. And if you just took three or four deep breaths now, really deep breaths

you would immediately feel the difference in your physiology. Because it's that powerful. We get ourselves out of that fight or flight response, which often brings on more anxiety. And the other part is, I heard someone mentioned the other day, fight, flight, or more prevalent these days is freeze. which often happens now with what we procrastinate or we're not sure how to react. So we just don't, indecision shows up in lots of different ways. So focusing on our breath, and those times when we're triggered allows us to self regulate our emotions, it allows us to go okay, yeah, I am angry. What's playing out for me there moment allow it to sit in our body. So you might even want to close your eyes at this point. Or it might be if you're with someone just saying to them, oh, man, I just feeling with this at the moment. Can you just give me a minute to compose myself, there's nothing wrong with that people will appreciate that they'd rather you do that than react straight out at them. So focus on the breath, it'll will allow you the composure to be able to then go, Okay, what do I need to do here? Maybe I need to remove myself from the situation. Maybe I just need to breathe and I can start talking. And then I'll go I'm sorry, this has happened during the day and I'm frustrated about this has nothing to do with you. It's this is what I've got going on. Now, particularly for men, this is a real challenge. Women do this way better. And I won't shy away from that. And it's a generalisation. Absolutely, I know there are men out there who do it. Well, there's probably one out there and don't do it so well. But But generally speaking, women get together in their groups, and they talk about things emotionally, and it's a much more safer place. So if you're someone who, maybe you have a friend, or if you're, if you're a wife, and you've got a a male partner, creating a safe place for them to do this, that's also a massive skill for you to learn because it's become so foreign to all of us that my wife and I have had this conversation to her allowing me that space, that's that's been a work in progress. For us, it hasn't always been that easy for us to have conversations where, okay, I just need to express this. It's not directed at you. It's not meaning that I'm thinking this, that the other, I'm just getting this out, and I'm just expressing my frustration so that then I can then show up later at a bit of time. So being able to hold space, so allow them just to do whatever they need to do express however they need to express. And then usually we have a bit of a laugh at it afterwards. Because it's like, okay, cause analysis of now. Okay, cool. Let's carry on. So that's, that's, I'm not expecting you to be at that place, immediately. But that's where you you're aiming for, it's good to know that too. But for now, it's focusing on the breath. And then to a deeper level, having that space for meditation, at some point in your day, the days when I'm not meditating, then I'm far more likely to be triggered by something and react. The days that I've meditated, not only am I able to regulate much easier, easier, but that sort of stuff just doesn't seem to show up either. Meditation at a very basic level is stillness, focusing on breath, and allowing whatever emotions to come through. So that you can allow them to come in and then release them because a lot of the blockages around emotion come because we're trying to resist it. Oh, I shouldn't feel that and try and we try and push it away. Allow it to be and if you can do that in the morning that will allow whatever shows up in the day much easier to handle and go from there. So if you know that this has been a something that you've been challenged with in the past, you know that it will more than likely show up again. I just asked you to start being aware of it start practising this breathing. If if you have the ability to and I know I didn't for a long time because I had a really badly broken nose until I got it fixed. If you have the ability to breathe in through your nose and then out through your mouth. You can then do that in stressful situation. patients and people don't even have to know that you're doing practising is breathing. Again next level after that, if you can use your throat muscles I call oceanic breathing. So you can actually breathe. Like sounds like the ocean. So I'll do it using trade muscle that says this. That's in through the nose and then out through the mouth.

So rather than using your nose, nasal muscles or your mouth muscles to do the inner, the out, the throat muscles allows you to go deeper and longer. And like I said, if you're in a public setting, people won't even be able to tell you're doing it. Obviously, you do it without the the oceanic noise. But using that same principle of those muscles allows you just to be able to regulate on their own, find that ability to react in a different way. And if you get it wrong, which you will, because you're human, and I still do too, and you react, just having the presence and the self ownership to say I got that wrong. I apologise. It was because I'm dealing with this and not because of anything to do with you. And continue to breathe now. If this is helpful, let me know. I'd love to hear. If you want more information about meditation about breath work, let me know I've got a whole heap of resources on that that I can send you. And I'll speak to you next time.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform