Podcast: Your Emotions are Your Responsibility. And Why This is Good News.
I used to think that emotions fell from the sky and I was powerless to do anything about them.
The good news is, it's not true!
You can change your emotions. If you struggle with emotional eating, or your life being a roller coaster ride of emotions, this is great news!
Today we'll be looking at:
- how it's easy to get caught in the "hamster wheel" of emotions
- how you start to make changes
- common obstacles that will trip you up
Transcript of Podcast
Please note this transcription is generated by software. There may be some errors. I hope you find it useful.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Wonderful people. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena Kerek. Today, we are talking emotions. I love, love, love talking and thinking emotions.
Emotions Don’t Fall from the Sky
We are talking about why your emotions are your responsibility. I will tell you a secret. I used to think that emotions fell from the sky and if an emotion appeared in my life, that was it.
We Can Influence Our Emotions
I was stuck with it until basically it had disappeared. And one of the most amazing things that I have discovered in recent years is that this is not true. It is not true at all. Yes, emotions do sometimes fall from the sky, but we have so many things that we can do to change our emotion. And this is fabulous news, my friends, because it means you can change your emotions.
This is Great News if You’re an Emotional Eater
So it might be that you're thinking, okay. One of the things I do is I am an emotional eater. Well, until you get to grips with your. Emotions that isn't going to change. If you turn to food for comfort and your emotions are all over the place and you have no other tools, you are gonna carry on turning to food for comfort.
Even if you do things like try and eat more healthily it's still going to be there.
It’s Great News If you’d Like Life to Be Less of a Roller Coaster
It might be that actually you don't turn to food for comfort, or at least not. So. , but you are just aware that your emotional life is a bit of a roller coaster, that you are hugely stressed or that people affect you a lot, in which case carry on listening, because this episode is going to change your life or at least your outlook on life.
So that's why it's really important.
Dr Orlena’s 4 Pillars of Healthy Living
And you know, I always talk about the four pillars. I'm gonna quickly recap them. Healthy nutrition, exercise that lights you up. Delicious, healthy sleep. And pillar four is the emotional wellness piece. Now all four of them are super important. If you want to lead a long, healthy, fulfilling life.
Emotional Wellness is Pillar 4
But I really feel that the emotional pillar is the foundation. So looking at our stress levels, looking at our emotional wellness and looking at our relationships with people and today, I really want to have a think about relationships with people and our emotions.
How Do You Start to Make Changes to Your Emotions?
Now, I always say that. Step number one in anything is self awareness.
So if you are not aware of something, you cannot change it. So first things first, just spend a little bit of time, really observing yourself with curiosity and seeing where your emotions come up and how you react in certain situations. Now I have four noisy boisterous children, and I sometimes find it really easy to look at those children.
And it's very easy to say, oh, if only they could change that. But it's also very easy for me to use them as examples. It’s sometimes is easier to see these things in other people before you see them in yourself, but a word of warning, don't go around noticing these things and go, aha, I see this and now I'm gonna fix it because that isn't going to work.
We always start work with ourselves. So it is useful to observe other people and what's going on for them. But it's not so useful to try and fix them. Let me give you a few examples. Of things that have happened recently.
Example of Emotional Turmoil: My 10 Year Old Daughter
Let me take this morning, for example, we're back at school. My 10 year old daughter, she's nearly 10 year old is just having huge, great emotions about everything.
And I will say to her good morning and hello and tell her. That, you know, she needs to clear up this mess that she's made and all of these things. Now, what is happening for her? Now, what I see is a 10 year old, who is stamping her foot and shouting and screaming and all of these things.
What is Happening for Her?
Now what is happening for her is that she feels that the world is against her and she's feeling, oh my goodness, nobody loves me.
Mum loves everybody, except me. And that's her emotional makeup at that moment.
And you might say to me, yeah, she's only 10, that's normal and it is totally normal, but here's the thing. She could change how she sees that. So instead of feeling, oh my goodness, the world is against me. She can start to change how she thinks about that.
Oh my goodness. Mommy loves me. My brothers and sisters love me or my brothers love me, although they are always quite mean to her. But the problem is she doesn't do that. And you can see that if you think the world is against you and then you start stamping your foot and being rude, your mommy is gonna turn around and say, Hey enough, and it's gonna carry on.
It’s Easy to Spiral Down the Negative Plughole
And it just spirals into this negative. What I call down the “Negative Plughole”.
Another Example of Emotional Turmoil
Here's another example that I remember from the summer, my middle child was having a bad day. I can't quite remember what was going on for him, but he was having a bad day. I think we had guests and he was finding it a little bit overwhelming.
And at some stage. I said to him, come on, we're all going to the beach. And he said, I want to go to the beach, but I'm not going because you are all gonna leave me out now. What's going on for him. He's feeling left out. He's feeling upset. He's feeling all of these things, but actually by thinking all of these thoughts, he's essentially manifesting all of this because he puts himself in a situation where he is being left out by choosing not to go.
Now, I know it's really easy when we see it from our point of view. but when you are there and you are that person it's really difficult to unravel it. So yes, you can say, okay. Yes, this sounds ridiculous. Just let go of feeling left out and say, I'm gonna join in and everything's gonna fall into place, but it's not as simple as that.
It's not as easy to let go, which you will see if you look at your own emotional makeup and what is going on. So, you know, things that may trigger you, it may be. Your family around you. It may be how they act to certain things. It may be their behavior that is triggering you. It may be other people. It may be receiving text messages or emails or calls.
There’s a Huge Icebuerg of Thoughts and Emotions Going on
And when, when that happens, What you feel in that split second is the tip of an iceberg really, and truly what is going on. There is a huge, great iceberg of thoughts and emotions that your brain registers in a nanosecond. So for example, if you receive a text message from a sibling or a close person, and that triggers you.
It isn't just what they say that triggers you. It is however many years of life you have of learnt behavior. So all of that is going in 40 or 50 years of history is going into that text message or that email or that phone. So it's really easy to get upset and for all of these things to happen. So in a split second, you can be going along with your life.
Normally some suddenly you get a phone call or a message and your life is thrown into a helther skelter of emotional turmoil because it's all just buried underneath the surface. And then you are accessing this huge, great iceberg.
How Do You Start To Take Back Control of Your Emotions?
So the question becomes, how do you change this? How do you start to take control of your own emotions and go, Hey, you know what?
I'm in charge of my emotions? Well, the first step is to understand how all of this works. How can I be in charge of my emotions? Well, We have to look at the way we are thinking our thoughts are very, very closely attached to our emotions. If you are thinking something, take the example of my 10 year old daughter, my brothers and my mum.
They don't like me. They are mean to me. All of those things. That's gonna put you in a place where you are thinking where you feel frustrated, upset, left out. Whereas if you are thinking my mum's got my back, my brothers have really kind to me. They help me out. you're going to turn up in a much more content and calm way.
So thoughts and emotions are really, really important. And then our actions, the things that we do really impact our thoughts and emotions. So for example, you have a thought receiving this message is really upsetting. I'm frustrated all of these thoughts, which we're not gonna go into now and now I'm going to.
Turn to the fridge, I'm turning to food for comfort, and then you're gonna have another thought, oh my goodness, I'm so weak willed. This isn't gonna help. That was stupid. You're judging yourself. And you can see this circle goes round and round and round. This is what I call the negative. Plughole so stop.
You can stop. You can change this. You can think about how you think about things. There's so many things you can do to change the way you think about. Journaling really good example, get all of your thoughts on a piece of paper and then calm down, and then look at those thoughts with your rational head on, because remember when you are in emotional place, you are not thinking your thinking brain is not in control.
Your Emotional Brain isn’t Logical
Your emotional brain is in control and your emotional brain is not logical emotions. There are so many things that we can do to change our emotions. We can practice feeling amazing emotion. and the way we act now, here's the thing when we're talking about people and how other people impact on our lives, a really important factor is to think about boundaries.
We Reflect the Emotions of People Around Us
Now, what do I mean by that? I mean, I am in charge of my emotions. You are in charge of your emotions and somebody else is in charge of their emotions. So when my daughter is having her little hissy Stampy foot episode, it's very easy for me to get wrapped up in that because we have these things called mirror neurons.
So if somebody is yelling and screaming right in your ear, and they're feeling anger, you are going to start feeling anger in the same way that when we watched television and we hear laughter, we start laughing and we have no idea why we are laughing, but that's why they put canned laughter in movies and TV shows.
It comes down to those mirror neurons. We reflect what other people feel around us, which in some situations is good. It helps us with. It helps us enjoy those happy emotions, but in other situations it's not great. So if our children or the people around us are feeling angry and stressed and frustrated, it doesn't help that we feel the same thing.
Yes. We want to help them, but we don't want to get dragged into their emotions. So acknowledging that and saying, do you know what this is on you? This is your responsibility. and even the way people think is the same. So if you are getting upset by somebody's opinion of yourself, that is their opinion, and you do not have to take it on, but understanding where that boundary is, is really gonna help you move forward.
So recognizing boundaries, my emotions and my emotions, your emotions are your emotions. And I can't take on somebody else's emotions because they become my emotions. When I do that. And then the last piece of the puzzle is really having systems, habits and routines. So when we look at emotions and we think, which emotions do we want, we want the happy content, smiling, joy.
all of those good emotions and we want to minimize the negative emotions. And I say, minimize, what I mean is we don't want to get wrapped up in that negative spiral. Yes. We're gonna feel some negative emotions and that's perfectly fine. But what we don't want to do is get loads and loads and loads of those negative feelings.
Emotions can Spur Us to Take Action
It's fine to feel emotions. Emotions are really helpful. Emotions. Tell us so much about the world and emotions, help us to drive things. If you're angry about something, you are more likely to take action. So for example, we have a disco here in the summer that plays music all night so that it is impossible for people to get a good night's sleep.
Now sleep is my pillar. Number three. So I'm putting together a petition so that the town hall can hopefully address this situation. I'm not sure if that's actually gonna work, but you know, it's. Something that I feel strongly about. If I didn't feel strongly about it, I wouldn't be taking action. So emotions do help us take action.
Continuous Negative Emotions aren’t Good for Our Health
The problem is when we continually have these negative emotions or we continually have stress and worry, and all they do is deplete us. They deplete our emotional wellness, but they also have physical effect on our bodies feeling this constant flight flight, having your body in. It's an emergency mode is not good either for health or for weight loss.
So what you don't want to be doing is constantly triggering these negative emotions. Yes. We feel them from time to time, but we don't want to be living by these negative emotions. How do you do that? You set up your life so that you have systems, habits and routines that support having good emotions. So for example, you're feeling stressed.
Stressed is your big negative emotion. Then you figure out how am I going to have less stress in my life. Now, obviously this is different for everybody. It depends on your circumstances. It depends what's going on. It depends what's causing those stress. So how can you minimize the stress and how can you put in stress breaks?
So I'm gonna get into a routine of constantly making sure I have a little bit of time to relax. And do things that light me up. If your big stress, your big negative emotion is anger and frustration. Why are you feeling angry all the time? And how can you do something to change that? So there's basically two things there's, what's happening in the moment.
And there's how do you set up your life to avoid triggering these emotions in the first place? And whether you are. Thing your negative consequence is emotional eating or just emotional rollercoaster. This system works either way so quick recap, your emotions are your responsibility, and this is great news because it puts you in a position of power to be able to change things.
And if your emotions are being triggered by other people, Number one, self-awareness understanding what is going on. Number two, setting boundaries and understanding that other people's emotions are their responsibility and you are in charge of your emotions and you can't take on other people's emotions for them.
and step number three, thinking about systems and habits and routines so that you can minimize being triggered. That's the easiest place. That's where you want to get to where. You do have triggers from time to time, but number one, they aren't happening all the time. And number two, you know that you have the tools to handle them.
So I hope that was useful. My friends, emotions are amazing. Emotions are fabulous things that make us human. Now, how else can I help you this week?
Come and Join the End Emotional Eating Challenge
Join the challenge: https://www.drorlena.com/end-emotional-eating-challenge
Coming up? I am doing an end emotional eating challenge. It is going to be amazing. I will give you the link in the show notes to sign up. We are gonna be kicking off with a end emotional eating workshop, and I will be giving you your homework for the week.
So it's gonna be five days of you taking action to show that you can do some of this work, that you can change things. So sign up for that. And still in the month of September, I am doing getting unstuck. Calls I've had to reduce them to half an hour because I just thought if I reduce them to half an hour, I can get more people to have calls, but I was having too many calls.
Book a Get Unstuck Call
Book a call: https://www.drorlena.com/breakthrough
But if you want one, feel free to book a, get unstuck call, why would you book a get unstuck call? Because you're feeling stuck and you want to get unstuck and what we will do in the call. Is chat about where you are chat about, where you would like to get to why that isn't happening. And if you're interested, we'll talk about my healthy, you healthy family program and any coaching services that I offer.
Interested in the Healthy You Healthy Family Program?
Now, I was at a group coaching call yesterday. and I asked the three people who are in the call, what are you grateful for? And all of them said, I am grateful for this coaching. I am grateful for having this coaching here. I am also grateful for the changes that I have made. And some of those people have been in the program for a year and they look back going, oh my goodness.
My life is so different than it was a year ago. And this is amazing. And I just didn't really realize this was possible. I didn't think I would ever get. And I didn't think I would be able to get to where I now want to go to. And that is perfectly possible for you too. You can make those changes with support, motivation, accountability.
You can make changes that have huge, huge impact. And if you are feeling stuck or even thinking, Hey, I'm a little bit interested, then please come and chat to me. It is an amazing program. It's a lifelong program and it really is the difference between, okay, I'm gonna trundle along doing this by myself, getting a little bit, making a little bit of progress and you know what?
I've totally got this. I am in a place where I can cope with what life throws at me. I'm fit. I'm fabulous. One of my, one of the members did one of those body scans and she is officially. Fit. Hooray. Hooray. So, so amazing. Exciting. Now I also did another chat yesterday with somebody who had a get on stock chat and she just actually had had a chat previously and she wanted to just let me know that she had made so much progress since our first chat that she just wanted to check in and say, thank you.
And that was a free chat that she had. And you can have one of those free chats too. So sign up for the end emotional eating challenge. And if you are interested, sign up in a, get unstop chat too, have a fabulous week, and I will see you next week. Byebye.
