There used to be this buffet nearby called “U Like.” It is in a weird location and looks kind of sketchy from the outside, so every time we would drive by we would wonder who was actually eating there. One night, a bunch of our friends decided to go there for date night as a joke. We laughed – a lot – and had the best time, and the food wasn’t as terrible as we expected. They had so much variety. They had sushi, the typical Chinese food, Mongolian BBQ, a salad bar, American classics like fried chicken and prime rib and a variety of other options. Imagine that there was a buffet of emotions and you could choose whichever ones you want to experience. Which three emotions would you choose to feel regularly? Often when I have my coaching clients do this exercise, they think they would choose really positive emotions…emotions that feel really good while you are experiencing them. But then when we talk about what they want in their lives, those aren’t actually the emotions that will get them there. The thing is, a lot of emotions that are really helpful for creating the life we want and becoming the people we want to become don’t feel very good while you are experiencing them. Last week we talked about how to help our kids when they feel bad and one really important point I didn’t get to go into detail about in that episode is the idea of emotions being “good” or “bad”. I used the terms “positive” and “negative” emotions throughout that episode to describe how an emotion might feel to someone when they are experiencing it and I will use those terms throughout this podcast episode too. It is important to keep in mind, though, that everyone experiences emotion differently, so different people might categorize the same emotion in different ways. To really talk about this, we have to understand what an emotion is. In the most simplified terms, when we have a thought about something, our brains release chemicals that move through our body and create the experience of emotion for us. Anger might make our face flush with heat and our muscles tense up. Sadness might feel slow inside our body and heavy on our shoulders. An emotion is simply a vibration in our body that is caused by sentences in our brain. The emotion itself isn’t good or bad. It is just a vibration in our body, but often we label them good and bad or negative and positive because of how they feel in our body. And remember, that is different for every person. But even when an emotion doesn’t feel very comfortable or enjoyable, that still doesn’t make it bad because even when they don’t feel good our emotions are actually really useful. They are signals or clues to us about the things we care about, the threats to our well-being and the way we view the world around us. I want to talk about five of those emotions today that typically don’t feel great to experience, but are extremely useful and even helpful for us. Knowing that these emotions actually serve an important purpose in our lives will help us be more willing to experience them ourselves. But it will also help us find more peace and acceptance when we see our teens experience these emotions as well. Useful emotions, whether they feel good or bad while we are experiencing them, create something useful in our lives. There are so many emotions that fit this description, but here are 5 for you to consider. 1. Courage As you may know if you follow me on Instagram, my 9 year old son recently had surgery to remove a benign bone tumor from his leg. The process of figuring out what was going on with his leg was long and stressful. After we saw the doctor we had to get x-rays, then see a specialist, then get an MRI, then see another specialist and finally get a CT Scan. Even now, we are still waiting for test results from the tumor to come back. But when we went in to get his first MRI, my son was really nervous. He had never had an MRI before and they wouldn’t allow me to be in the room with him, so he would have to be in there all alone and hold very still for nearly an hour. But, with courage, he got up on that MRI table, he let them place the IV, and he held super super still despite the loud noises. Courage didn’t feel good to him. He described it as feeling really hot but still shivering. His heart was beating fast and his jaw was clenched tight. He told me he felt like running away but courage felt like a resolve to stay instead. Courage doesn’t feel good. Courage only comes around when we are feeling some sort of fear, so the two are usually there together. And it feels like the urge to keep going even when we want to run away. The actions we take from a feeling of courage are typically the ones that allow us to progress and grow into a stronger, better version of ourselves. And the emotions that come after courage …the feelings of accomplishment, success and self-respect…those emotions typically feel very rewarding. 2. Compassion Compassion might seem like an unlikely addition to this list of helpful emotions that feel terrible, but I want you to think about the last time you felt compassion for someone. You, like me, may have experienced compassion for the people of Ukraine as their homes were under attack. My heart broke for the many men and women and children whose lives were lost, for the people who lost everything they owned, for the many who had to flee and the many who had to fight. And as we felt compassion – as we tried to understand what they were going through, our hearts hurt for them. But it led us to taking action. We donated to causes, offered aid, contributed in our own communities and even felt more gratitude for our own safety, for our families and for our well-being. But feeling compassion doesn’t typically feel good. As moms, it is especially helpful to know this because we probably want to feel compassion for our kids. We want to be more mindful of what they are experiencing and give them grace. This, my friend, is an amazing thing to experience as a mother, but yet it can feel pretty terrible. That doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong though, feeling the pain of compassion create more connection, stronger relationships, more grace, more appreciation, more forgiveness and more love. Compassion leads us to help and serve and take action. It inspires us to stand up and stand out and advocate for the people and causes we care about. Compassion leads us to be more grateful for the comforts and blessings in our own lives. For most of us, the benefits of compassion are worth the experience of negative emotion. 3. Boredom You probably heard it dozens of times this summer…”I’m bored.” Your teen probably said it so you would do something to “fix” it for them. They probably wanted you to entertain them, let them go out with friends or take them to get food. There are a lot of parenting experts out there who would tell you that it is important to let your kids be bored. And I tend to agree with them. Boredom doesn’t feel good to experience. To me it is like a general discomfort everywhere in my body. Like I am trying to get comfortable but I just can’t. It feels like this restless energy inside me that is trapped with nowhere to go. I feels heavy and sluggish and like everything is going in slow motion. But boredom is the catalyst for creativity, resourcefulness, curiousity and exploration. When boredom becomes too uncomfortable, you are forced to put your brain to work finding something to do instead and that is when the magic happens. The brilliant ideas come, the adventures are planned, and a simple change of pace suddenly seems fresh and new and exciting. When you become bored with your work or tasks, you find ways to make it more efficient, more rewarding or more fulfilling. When you are bored with your current circumstances in life, you become motivated to change those circumstances or take on a new challenge or grow as a person. Without boredom, we would just put forth the minimum effort to coast through life. Boredom drives us to grow. It isn’t something we need to fix for ourselves or our kids. It is simply a clue that we are ready to grow into the next version of ourselves. Instead of finding ways to avoid feeling bored, notice it and put your brain to work coming up with solutions. 4. Grief When you experience some sort of loss or trauma or even just unmet expectations, you will probably feel grief. One of the common ways I see this come up for parents is when their hopes and expectations for their teens are not realized. Maybe they aren’t the kind of student you had hoped, or they are more interested in playing video games than becoming the star of the football team, or they don’t want to participate in the religion you practice. It makes sense that you may have some grief as you mourn the loss of the life you were expecting to have. And so many people try to resist feeling grief because it feels terrible in our bodies. To me, grief feels like a dark cloud in my body that feels thick and heavy. It constricts my throat and twists my stomach. It blocks my ability to feel joy and intensifies my pain. Resisting grief often leads to buffering. Trying to control everything around us, getting hyper-involved or checking out completely, drowning our sorrows in food or drinks or tv shows or politics or work or even addictive substances. But allowing grief is the only way through it. Allowing it leads to hope and healing. Allowing it leads to compassion and acceptance which ultimately lead to more love in our lives. 5. Determination From the time my daughter was very small, I could tell that she was a determined child. She didn’t let anything stop her…ever. She would not take no for an answer. When she couldn’t do something, she worked at it until she figured it out. And then she kept on working to get better at it. In elementary school, she decided she wanted to get really good at pull-ups. She practiced every day and built up her strength so that she could beat anyone on the playground who dared to challenge her to a pull up competition. The teachers still talk about it to this day. And while her determination made parenting her quite challenging, I recognized early on that this was a quality that would serve her well throughout her life. But when a child feels bad, it often manifests in their behavior. So determination didn’t always make her the most pleasant child to be around. Determination doesn’t feel great in your body. It feels like this tension in your body between dissatisfaction with where you are and motivation to get where you are going. It demands our focus and energy. But determination has served her well. She is high-achieving and resilient. She sets goals and goes after them and doesn’t let anything stop her. Determination doesn’t feel comfortable or peaceful, but it is the currency for creating the life you want. It is the fertilizer for resilience and confidence. The most painful part of any emotion is the part where we are trying to resist it, so the more comfortable we get with all different emotions, the better our life is going to feel overall. It will never be without negative emotion, but those negative emotions don’t just need to be endured. When we understand the benefit of negative emotions like these, we will be able to USE those emotions as a tool to create the life we want instead of allowing them to hold us back from the life we want. And, we will be able to help our kids do the same. I created a resource to help you learn how to process emotions like these and help you teach your teen how to process their emotions as well. You can get the PDF guide and a video to walk you through the process for FREE at the link in the show notes. https://client.jenbelltate.com/processingemotions
