This video is all about getting better at feeling.
This is the one skill that I wish everyone could learn, because it's like flipping a switch on your
emotions, switching off the struggle and turning on peace with your emotions. The skill is called
willingness. When you learn to use willingness you can take all that energy that you were wasting
fighting your emotions and you can channel it toward the life that you want. This is the last
video from the foundation section of this course, where you've learned how to notice and name
your emotions without judgment, avoidance, and struggle. In the upcoming sections I'm going
to teach you a dozen skills to resolve painful, crappy, intense, distorted emotions
that you're feeling, but to get there we have to be better at sitting with them
as step two in this process, so hang tight. Hey guys so I am cooking dinner and you know
what else I'm doing? I'm relearning Spanish. So I lived in Argentina for a year and a half about 15
years ago, and at the time I was like I thought I was fluent in Spanish, I mean I spoke pretty well
and I understood everything being said around me, but now 15 years later I've found that my
Spanish skills have like (drop and crash sound) and I really want to be practicing speaking
Spanish with native speakers, but I'm like a little bit embarrassed because my Spanish is so
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my Spanish conversation podcast on the Babble app. Okay, back to the video. Ir regresamos al video
vamos. As much as we may wish that we didn't have to feel painful emotions, it's just not possible.
Emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts, they're all part of who we are. They're a
beautiful vivacious part of being alive. They're essential to our ability to live and love
and connect and care. So just for a minute, let's compare painful emotions to this brick right, this
brick represents a painful emotion like sadness or anxiety or chronic pain. Now when I just want
to avoid it, when I try not to think about it, when you know I say- 'why me?' you know when
when this feeling comes up that's like holding this brick at arm's length. Now how long do you
think this can last right? This brick is a lot heavier at arm's length than it is right
here, so I can I can just try harder right, I can just exert more energy, more willpower, and
that's not sustainable because I get tired right, because I can't let this brick go, I might
end up collapsing. Now people with depression and anxiety disorders, or sometimes people with
chronic pain or tinnitus or muscle tension right, they aren't lazy, they're often people who work
the hardest to fight their emotions. They struggle and they put so much energy and attention into
their feelings, but somehow their actions backfire and they end up feeling exhausted and hopeless.
In this video I'm going to teach you how bringing your uncomfortable emotions close to you, how
sitting with uncomfortable sensations, can make them lighter, easier to bear, and sometimes, just
just sometimes, makes them go away completely, and the skill is called Willingness, and I've
seen it transform my clients from desperate and hopeless, into peaceful and hopeful. Willingness
means to sit with and engage with what you are currently experiencing. It's allowing yourself
to be where you're at even if it's uncomfortable or painful. It means you're willing to experience
emotions you may instinctively not want to feel. To feel what you feel and to expand your heart to
be able to make space for those emotions, whether they're comfortable or painful, willingness is a
practical skill that can be learned and in this video I'm going to break it up into tiny little
steps that you can practice. Now people often talk about mindfulness and meditation as fundamental
to learning to work through emotions and that's true they've been shown to be very helpful,
but in my opinion willingness is the key to why mindfulness works. Willingness is the actual
thing that you're doing that makes the difference. Now, before we break down the skill of willingness
into steps let me tell you a story from one of my friends and how she used willingness in her life.
Now my friend Beth she said- "Yesterday was a challenging day for me. I put my oldest son on a
plane with the expectation that I won't see him face-to-face for two years." Now her son had just
left to serve a two-year mission for his church. So back to what she was saying- "I've felt all
my feelings in the past week about missing him, as well as mourning the loss
of our current family dynamics. I grappled with him leaving the nest and finding
out his parents were wackos, or realizing all the ways that I'd underperformed/hurt/neglected him
as his mom which you know (he already knows). I spent yesterday trying to feel my feelings,
allowing myself a whole day for mental health. Whenever I'd try to pull myself up "by my
bootstraps" I'd reconsider, saying to myself what I tell to my kids all the time, "You're
supposed to feel your feelings." So I did, even though my M.O. is to cover up my feelings
with busyness. It helped that I have people around me who I've watched do similar things and
feel similar feelings, so there was a measure of acceptance for what I was feeling, a willingness
to give my feelings the time they needed." Then she says- "Today feels better. There's
access to easier, lighter, happier energies. I feel like I can breathe sighs of relief
and smile. I feel like I can encourage and support myself and my family anew. I feel a
draw to balance today, with hope, connection brightening the day in whatever way pleases me.
And I wonder if I can feel this today because I honored my feelings yesterday." In this example
Beth wanted to distract herself by keeping busy, she wanted to suppress her feelings of
sadness, but instead she gave herself some space to work through them gently
and by the next day they had resolved. So, let's talk about how to practice willingness.
The first step of willingness is to describe what you're feeling instead of judging it. So don't
label what you're currently experiencing as good or bad, just remember that all core emotions serve
a function. So instead of judging with words like good, bad, terrible, awful, great, best, worst,
use words like uncomfortable, unpleasant, painful, sensitive, tender, hot, cold, sharp, dull,
warm, smooth, gentle, soft, pleasant. It's normal and it's healthy and it's beautiful to
feel emotions. This is a beautiful part of life the path to healing for mental illness is learning
to move through emotions not to avoid them. Now willingness is not wanting to feel pain, it's not
liking or agreeing with the pain or with these intense emotions, it's not saying that pain is
what you want your life to be about, willingness is saying- 'This is what I'm experiencing right
now, so I will tune in and experience it.' And paradoxically this is the path that's most
likely to free you from intense painful emotions. If we go back to the processing plant analogy from
the intro, we can't turn a whole dead salmon into a delicious fillet without looking at it, cutting
it open, and removing the distasteful parts. We need to go through the process to get the results
you want. The next step is to be curious, practice exploring a healthy relationship to your emotions
and your sensations. So you're just curious, you could say something like- 'oh hello tinnitus
how are you today?' or 'oh hi anxiety, you know do you have anything to say before you move on?'
Now curiosity is an antidote to worry right, and as you're curious you go back to describing right?
Describing where, where is it located? Where am I feeling this sensation? And then, are there
other parts of my body that feel differently? And then you can describe it right? Does
it have a color? Does it have a sound? Does it change over time? I, you know, I have a
client who consistently describes his emotions, you know it feels like a hollow space, or it
feels like a tingling energy, and at this point when you're curious, I'm encouraging you to
stay in your body as much as possible. This is not about figuring out the childhood roots of
your problems, it's not asking- 'why am I feeling this way?', that's a step we'll save for later.
Over analyzing can be another form of avoidance, but with willingness we stay in the present moment
and we describe things as they are here and now. Joey Remenyi, who's a neuroplasticity specialist,
and a vestibular audiologist said- I have seen countless tinnitus clients resolve their tinnitus
completely once they master the art of curiosity and connecting to their values. They no longer
even notice the tinnitus despite the fact that it would still be there in the background
of their minds. Their brain has learnt to filter it out and they're now able to get back to life
and to feel normal without worry or distress." So instead of struggling with emotions right, drop
the rope lean in. This means instead of pushing that emotional brick away you pull it in close.
It's okay to struggle for something to fight for your life, for your values, for your purpose
to live well right? It's okay to struggle to do good in the world, but drop the struggle to force
your emotions to change. Step away from the trap of putting all your energy into changing how you
feel, and put that energy somewhere more helpful. Okay another step, be present. Instead of focusing
on- 'How long will this last? What if this lasts forever?' right, you just think- 'it is what it is
right now', and then get back in your body. Name, describe, greet, acknowledge, be curious, allow
it to be there, just here and now in the present right? Sometimes it helps to place your hand
on the part of your body where you're feeling it right and then you just breathe space into it.
Imagine warmth and softness and light flowing into your emotions. You can also notice your breathing,
you can clench and you can tighten your muscles, you can expand awareness to other parts
of your body and other sensations. You could even try this experiment. You could try
to make your feelings, your emotions worse for a moment. You say- 'bring it on anxiety do your
worst'. This is called "Putting the kettle on". When you experiment with your emotions in this
way when you say- 'listen, you are uncomfortable, but you can't harm me, you can't damage me', then
suddenly this grip, this struggle that emotions, this this power they seemingly have over you,
suddenly they don't have power over you anymore. Okay, next step, be compassionate to yourself
and your emotions. You could you know ask yourself- 'How am I treating my body and my
anxiety, am I being kind?' The emotions or sensations may or may not go away, but being
mean to them will surely make you feel worse. You could say something like this to your emotions
you know- 'take as much time as you need'. It's such a paradox right? I mean like with a
child who has an owie, you just you hold them, you hug them, you kiss their owie, you know you
lean into that right? There's something immensely healing about wholehearted empathy. Now in my
religion this is called the bowels of mercy right? Feeling something in your gut heals it. This is
the same as that amazing healing that happens when someone sincerely listens and says- 'I know
how you feel, that must really be difficult' right? When we lean in and we're gentle with
what we're feeling, our emotions tend to soothe and calm down. Okay, next, watch out
for your stories right? All humans have these automatic negative thoughts and worries things
like: 'oh why me, why is my tinnitus so loud, why am I so sad, is there something wrong with me,
what's the matter with me?', right? Is this a sign that something is actually wrong? There is a time
and a place to explore the questions of like oh is something wrong? Do I need to fix it right?
Do these sensations have a message for me? It's okay to explore that right, to ask if
these emotions are asking you to address them, to change something, or to
heal or resolve something and often these intense automatic negative
thoughts they're exaggerated or they come up even when you're healthy, safe, and things are okay. So
when really intense thoughts come up, just notice them as thoughts. Acknowledge that they're there,
but don't overthink them, don't dwell on the thoughts themselves. Now, overthinking can be a
habitual form of avoidance, so instead just shift your attention away from your stories and back
to your body, how are you feeling in your body and that's it. You can feel what you're feeling
right now, it may be unpleasant but that doesn't mean it's bad. Emotions can be uncomfortable,
but emotions won't harm you. They don't damage you. Avoiding emotions or struggling
against them or demanding that they go away can lead to behaviors that harm you. So for
example, feeling anxiety about public speaking, you can still give a good presentation even if
you're nervous, but if you have the rule that I'm not allowed to feel anxious, then you may avoid
giving a presentation which may harm your job or you may use drugs to calm yourself down
which can negatively impact your life. Even the ultimate form of harm, suicide, it's not
caused by emotions, but by the desperate need to escape emotions. I've seen over and over that when
a person develops willingness they no longer feel suicidal. Now this is not the same as wallowing,
surrendering, or giving up, or giving in. You know, wallowing is all about letting go of
your ability to choose, allowing emotions to make your choices and giving up and labeling yourself
as you know helpless or broken and it's also you know wallowing is about projecting your current
emotions into the future. Willingness is all about noticing what you're feeling and then noticing
that you're noticing that and that there's a deeper you who watches yourself watching your
feelings and makes choices about what to watch. So that's a little complicated, we're going
to talk more about this self as context idea, this I am idea, but when we take the time to
be willing, it opens up space to make choices. You are the CEO of your brain. You are not in
control of what thoughts pop up or what sensations show up, but you are in control of what you
focus on, and when you focus on something it gets louder. So the key to healing is to notice
and to acknowledge your uncomfortable sensations and then make a choice about what you are going
to pay attention to. When we constantly scan ourselves like- 'oh how's my anxiety today, how's
my depression today, how's my tinnitus today?', we send the message to our brain that anxiety and
sadness or tinnitus are the most important things. Our brain responds by putting more energy
into them instead of speeding up to avoid our feelings or hyper focusing on our painful
sensations just give yourself a little more time to process your feelings throughout the day.
Emotions can serve an important function sometimes and other times they're just waves that come and
go the one thing that is sure to make them worse is fighting them or avoiding them. So the next
step in working through and being willing with your emotions is to shift your focus to
something that's more important to you. So this could be something like peace or
calm right? So you can scan your body for sensations like that instead of focusing all your
energy on holding that brick at arm's length, put your energy towards the things that matter the
most to you. So if you value being a kind mother, sit with your kids on the floor put your
distractions away and look them in the eyes and just be with them. When you notice the
uncomfortable emotions or sensations come up just acknowledge them like- 'hello anxiety nice
to see you today', then you put your attention back on your values, you know your children
or your work or whatever it is you're doing. After you've acknowledged your painful sensations
or emotions, shift your focus back to your values and the things that bring you joy, peace, and
love. Remember, what you pay attention to you get more of. This is not avoidance or distraction
but it's intentional use of your mental energy. This is how you take your power back when you put
your attention on what matters most in your life, you free yourself to live a meaningful and
fulfilling life. Willingness frees you to do that. If you're on YouTube, you can check
out my video on Willingly Out of Breath, this is another exercise on how to practice
that, but right now you can try this practice of willingness with some physical sensations and
you may be surprised of how much of an emotion is really made up of physical sensations. So you
could try this with like a good deep stretch, I'm not saying hurt yourself, don't do
the splits or something if you're not capable of that, but like a good stretch or
holding an ice cube or doing wall sits right, and you just do that uncomfortable thing and
then you practice willingness while you do it and keep an eye on this channel because I'm going
to make some more videos with practical guidance and a meditation for emotions or uncomfortable
sensations. So stay tuned, thank you for watching, and take care. This video is one skill from my
30 skill course How To Process Your Emotions, where I teach 30 of the most essential skills
for resolving depression, anxiety, and improving mental health. Emotion processing is an essential
skill for working through intense emotions, but most people have never been taught how to do
it. I'm putting every single main video lesson on YouTube for the world to access for free. You
watching these videos, sharing them, contributing to my Patreon and my sponsors make this possible.
If you would like to access the entire course in one place, ad-free, with its workbook, exercises,
downloads, extra videos, live Q&A's, additional short readings, and links to extended resources,
the link to buy the course is in the description below.
