3. All the Feels

0:00 Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s Jennie the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number three, all the fields.

0:12 I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach and whether you are preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a return missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things than let’s go? I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next.

0:51 Hello, everybody. I hope everyone is doing really, really well. We have some exciting things going on around here at my house. My son, my oldest son is getting married tomorrow. By this time tomorrow he will be married to his fiancee.

1:09 Such a fun time for our family. I’m also feeling a lot of feelings. I wanted to create another foundational episode for you guys. So far, we’ve talked about facts versus thoughts. We’ve talked about your caveman brain. And today I want to talk about feelings. It’s one of the most powerful things that I teach my clients is how to feel all the feels. Another thing that might be causing some emotions for you and some feelings for you is just recently this week, they announced that they’re going to be opening the Provo MTC again. Now for some of you, I’m guessing many of you, you feel really excited about this. But I would also not be surprised if there’s many of you who feel not so happy about this. That’s okay. Any feeling one of the first things I want you to know is any feeling that you are feeling is oh K to feel Remember, your feelings, your emotions come from what you’re thinking.

2:23 There’s 1000s of missionaries that have gone and will still go through the MTC.

2:32 And all of them have a different thought about that experience. Many of you have different thoughts about home MTC and your thoughts, create your feelings. And it’s all totally fine. My oldest son, the one that’s getting married tomorrow actually was working in the MTC. When it closed down last year. He still works for the home MTC. Now, he’s been able to do all of that teaching online, which isn’t it’s such a miracle that we could still have an MTC, while the Provo MTC was shut. So again, a lot of thoughts, a lot of feelings. In fact, over the last year, with COVID, I feel like our emotions, whatever emotions that we were experiencing before, seem to get really magnified and intense. So if you experienced a little anxiety before, you’re maybe experiencing a lot more of it now, or at least over the last year,

3:39 if you are experiencing some fear,

3:44 then I feel like COVID Maybe magnified your fear. And I saw this especially with missionaries who are currently serving that quarantine stuff was challenging, and it’s still challenging for many of you. In fact, with COVID I feel like many of the missionaries are experiencing emotions that they’ve never felt before. Maybe you they’d never experienced anxiety. But on the mission with COVID and quarantine, all of a sudden anxiety, I am going to teach you the skill of learning how to feel your feelings to feel all of the fields. Now sometimes we think of our emotions as being like woowoo or out there are kind of uncomfy to talk about. I’ve had several of my clients say things like I’m just not comfortable talking about my feelings.

4:43 But I like to think of feelings a little bit differently.

4:48 An emotion or a feeling I use those words interchangeably, is something that actually happens in your body.

4:58 It’s a vibration

5:00 in your body, you have a thought, like Quarantine is not very fun.

5:06 And then that thought sends a vibration through your body of frustration. Or maybe boredom, when you think that that is actually chemicals, hormones that cycle through your body. Now Heavenly Father created our bodies to feel emotion, I feel pretty strongly that it’s one of the reasons that we’re here on this earth is to learn how to experience all of the emotions. Most of us go around trying to avoid a motion,

5:41 or trying to resist a motion. In fact, you may not know this, but everything humans do or don’t do in their lives, every single thing they do or don’t do, is because of how they think it will make them feel.

6:00 The goals we set, the classes we take the people we date, when we go on a mission, when we come home from the mission, anything we do, or don’t do, we do because of how we think it will make us feel. Now if this is true that our thoughts, create our emotions, and I want to offer to you that that is true, we might have a thought like, I’m having a really good day. I hope I think that a lot tomorrow at the wedding. So if we think I’m having a really good day, or this is a beautiful day, we’re gonna feel happiness. Now I want you to think for a minute. What does happiness actually feel like in your body?

6:46 If you had to describe happiness, this actual feeling of happiness to an alien, that had never experienced happiness before? What would you say? How would you describe it? And I want you to describe it with adjectives. For me, happiness is kind of a swelling motion in my chest. It’s yellow. It’s beaming, it moves just up a little bit into my throat, my head feels tingly and clear. There’s yellow beams, then my heart feels like really like full and red. Like it could spill over. That’s what happiness is for me. Now for you, happiness might feel differently. How would you describe it? What color? Is it? Does it have a shape? Is it sticky? Is it soft? Is it light? Is it dark? Is it heavy? That is how we can describe emotions. Now this process of describing this these emotions, is what we call allowing them many times we start to notice that we’re feeling some fear, let’s say. And I like to think of our emotions, that they kind of float by us, maybe we’re in a pool, and fear comes floating by like a beach ball, we notice that we think I don’t want to feel fear, I can’t feel fear, I don’t want to feel afraid. And so we take that beach ball, and we start to push it under the water, we start to resist it, and push and push with all our might to not feel the fear. But what happens to the beach ball, eventually, you write it pops back up. And not only does it pop back up or just like float back up. It explodes with a big splash. And this is the way I think about our emotions when we try to resist them. It’s like that beach ball. When we try to resist our emotions, they just get stronger, they start to escalate. And that’s why like I mentioned Heavenly Father created our bodies to allow emotion to process emotion. And this is what it looks like. Number one, give the emotion a name. The other day I was in the bathroom and there was some stuff going on. My husband and I were getting ready for the date. Typically, he takes the kids to school. But on this particular day, he had a specific meeting that he needed to be to while at the same time, I had a client and some other coaching calls that I needed to be to and some things I needed to get done. So I was in charge of taking the kids. So I’m sitting there and I’m getting ready in the bathroom and all of a sudden my husband hears me say hello anxiety.

9:56 I was giving my emotion a name. Now you don’t have to do this

10:00 Say it out loud. In fact, it might be weird if you’re just like walking down the street you’re like hello fear Hello, anxiety, hello doubt, hello frustration, hello, anger. So maybe you don’t do that. But in that particular moment, I know I, I really had to make space to allow for that emotion. Otherwise I tend to resist them.

10:22 So I said, Hello, anxiety and I gave my emotion a name. That’s step number one. Step number two, relax into it. This is where I recommend taking a deep breath. Just telling yourself, okay, it’s anxiety, time, anxiety, let’s hang out. I want to get to know you anxiety, what do you actually feel like in my body, your brain will want to just keep spinning on all of the thoughts that’s making you feel the feelings. But after you’ve given that emotion, a name, you’ve relaxed into it, taking that deep breath. And number three, I want you to get out of your head and into your body. And you go find it. You go find that emotion in your body. Are you feeling it in your chest? Are you feeling it in your stomach? Funny enough, I feel a lot of emotions in my throat. You might feel some emotions in your head. But we’re not talking about when we’re allowing for emotions, and processing emotions. We’re not talking about the thoughts in your head, we’re talking about what is the actual vibration? Step number four is describing that vibration with adjectives. Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it cloudy? Is it solid? Is it green? Is it red? Is it orange, describe the emotion with adjectives. Now, in that moment in the bathroom, when I said hello, anxiety, this is what I did. I relaxed into it got out of my head and into my body.

11:58 And then I described it in my mind with adjectives anxiety. For me, anxiety feels like a black box. Like constricting my heart, it feels like it’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It feels like there’s a white kind of cloud at the base of my throat that almost feels like I can’t breathe. Even though I know that I can.

12:24 For me, anxiety feels like a shaking in my whole body.

12:30 It’s like a buzzing. To me, anxiety feels like that black box might be around my lungs too constricting, it feels heavy, it feels tight, and has a ton of movement. That’s what anxiety feels like for me. And so the next time you feel anxiety, or you feel fear, or you feel frustration, or you feel discouragement, do these four things, give it a name, relax into it and take that deep breath.

13:02 Find the emotion in your body out of your head and into your body. And then describe that emotion with adjectives. The other thing that’s worth mentioning here is that there is never a wrong emotion to feel, as soon as my clients tell me, but I don’t want to feel sad, or I don’t want to feel insecure, or I don’t want to feel frustrated. That is my clue that they are resisting their emotions. It’s that beach ball that they’re pushing under the water. And then if they don’t allow those emotions, eventually they will escalate and explode. I like to think of our emotions, like the alarm system for our body, our bodies kind of saying, Hey, this is super important. Pay attention to this not for what we would call even just negative quote unquote negative emotion. Even the positive emotions like happiness, joy, peace, contentment, when we feel those emotions in our body. It’s like, our brain is saying pay attention to this. This is super important. Same is true with all of our emotions. That’s our brains way of helping us pay attention to what is going on. Now if we don’t pay attention to that alarm, if we don’t allow it if we just resist it and think I don’t want to feel frustrated or angry. Guess what, our brain will just get more insistent and we will feel more frustration and anger. So rather than avoiding your emotions or resisting them like that beach ball, I suggest just allowing them and processing them in the way that I have described to you. A couple of years ago, I was in charge of all of the music for track. I don’t know if you guys do tracks pioneer tracks where you live, but we’d like to do them here. I think they try to do them every four years so you can go once while you’re in high school. I was in charge of the music for the dance and the

15:00 Really races and just the background music for the send off from for the arriving to the valley. Anyway, all of this music, I was in charge of all of the special musical numbers, so much fun. But several weeks before we went up, my husband and I decided to go up and kind of scope it all out where we would need sound, where we would need microphones, and just basically where all the specific musical numbers would be happening, as well as where we would want speakers and stuff like that. Well, as we were driving along, up kind of this mountainous ish area. I look over to the side. And I notice that right next to me, is a cliff without a guardrail, which happens sometimes in Idaho, I’m in western Idaho. But sometimes I’m not driving up into the mountains and things. There’s no guardrail. And I look over to the side. And I have this thought, like, I’m gonna die, I might die, right? This is my caveman brain trying to warn me, it’s the alarm system. So I think this thought and then this vibration occurs through my body, it’s fear.

16:14 And fear, to me feels like black butterflies around my chest, it actually feels like there’s a line in my like, right at the base of my throat.

16:24 Again, making me feel like maybe I can’t breathe that line at the base of my throat is black. It feels like it’s fluttery and moving very fast. It also feels like a dropping feeling in my stomach that is black, well, maybe more like navy blue. And well, a dark midnight blue. And it’s a dropping feeling in my stomach. It’s expansive, moving downward. That’s what fear feels like to me. So I noticed this feeling these butterflies and all the things happening in my body and I say hello fear, let’s hang out.

16:56 And then I take a deep breath, I get out of my head and into my body. And I describe it in my mind with adjectives just the way I have with you.

17:05 And wouldn’t you know that as I allowed for that fear, if I made space for it, when I made space for it, it cycled through my body. It just moved on out. Now most people will say to me, Hey, I’m afraid if I allow for the sadness, I’m afraid if I allow for the fear

17:26 that it will get more intense. And what I want to offer to you today is the opposite of this is true. When you allow for your emotions, when you allow for that alarm system in your body to just happen. The alarm will eventually stop sounding. And that emotion that vibration in your body will just cycle through and move along. So we went along here comes the fear was fine. I cycled through it, I processed it. And then we came around another bend and I had another thought, no guard, well, we might die, we might fall off of this cliff.

18:05 Same process, I had the thought that sent that vibration through my body. And I just did the same process over and over again. Many of my clients will be telling me I don’t have time to sit down and be like, I’m, I’m just feeling the fear. It doesn’t work like that. You can be having a conversation with me, or with your companion or with your roommate. And you just can allow and process the emotions you’re feeling. I feel awkward, I feel overwhelmed. I feel stressed. When we allow for those emotions in the way that I’ve described for you. You have so much power, it allows you to take control of your life. And stop being at the mercy of your emotions. That day when I was in the bathroom, and I said hello anxiety. My husband, he’s quite familiar with coaching and with what I teach, he said, you can be with me, but you can’t drive the car. And this is what I’m offering you today. This is the power of learning how to allow your emotions with these four steps. Give your emotion a name. Relax into it. Take that deep breath get out of your head and into your body and describe the emotion with adjectives. That is the power your emotions can hang out with you just like a good friend. But they don’t have to drive the car. They can be in the backseat even kind of saying hey, this feels terrible. Fear is no fun. Stress is no fun. And you will be the one driving your car. It will allow you to get where you want to go. When you learn how to allow and process your emotions. I love the scripture in Isaiah 55

19:58 where it tells us that cry

20:00 Just was acquainted with grief. I love this word acquainted because this is how I think of my emotions, even the ones that aren’t super fun to feel.

20:11 I think of them as my friends when anxiety wants to hang out, I’m like, Cool, let’s hang out and instead of keeping them outside the door, I open up the door and let them in and just be with me. The fear the overwhelm the doubt, I just tell those emotions, hey, doubt, hey, fear, you can hang out with me as long as necessary. Just think about this. You guys, if you were acquainted with your emotions, if you knew exactly what they felt like in your body, and you were willing to feel them, what could you accomplish? This is what I tell my clients. If you are willing to feel any emotion,

20:51 you could accomplish anything. I want you to think about that for a minute. If you are willing to feel doubt, fear, overwhelm stress, anxiety, frustration, dread. If you are willing to feel any of those emotions, you literally could accomplish anything. Our brain kind of tells us that these emotions that aren’t fun to feel will kill us. This is our caveman brain. They can’t harm you, you can feel them. And when you learn to do you become so powerful in your life, I highly recommend that you try allowing your emotions. start maybe with some of the ones that are easier to feel like happiness. Excited. Get to know your emotions, like good friends. And then when they come knocking, you won’t be afraid of them any more.

21:48 Invite them in, invite them to be with you. Allow them whatever you’re feeling. Just feel it. There is so much power there. All right. Thanks for joining me today. You guys have an amazing week. Wish me luck with the wedding and all the feelings I will be processing all of the feelings right alongside with you. Have an amazing day. Take care.

22:15 Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. If you want to learn more about what I do, you can go to Jennie dildine.com. Or just come hang out with me on Instagram at Jenny dot the LDS mission coach and Jenny is spelled with an I II and remember no matter which part of the mission experience that you are involved in. Just know that Jennie the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day