Name Those Feelings

[Intro] Hello and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell. I'm an intuitive guide and I absolutely love helping people to heal from within so that they can create a life that they love, a life that they enjoy.

We weren't meant to just tolerate and get through life. We were meant to thrive and enjoy the life we're living. Of course, we will have seasons and moments that are difficult and challenging.

And the beauty of it is that we can be supported in those moments. I am here to be an aid and a guide to support you. And I hope that you will enjoy not only today's episode, but some of the past episodes if you haven't heard them yet.

On this podcast, I talk about all things inner wellness. We also sprinkle in some spirituality and parenting because as a mom to three kids, parenting is a big part of my life. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that there's at least one thing you'll pull from it and start to implement into your own life.

If you want to follow me in other ways, you can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically⁠ or on Facebook Change Radically. Would you do me a favor and share this podcast with your friends? If you hear an episode that resonates with you and would you also go ahead and give me a rating and review my podcast? It would mean so much to me and I would appreciate it. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that we connect.

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Hello again, friends, and we're back to continue the conversations around emotions. And today I want to talk about actually naming your emotions. I'm going to share in my own words and describe some main emotions that a lot of us feel on a typical basis, daily or weekly.

And for some of you, you might identify with certain emotions more than others. And this is not exhaustive. This is simply a short list of the ones that I feel are pretty common and that I personally experience very regularly.

And I think it's worth naming them and describing them to help all of us have a better understanding of what some of the things are that we're feeling and to normalize them. Culturally, there are certain emotions that are basically made out to be worse than others. And even given labels and people are considered mentally ill if they struggle with certain of these emotions more than others.

And I'm here to say these are very common emotions that we are all feeling. And if they are overwhelming and debilitating you to a point of you're not being able to function, there's a reason that's an indicator that there's something at the root level that needs healing and that is deeply wounded. So there's no shame in that, even as I say it.

If you've been diagnosed with a mental illness, there's no shame in that. There's a reason for it. There's a root cause.

Medication will only help the symptoms and medication is a gift. When we need to be able to function and get through life, we need the symptoms to be helped. But without getting to the root cause and finding healing at the root, the medication will only help with symptoms.

You go off of medication and you're not healed anymore at the root than you were when you went on to the medication. So I'm just here to say that there is hope and there is help and there is healing available at the root level so that you can actually feel like, you know what, life is going to be okay and I can thrive in life. Because yes you can.

Yes you can thrive. It may take time. But you can thrive if you want to and I'm here to help you.

So let's get to it. If you didn't catch last week's episode on feeling your emotions and how to get yourself to a place where you can start to feel them, then take a listen after today's episode. There's no order that you have to go in.

But I touched on what you can do to get yourself to a place where you can start to feel your emotions because that is a way to connect more fully and integrate your whole self. And as I said last week, there are reasons why we disconnect and disassociate and we needed that at one point in our life but now is a different time in your life and you're here because you want to move forward. You want to start loving the life that you're living and I also want that for you.

So some of the emotions that I want to bring up is the ones that I'm going to start with. Sadness. Sadness is a feeling that is super vulnerable.

It is necessary but I feel like with sadness the question comes in, how long will this last? How long will I have to feel this? Tears may need a way out when you're sad. If you feel the sadness or disappointment, that feeling of disappointment can be mixed in sometimes with sadness. And if it intensifies, then allowing yourself to cry usually will help and it will bring relief.

Don't allow shame to come in in that moment and tell you that you're being overly sensitive or you're a baby. Shame wants us to feel small and dirty, like there's something the matter with us and who we are isn't good enough or how we're behaving isn't good enough. Shame will always make you want to hide and run away.

So when shame shows up, and you may have been shamed by your parent figures or other people that were important in your life when you were growing up, by siblings, it's so easy. Culturally, people shame each other all the time. It's ridiculous.

It's so acceptable and yet it shouldn't be. Even that phrase, shame on you. I hate that phrase.

No, no, shame off. No shame on, that's ridiculous. When shame shows up, it's important to confront those intrusive thoughts with self-compassion and strength.

Become your own best friend. So substitute kind words for the critical mean ones that might be rumbling through your mind. For instance, if you hear that thought, you're being overly sensitive.

Only babies cry. Just substitute it with babies cry and all people are allowed to cry. Now babies cry more than other people because that's their way of communicating.

That's one way they communicate before they have words. In your being overly sensitive, eh, so what? I feel deeply. Basically, you're saying to that voice of shame, I'm not bothered by you.

You don't scare me. Shame wants to be a bully. So you can combat shame by substituting kind thoughts.

And again, if you're used to hearing that critical voice, that shaming voice, especially if you were conditioned to that because of the family you grew up around or the people you grew up around, it's going to take time. But it's through the unlearning and practicing a new way that you will master this new skill. Another feeling that I think is common is fear.

Fear is a terrifying feeling and it says, I'm unsafe. What will happen? I feel out of control. Fear springs on all of a sudden or for some of us, it just sticks around constantly.

I was conditioned to live in fear. The world was made out to be scary. People were made out to be ill-intentioned.

God was made out to be someone who had a whip and just wanted to beat me down if I wasn't doing the right things or enough things to please this God that I was taught about. Fear was something that was a very close companion. And when you're afraid, it can show up as being skittish or jumpy.

Usually, it's accompanied by yelling and patterns that are out of control. When people are afraid, they do all sorts of things simply to try to get themselves to feel safe again. It's this interesting scenario.

Somebody's afraid, but they almost act out in a way that confuses everyone else to think that they're in control and they're powerful. But really, that's masking the insecurity underneath. They come out as powerful and show up in a way that looks like they are the end-all, but it's simply because they're afraid.

Or they feel small. Well, even if you feel small and you feel less than, again, it probably stems in there's a fear there because what will happen if you're small and less than? A lot of scary things, a lot of painful things can happen to you. If the person who's bigger than you and stronger than you doesn't have your best in mind and doesn't really love and care for you, a lot of scary things could happen in that case.

So you see that if we're acting out from our past experiences, which we all do, and if that inner child, that echo of a past, the kid that we once were is remembering, then we're often going to act out in these ways simply to try to protect that younger part of ourself that once had to. So we are rewiring things within our brain. We are changing things within our body.

We're restructuring our entire self because the life we once lived is not the life that we need to continue to live. All right. So we've talked about sadness and fear.

Let's go on to something that's a little lighter and happier. Excitement and joy. Those feelings invigorate us.

We have extra energy when we feel excited and joyful. We're ready to get things done. Life suddenly feels brighter and easier.

You ever think, wow, life is beautiful. People are really wonderful. How we feel affects our perspective.

It changes everything. In addition to excitement and joy, love. Love is a feeling that makes us feel safe and secure.

We can manage anything when we know we're cared for, we're supported, and someone's championing us. They're rooting for us. They've got our back.

Love is what makes the world go round. It is the most powerful force in the universe, and love is a beautiful thing. We were born to live in love, to be loved, and to exude love.

The tragedies and traumas of life are what try to steal our joy. They try to reshape that idea that we are loved. That is why being able to heal ourselves into a place that we know we love ourselves is so empowering.

Even if you can't guarantee how many other people are going to love you, when you love yourself, when you truly love yourself, you see the beauty and the good in yourself. It changes everything. Alright, let's jump to depression.

Depression is a feeling that's isolating, and life feels bleak. When you're depressed, it's a heavy feeling, and it produces overwhelm. Life is too hard to manage.

In that space, everything feels just like too much. Same thing with anxiety. It's debilitating.

Anxiety causes fear to rage, and it creates these feelings of unpredictability, and the unknowns feel terrifying. So again, anxiety, it makes life feel too difficult. The littlest tasks, when you're depressed or anxious, can look and feel like a mountain.

When it might just be like making a phone call. But it's just a debilitating place to be. Again, there are reasons for those feelings.

We all feel them in certain ways. Some people more deeply and more intensely than others. But I am here to say that if you struggle with anxiety or depression in a big way right now, I once did too.

I'm still touched by it. Very regularly. But I have tools.

I have healed myself. And I'm still on the healing journey. So it's easier to manage those emotions now.

They're not all-consuming. And in the moments when they feel all-consuming, I have tools, and I have ways to help myself cope so that I don't get stuck. So I'm just sitting here to let you know you are not alone, and there is hope for you.

So much hope. It can get better if you want it to. I can't do it for you, but I can join arms with you and help.

And I know I'm not alone in that. I know that there are other knowledgeable, safe, supportive people who will also be able to do the same for you. All right.

So I have touched on sadness, love, feelings of excitement and joy, fear, anxiety, depression, and shame. And the last one I want to bring up is grief. And grief, to me, feels like a compounded sadness mixed with loss.

Grief is intense, and it's confusing. How will we continue on? We have these questions. When will, what will life be like now? I don't want this new normal.

I didn't choose this. Grief is so complex, and it's so weighty. It's layered with ups and downs.

We all experience loss in various forms, and many times throughout our life. So grief is something that we are all touched by because we are all touched by loss. Don't just think of the big losses, the big tragedies.

There are losses we all experience in even the disappointments, what we expect that doesn't happen, or what we hope of people, and they just don't become what we hope. They don't become, say, what we need as a child especially, or even as a partner, as a friend. We experience loss in life in many different ways.

When the body stores the grief, and it's suppressed, it only intensifies. This is the case with every emotion. That's why I keep saying, why I said even in the last episode, it needs a way out.

Our emotions need a way out. Sometimes with grief, it's so intense. We find our body shaking.

We're sobbing. We're screaming. All of that may be necessary to release the emotion.

In all of these places, if you have somebody who's safe and supportive, who will be with you as you're feeling, who will not judge you, who will simply be, reach out to those people. If you don't have anybody, reach out to me. I can be that for you.

These emotions that I've talked about, and again, this is not an exhaustive list. These are the ones that first came to me. These are ones that I experience typically, that I feel like are very common to people.

To actually, not just to humanity, but to living creatures. It's fascinating to observe, even in the animal world. They feel emotions as we do.

They respond as we do. There is a complexity to us that is beautiful. It's actually more understandable than many of us think.

There's a way to understand yourself, to understand your feeling states, to know what to do with them, and to know how to journey through life in a way that is tolerable and enjoyable. Tolerable doesn't sound too great, but for some points in our life, we just have to tolerate. We're healing, we're getting through things, it's difficult.

But hey, even without healing, it's difficult. Healing actually means on the other side, it's going to be easier. Without the healing, you're just going to be stuck in whatever pattern or way of feeling that you already don't like, that is already uncomfortable, or that's causing you stress and more chaos and compounded trauma.

So the journey to a better way may be uncomfortable, but boy does it get easier as you go. Alright, so I hope you feel more informed, and I also hope that you are feeling hopeful. I don't want this list to be overwhelming in the sense of, oh my gosh, there's just so much to this.

Yeah, it's complex, but yet it also feels clear. And very interesting, I'm going to share with you what just happened. You remember, I don't know if I said it, but there was rain.

It had been raining, and it was dark. And the room I'm sitting in, as I was just ending and saying, you know, it's hopeful, and it gets clearer. The sun came up into the room, and this room just lit up.

And that's what I feel like is coming to you as you journey to this place of wholeness. This place that feels beautiful and clearer. The sun is going to be shining stronger.

You are going to be able to feel the warmth of love and light. And I am going to be right here for you all the way to that place. So if you want, reach out, and I'm happy to help. Have a great week. 

[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard? I hope that there's something you pull from today's episode and start implementing it into your life.

Create the change that you want to see, the change that you hear about. You have the opportunity to transform your life, and I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live. If you resonated with what you heard today, and it touched you, would you share it with your friends? Would you also go ahead and rate my podcast and write a written review? It would mean so much to me.

I hope that we'll connect, whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people. You can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically⁠, or on Facebook, ⁠Change Radically. You can also always email me, corinne@changeradically.com. If you have thoughts, questions, or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email.

I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like, in the moments that are quiet, maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking a walk, or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or the craziness of work, I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life. And that I, for one, am so glad that you're alive. 

Catch you again next week.