The sparkling sound of joyful laughter dances around the dining room under an imaginary disco ball. Two birds compete in a heated chirping contest outside the window as a stracciatella-winged butterfly circles around them drawing invisible halos. The scent of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream wafts around the room riding on the breeze from the open window. The sun coming through illuminates the giggling children sitting around the table, ice-cream moustaches and grins as standard. There are four empty chairs that the shaft of sunlight doesn’t reach… it’s darker there than it should be.
Despite what the love and (gas)light crew are telling you all your emotions are positive.
Hear me out.
Positive thinking has its place, 100%. Your words are magic. You are casting spells all the time and all over the place with everything you say and with the way you say it. And, yes, putting a positive spin on a negative situation is how you create new meaning and how you’re able to deal with it, take a lesson, “grow” as a person, and make it valuable to you because “everything happens for a reason”.
Yes, yes, YES!
(I’ll have what she’s having!)
And also…
The emotions that have come up for you, the sadness, the anger, the fear, the shame… all of them are begging you to see them, feel them, and release them. By avoiding them you have made them prisoners in your body.
What if your emotions are both data and teachers?
When was the last time you laughed BTW?
Maybe it was a time when something was just funny enough so that your stomach contracted and pushed a snort into your nose and turned the corners of your mouth up.
Maybe it was a time when something really tickled you (that dumb cat video or the comedy skit), and you felt it start in your chest - a staccato rhythm warning you it’s coming, that went down to your belly and up to your throat and into your grin muscles.
Maybe it was a time that was so fucking funny that a laugh literally burst out of you with its volume dial stuck on ‘loud’. You can’t breathe, you’re crying, you’re in actual pain because something is so funny that your joy-wracked body is begging for mercy!
Wherever you were on the laughter scale. You let it happen. You gave it permission. Yes, if you were in a situation where it felt inappropriate to laugh you might have tried to hold it in. How did that go for you?!
You’ve already noticed how difficult it is to hold in laughter.
When we feel joy we allow it, permit it, welcome it, even.
We let if flow through us, into us, and out of us. We don’t try to imprison it. And we wouldn’t be able to anyway, because joy is powerful.
Joy is energy at such a high frequency. It is not containable.
So we allow joy. We love it! Joy gets a warm welcome and receives gratitude.
(We actually have no choice!)
But we don’t allow the so-called “negative” emotions…
We don’t want to feel them. And yet, if we did allow them then they would follow the same path as joy: through us, into us and out of us...
Here’s the neuroscience bit: The physiological lifespan of an emotion (from the initial trigger to cortisol and adrenaline dissipation) is roughly 90 seconds, often less. A trigger fires in reaction to something (0-1 seconds), cortisol and adrenaline flood the body (1-6 seconds), your body responds with a racing heart, tight jaw, hot face (6-90 seconds), and you arrive at a choice point: feed the emotion by replaying the trigger and thereby triggering it again, or let the 90 seconds do what 90 seconds will do.
Instead of allowing “negative” emotions, we hold them in. We imprison them, because we can. Because fear, anger, and sadness are energy at a low frequency. Therefore it is containable. So we contain it, we avoid it, we suppress it.
Suppressing emotion is like trying to hold a ping pong ball underwater… your arms are going to get tired, and those ping pong balls are going to surface. And the more emotions you have suppressed, avoided, or managed, the more ping pong balls you’re holding, the more tired you’re going to get, and the more of them are going to surface. And, when you can no longer hold them down a tsunami of ping pong balls is going hit you. Hard.
And yet… we could have just let them pass… welcomed them to the table with the other emotions…
The twist is this: Those “negative” emotions that live in the shadows (because that’s where you’ve put them, not because they’re shady), are both the cause of your suffering and the way out!
They are the cause of your suffering because by avoiding the emotions you don’t want to feel you are already IN them… You are using your energy to hold them in (the ping pong balls).
They are the way out of your suffering because they’re revealing either a value that is not being fulfilled, a boundary that is being violated, or a wound that is begging to be healed.
Triggers are your teachers, if you’re willing to be the student.
I’ve been the student many times, I invite my clients to the classroom, I encourage my friends to enroll in Trigger School, and so now I’m asking you (in case you’re not already enrolled): Are you willing to be curious enough to see your triggers as teachers in order to not have keep pretending everything is OK, and wondering why you live in a state of exhaustion, that rest or sleep doesn’t seem to help?
If you are then know this:
You do not have to talk about your ‘trauma’ or your ‘problem’ or your ‘issue’ again and again (and again).
Endless talking only hardwires the story you’ve been telling yourself. And that’s what it is, just a story you’ve repeated so many times you now believe it’s true. And when awareness is about learning your triggers only so you can avoid them it keeps you in the same story, just with better ways around the painful parts.
Here’s the ‘if you work with me’ bit:
You will not be re-traumatised in a session (although what you do in the privacy of your own mind and in your own time I cannot control).
You will not “lose” your identity! You reclaim it. Because you’ll release stories, beliefs, and patterns, that were NOT-you, and you finally get to be you.
You will (and I tell you this with love and transparency), shed tears, probably feel shit at times, and doubt the process before you trust it. And, before you trust yourself.
But, if you work with me you’ll also experience laughter in the process. You’ll take small steps, make big celebrations, and fill your heart with gratitude and self acceptance.
When you learn to train your nervous system to work for you, when you learn to work with your emotions instead managing them (the ping pong balls), and when you learn to trust yourself (so you know the difference between intuition and survival mode being activated) you heal.
And when you heal you reclaim yourself, your energy, your self-trust, your authentic expression.
You, the real you, not the NOT-you.
This work is not for the faint-hearted! If you want love and gas(light) keep doing what you’re doing. The self-improvement industrial complex thanks you for your service, and for your dollars!
But, if you have had enough of not living the life you wanted to be living by now, when you graduate Trigger School, you find the motivation to take action is simply there (no cold-plunge, productivity tracker, or chanting affirmations barefoot in a kaftan necessary).
Because when your body feels safe you take action differently.
You get to do whatever you want to do, change whatever you want to change, and go for what ever you want to go for.
It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
(And you don’t have to do it alone)
So, what does life look like in 5 years, in 10 years, in 15 years, if you do nothing except keep living in same pattern you’re living now… suppressing, avoiding or managing the emotions you don’t want to feel?
I’m here for you. And if I’m not your cup of tea, that’s OK, go find someone who is.
Every single chair is full! The French doors are wide open, a muslin curtain billows in and out of the room, the imaginary disco ball catches, holds, and releases the sparkling sunlight sending diamonds reflecting all over the walls. Sunshine fills the space. All the children are there. There’s laughter, there’s also tears, and there’s even tantrum. When tears are shed Love cuddles Sadness. When Anger screams Gratitude holds them while they let it out. When Fear trembles Joy holds their hand. Everyone has a seat at the table. Shame gets a group hug. Everyone is welcome.
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