Ep #377: When You Feel Your Feelings But They Don’t Go Away and You Don’t Feel Better

Hello! Something I’ve talked about numerous times throughout this podcast is feeling your emotions.

For many people, one of the reasons why they binge eat is because they’re eating to escape, numb, avoid, or change how they’re feeling.

It might start off as emotional eating and then snowball into a binge as they keep going back for one more, and one more, and one more or, it might be a binge from the start and they start eating knowing they’re going to be eating an excessive amount.

And they’re continuing to eat so that they don’t have to feel however they were feeling before eating or, to not feel however they think they’ll feel after they stop eating.

They want to avoid feeling that emotion for as long as they can and as long as they’re eating, they don’t have to feel.

But as we all know, eating excessively is going to cause other feelings, definitely physical discomfort but also emotional discomfort, so this way of handling uncomfortable emotions is not the best way.

What will be a much better way is to not escape and avoid your emotions but to feel them instead.

You let them be there. You allow yourself to feel uncomfortable.

Now, sometimes when you just allow yourself to feel your feelings without eating, they pass more quickly than you’d expect. They could even be gone in minutes. Our emotions are temporary and they do pass and when you allow them to run their course, they can simply fade away.

But, sometimes when you just allow yourself to feel your feelings without eating, they don’t pass that quickly. They might stick around for awhile. Maybe even an hour, a few hours, or all day.

And of course no one wants to feel uncomfortable emotions for that long.

So even though you have learned that your emotions are temporary and will pass, you might get frustrated that it’s taking so long for them to go away. So you may feel them for awhile but then you eat to speed up the process of feeling better.

When people experience this, they tend to think that they just need to be willing to feel it for longer and not give up after a certain amount of time.

Now, there are circumstances when this is for sure going to be helpful, such as when a person is grieving a loss or when they’re going through a stressful period with a lot going on in their personal life or work life or both.

And if that’s the case, what will be so important to do during that time is to prioritize time for self-care and pleasure as much as possible. Of course, if available time is sparse then it can be a challenge to do it a lot but, it needs to be done when it can be done. It will be so helpful to take fulfilling, rather than draining, mental breaks from whatever is causing the emotions. That’s something that can help you to be more willing to go through the emotions, when you have those moments to look forward to and to help you take a break.

But, most of the time, the answer isn’t to just feel it and hope for it to pass soon.

If it’s not passing, and you’re not feeling better, then you need to get to work.

And what is this work you’re going to get to?

It’s work on what’s causing your uncomfortable emotions, which is your thoughts.

Your thoughts are what’s causing your emotions so if you want to change how you’re feeling, then you’re going to need to change what you’re thinking.

So rather than going and eating food to feel better, you’re going to work on your thoughts to feel better.

That’s the action you’re going to take.

So, what does that mean to work on your thoughts?

Well first, you’re going to uncover what you’re thinking that’s causing you to feel how you’re feeling.

You have to find your starting point because if you don’t, you’re not going to be able to address the cause.

There are so many times when people try to tell themselves things to make themselves feel better but because what they’re saying isn’t actually addressing the problem thought, or thoughts, what they’re telling themselves doesn’t make a difference.

It’s like if you just got broken up with and your friend is telling you that you’ll find someone else, someone better, but that doesn’t help you to feel better because, you’re not thinking you won’t find someone else. That’s not the thought that’s causing you to feel upset.

You’re feeling upset because you’re thinking that you’re not good enough and aren’t a lovable person. Once you know what you’re really thinking that’s making you feel upset, then you can start to work on thinking what will actually help you to feel better….which would be that you are good enough and are a lovable person.

So step one is to uncover what you’re thinking that’s causing you to feel how you feel.

And you can do that by either writing or talking.

When you’re just in your head, it can be hard to know what you’re thinking and observe your thoughts. They can get kind of mushed together and be unclear. Not always but, a lot of the time, especially when emotions are intense, that’s how it can be.

But when you’re writing or talking, it can become so much clearer to you. You can actually see or hear formed sentences. And it can be so obvious why you’re feeling how you’re feeling.

So if you’re feeling an uncomfortable emotion and it’s not passing on it’s own, your first step is to write or talk with someone to uncover your thoughts. Doing that will help you to uncover what thought is causing you to feel how you’re feeling.

Then, you can explore your thought that is causing you to feel how you’re feeling.

Is it really true? Sometimes, you’ll right away see it as untrue and it will be fairly easy to let it go and start to feel better.

If you do see it as true, you can explore what else could be true. There’s always another option for how you can be thinking.

You’re thinking a certain way about something, it could be how you’re thinking about yourself, another person, your work, the time you have, your to-do list, something that happened, the list of possible circumstances is endless. So, you’re in the circumstance you’re in, thinking what you’re thinking, now what’s another way you could think? How might someone else think about this circumstance? Again, you can start to explore other thought options, and they exist.

Then once you find one that feels better, and that is believable to you, then you can start thinking that. You can start practicing that and start feeling better. Better thoughts will create better feelings.

And it being believable is imperative. You can’t BS yourself. If you try to tell yourself something you don’t believe, it’s not going to help you to feel better.

So going back to the example I gave about the break up, if you’re trying to just tell yourself that you are good enough and are lovable but you don’t believe it, you’re not going to feel better.

So you can find something you do believe. Maybe that means you’re just starting with telling yourself, “It’s possible I could be good enough or could be lovable.” Or, “Some people think I’m good enough and lovable.” Or, “Maybe there are some things about me that are good enough and lovable.”

So you’re not trying to go from “I’m not” to “I am,” you’re finding that “maybe” or “possibility” that’s inbetween.

These are called bridging thoughts because you’re building a bridge to get you from the negative thought to the positive thought. You’re practicing thinking a thought that’s just better than what you’ve been thinking so you can feel better than you’ve been feeling.

Sometimes that’s the goal for the moment – to feel better than. You may not feel your best but, it’s better than, and less uncomfortable than how you were feeling.

And as time goes on, you can keep building that bridge with new bridging thoughts, better feeling thoughts, and get all the way to where you want to be.

And that is how you’re going to feel better, on purpose.

By changing what you’re thinking, your opinion, your perspective, your interpretation.

And you don’t need food to do that.

All you need is curiosity, exploration, and sometimes help from another person because sometimes, it’s hard to see other options for what to think. Sometimes we can only see the option we’ve been choosing.

But other people might be able to share a different option, a different perspective.

This is something I do all the time with my group members when we’re coaching. I help them see things differently to help them feel differently.

I help them to think how they want to think, rather than what’s just been default thinking.

So, you don’t have to just wait for your emotions to pass. You can take action to facilitate them passing.

And just know, when your emotions do seemingly pass on their own, what I just described is still happening. You’re still changing your thoughts, it’s just happening without much effort.

But sometimes, it will take effort.

So be willing to put in the effort because the payoff will be so worth it. You’ll feel so much better than you would had you eaten excessive amounts of food.

You’ll truly feel better. You’ll actually have resolved your emotions. You’ll experience comfort for real, not just temporarily.

And I also want to add, that if you do do this work on your thoughts, and you do find a thought that you believe, that should make you feel better but you still don’t, there could be two things that would help.

One is to then just let yourself process it.

There was a time not long ago that I felt really disappointed, I did thought work and got to a better place in my mind, but I didn’t feel differently. But, I let myself feel how I was feeling, and the next morning, I felt so much better. It was like I needed some time for that different way of thinking to sink in. So sometimes, you just need to give yourself time to process and transition. So be patient.

The other is to explore if there is something else going on in your mind. Is there another thought that needs some work? Is there another layer to what’s going on with you?

I know that’s happened to me before when I thought I found the problem but didn’t realize there was another problem. So I had more work to do.

And we don’t have to see this work as daunting but just something that will help us. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and we don’t have to see it as a chore. You can see it as a gift that you’re able to give yourself – the gift of working on your thoughts to truly feel better.

It’s so awesome that we’re able to do that, and aren’t just victims to our thoughts and feelings. We can do something. So be willing to do more if that’s what will help you.

Alright, so I hope you’re seeing more clearly what you can do when your feelings don’t pass after just feeling your feelings. You can help yourself feel better. With just a little time and effort, you can help yourself. And if you have a hard time making the transition, you can get help from someone such as myself. Always remember that you don’t have to do this on your own. And if you want my help, you can learn how you can work with me by going to coachkir.com/group or just go to my website coachkir.com, there’s a link to it in the show notes, and click on where it says “Work With Me” in the menu bar.

Alright, that’s all for today, I’ll talk to you again soon, bye bye.