Episode 024: Stop Fighting Yourself
In this episode, I answer a listener's question: “In previous episodes, you say to allow all my feeling but, how am I suppose to let go of an unpleasant feeling that I don't want to experience? How do I not get stuck in it?”
+ Read the Transcript
Today I want to talk about a question I received from a listener, and it was about last week's podcast, episode 23. And I was talking about being authentic, and there is no right answer and so just accepting where you are and how to show up truly in that way.
And so this listener contacted me, and she had some questions about feeling fear and how to feel fear when you don't want to. So I need to give you a little backstory. Recently in our town in Columbus, Ohio, there was a guy who took a machete into a restaurant and randomly started just cutting people.
We didn't know if it was a guy who was a terrorist or if it was a hate crime or what it was. And it was an extremely traumatizing event for Columbus, Ohio. This was a sleepy restaurant, and here, all of a sudden, this guy's coming in with a machete, and it was traumatizing.
And for this person that contacted me, she was like, it struck in me just the randomness of life and that at any one time, we could die and something bad could happen. And that fear got triggered for her because of this incident. And she'd been proud of herself because fear has always been a big theme in her life, but she'd been able to push it down and keep it out of sight and not give it a lot of fuel.
And then this incident happened with this machete guy, and she just found herself getting triggered. And she said, so I listened to your podcast about, there is no right answer. And that was helpful, but I don't know. How do I sit with this fear? Should I be talking to myself out of it, or what should I be doing not to be stuck in fear
And so it got me thinking on how often we fight ourselves on whatever it is that comes up for us. So how often we hammer ourselves for the fact that we have a feeling. And so I said to this listener, what if you just sat with your fear? What if you own the fact that this is scary and life is unsure, and you are afraid? And she paused and looked at me and said, Yeah, I guess? with a puzzled look on her face.
And I said no, like really, what if you just gave yourself permission to feel the fear? Because it is scary. This is crazy that you could just be sitting at a restaurant, and some random guy could come in with a machete and just starts cutting you or someone you love. So that's a very scary thing. So to embrace the fact that fear is there.
And she did this long exhale and was like, yeah, I guess that would be more comforting. And later she contacted me, and she was like, you're right. Like the more I sat with the fear, the less strength it got, and I think it dissipated on itself. And I think that's what happens is we fight ourselves so hard against having a feeling, whether consciously or unconsciously, we fight ourselves.
"You shouldn't be feeling like that. That's silly. Why are you feeling afraid? There's nothing you could do about it. And you can't just, what do you do hole up in your house, the rest of your life. Like you got to get out there, you can't be feeling afraid. That's just stupid." We just hammer ourselves for whatever comes up for us instead of pausing it and owning it and saying, "oh, I am scared. Oh, this world is scary." That's a fact. It is.
We do have to find a way to live in the world and engage in the world and get out of our homes and do things despite the scary, but it's still is a scary place. And so owning that truth because it is a truth. It's a fact. That's what she's feeling.
She's feeling scared, but we try to run as fast as we can from whatever it is that comes up. And I have been practicing in my own life. The concept of it is this is what's happening right now. Accepting what is happening and all my gosh, it has been revolutionary for me.
It's not like this is a new message, except for what it is. It's a very Buddhist Zen message, and I've just never been able to do it. And I think the biggest reason I've never been able to do it is because of the fear of what's on the other side. Just with what this listener was saying, "if I embrace the fear, then I will never leave my home. The fear will just consume me." And I think that's where we have to trust that if we stopped fighting ourselves and just allow, it gives some room for that feeling to pop around. So if I say, yeah, I am scared, or I am sad right now, or I am angry at that friend for saying that to me.
That's okay. It dissipates rather than constantly having this mental dialogue of you shouldn't be feeling that way. That's silly to feel that way. You're so stupid. You shouldn't be feeling that way. So it builds up the energy around whatever the feeling is.
So for this listener, who's saying I'm feeling stressed around this fear I'm having. If we just give ourselves the exhale of Yeah, that's scary is way different than the energy of "You shouldn't be feeling that way. You got to get out there. You worked really hard to get over this fear thing. And now it's back again, and this is terrible", keeps building and building.
This example could be used in a thousand ways. Like I said if a friend of ours says something that upsets us. And instead of just owning the fact of, I'm angry about what this friend said. But that doesn't mean I need to go to the friend and yell at them or tell them she's a bitch or go off on her.
I can just own the fact that it is a truth for me. I'm angry about what this friend said, and then I can decide what to do based on that anger. Maybe I do nothing based on that anger. Maybe I just let it go and just notice that I felt angry. Maybe I lovingly confront my friend, or maybe I lash out at my friend, and then I regroup and come back and say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I was upset about this.
We have a choice in how we deal with the feeling. We don't have a choice on what the feeling is. And I think that's where we get mixed up. We try to stop ourselves and talk ourselves out of having a feeling cause we're so afraid of what the result will be, rather than allowing ourselves to feel.
And after we've had the feeling and embrace that, then to give ourselves a break around, what am I going to do with this feeling? So we spend all of our time fighting ourselves, trying to prevent ourselves from doing something inappropriate. So this listener was trying to present or prevent herself from feeling the fear cause she didn't want to get stuck in that fear thinking anymore.
So she was fighting herself so hard. In the past, when she had felt fear, her action on that fear was to stay in her house, stay small, not branch out. And so, at this point in her life, she was excited because fear wasn't taking over her body. But feeling the fear that came up after the machete guy did not necessarily correlate that she was never going to leave her house again. Feeling the fear was not the problem. It was the choice she decided to make after she felt the fear. And when we let the feeling run through us, the choices become much less volatile. That's the beauty of it. When we allow ourselves to just be with whatever the feeling is, the feeling loses some steam. It loses some of that energy.
And so the choice isn't so dramatic. The option of what comes next isn't so dramatic. So a lot of times, once we feel the feeling, that's it, we're done. We don't need to make another choice. So that listener may get scared every time she decides to go out to dinner in Columbus, Ohio because this machete guy did this random thing.
And the more times she allows herself just to feel that fear and say, "yeah, this is scary. It's okay. This is scary. And I'm still going to go out anyway and just honor my fear." The easier it'll be for her to go out. Then if she just sat there and said, "you're an idiot for feeling this fear, you shouldn't be feeling this way. This is stupid. This is bad." All the crap we tell ourselves. That isn't going to inspire her to go out, and it will not inspire her to feel good about herself.
So I'm encouraging all of us, including me, because this is relatively new for me to be practicing. I've been preaching it for a long time and, in true transparency, practicing it as a totally different beast.
And I'm gaining so much from practicing it. So I am on the bandwagon for this big time. But I know when I allow myself to feel the feeling and stop myself from fighting myself and let that feeling run clear, the action that comes next is much simpler and easier.
And life becomes happier. So that's my 2 cents on stop fighting with yourself.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Brush Your Teeth with the Opposite Hand
Use your right hand to brush your teeth? Switch to your left. This activity is an excellent way to create mindfulness around an activity that we do without thinking. Also, a creative way to challenge your inner perfectionist. REMINDER: doesn't have to be perfect just clean ;)
Bonus Points: Do other activities with your non-dominant hand: e.g. eating, cleaning, using your computer mouse, etc.