Negative emotions are a problem, but not for the reason most believe them to be. The common cultural thing we have all been raised to believe is that negative emotions are to be avoided, suppressed, and ignored. Only when we do not know how to process our negative emotions then anxiety is inevitable.

If we learn how to process negative emotions then anxiety has no power.

Anxiety is one of the hottest topics amongst many of the people I talk with right now. One friend has said that his anxiety has gotten so bad that it has become debilitating.

What is anxiety and why is it so rampid right now?

In all fairness 2020 is a tough year. Lack of social contact, fear of COVID, and endless unknowns are all in our face regularly.

It is quite easy to consistently feel ‘bad’ often.

Learning how to feel and process these negative feelings is the answer to relieving anxiety.

When we avoid, suppress and ignore negative feelings they accumulate energetically in our body and become anxiety.

Unaddressed anxiety becomes depression.

The way out is dedicating part of our time to intentionally feeling our hard worthy feelings like sad, anger, disappointment, frustration, and anger.

The trick is diferentiating the worthy from the indulgent emotions. Overwhelm, worry, confusion, self doubt, blame, regret, and victimhood are indulgent emotions that keep us stuck.

Useless and Indulgent Emotions

I lost a lot of sleep because of our truck this week. In the middle of the night I awoke noticing a bad feeling. I could easily blame it on our truck having problems, but if I look closer it is because my thought is, “this should not be happening.”

If we feel one of the indulgent emotions then the work is managing our thoughts and directing our brain away from the thoughts that cause these indulgement emotions.

“Trucks break down, it happens. What if nothing wrong has happened here?”

Processing Feelings and Relieving Anxiety

We recently arrived back to California where a majority of my friends and family live. I have missed them all greatly and want nothing more than to see and hug them all.

But COVID is a thing and the last thing I want to do is endanger the people that I love the most.

I have felt deep sadness since we arrived because I desperately want to connect, but have decided to limit exposures.

This sadness is a worthy emotion. This is the emotion to go towards and invest in processing all the way through and probably repeatedly.

Noticing Anxiety

When I notice myself feel anxious, I check in with myself and ask what is underneath the anxiety. “I miss my connecting with my loved ones.”

I drop in, take some focused alone quiet time, and I feel.

Sadness is like every emotion, it is a physical vibration in our bodies.

Mine feels heavy and achy around my heart.

Mine feels droopy around my lower face area.

I observe and notice the physical sensations and I go towards them. I lean in and get curious.

As I spend time with the physical sensation then they start to shift and move, I stick with them and keep giving them attention and time; this is the act of processing emotions.

Often big emotions, like my current sadness, comes in waves which means that I go through this process repeatedly sometimes over the course of weeks.

When I lean in and feel my sadness then my anxiety is not an issue.

If I ignore my sadness long enough it becomes a much heavier feeling… like depression.

Anxiety is not inevitable if you understand how emotions work, where they come from, and how to process them.

Bad feelings are inevitable because life has duality; life is 50% hard/ bad/ negative and 50% easy/ good/ positive.

My coaching work is more important than ever. Bad feelings lead to self-sabotaging actions which eventually result in gut health problems. Anxiety is one of the most common emotions that cause people to either over-eat or under-eat.