As a business coach, I support my solopreneur clients in their businesses and in their life around doing business. This often comes in the form of sharing resources for emotional support. What I noticed lately is that I am not the only one who has struggled with emotions!
Growing up many of us had the experience that “good” emotions, like joy and happiness were welcome and it was frowned upon to have and express “bad” emotions like, anger, frustration, disappointment, and sadness.
The message was subliminal and not so subliminal if the expressed emotion was “bad” the behavior was unwelcome. These sentiments have continued today into our workplaces.
The messages we hear overtly or subliminally go something like:
“Don’t be mad or sad, it is not nice.”
“Just get over it.”
“It’s uncomfortable to deal with you when you have bad emotions”
“It’s inconvenient when you react like this.”
“And well, you are just bringing us all down.”
The truth is that things happen all the time where the appropriate emotion is “one of the bad ones” even, and especially at work. We often feel, sadness, frustration, anger and disappointment.
Thank goodness there are tools available to honor ourselves and our emotions while maintaining professionalism.
Author, social scientist, and researcher, Karla McLaren, M.Ed. has developed Dynamic Emotional Integration. Her enlightened approach to emotions offers permission to allow emotions to be what they are: our reactions to our experiences. Ms. McLaren explains:
“Emotions are vital aspects of our ability to think, feel, understand the world, and act appropriately.”
McClaren, teaches that “there are not good and bad emotions, there are just emotions.” This was, a “Wow” moment, for me.
I have spent many moments cheering myself up, ignoring anger and avoiding sadness, even shaming myself about feeling shame!
McLaren’s work, combined with the work of: Mindfulness teacher, author and psychologist, Tara Brach, Ph.D., and Mystic Richard Rudd, who offer techniques and permission to allow, feel and release emotions, feels liberating.
When we allow and feel verses fight emotions, magic happens!
As Teacher and Mystic, Richard Rudd wrote in his book, The Art of Contemplation, this is when we can have a “Pivot” which he describes as “something that happens on its own, simply by your being honest with yourself and by giving yourself the space for a(an) (emotional) shift to occur.”
Below find two resources I have recently enjoyed:
1)RAIN (The Acronym RAIN stands for: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture)is a powerful tool that gives process and context to feel and release emotions and ultimately to deal with problems. Here is a link my favorite Tara Brach RAIN meditation
2) The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren this is an online workshop/talk and a book. McLaren picks up emotions in a unique way, circles them around and places them in your palm. She helps us to look at them in an entirely new and inspiring way.
The takeaway? We can honor ourselves, and what happened, while allowing for all the emotions.
When we take time to process verses ignoring or fighting unwanted feelings and only supporting what we believe are good thus acceptable emotions, we ultimately become more whole.
Wholeness allows us to bring authenticity and creativity to more situations in our personal and our work lives. And this makes for all of of the parts of our lives to be, perhaps more meaningful.
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