Episode 41 - A Mini Course in Emotional Agility Part 2
In this second instalment of the Mini-course in Emotional Agility, you will learn lots of tools and techniques to become more emotionally resilient.
You will learn how to create a healthy baseline for emotional agility by:
Seeking out nourishing physical tactile experiences
Getting exposed to natural light on a daily basis
Spending time in nourishing environments
Getting into a FLOW state
Tracking positive experiences and achievements
And how you can create immediate relief when experiencing an unsettling emotion through:
Moving your body to the emotion
Self-soothing
Reset your state
Noting technique
Emotional processing
Transforming the energy
Resources mentioned in this podcast are:
The Huberman Lab Podcast Ep 68: Using Light to Optimize Health
Podcast Episode on Emotional Processing Technique
Podcast Episode on transforming frustration into energy
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Full Episode Text
Episode 41 - How to change the way you feel about pretty much anything - A Mini-Course in Emotional Agility Part 2
Welcome to this episode of the managing the smart mind podcast with Master Certified Coach Else Kramer, a.k.a. Coach Kramer.
Over the next couple of Episodes I’m diving into something that has a massive impact on our life and well-being: emotions.
In this mini-course on Emotional Agility you’ll learn
What emotions are and how they are created
Why you want to intentionally manage your emotions
How to decide which emotions you want to change
How to change the way you feel about pretty much anything
In the first part we looked at the neuroscience of emotions - what they are, and how not only are they created by your brain, but also how they shape your experience. (If you haven’t listened to that episode yet I strongly recommend you check it out first, because everything I’m going to tell you today will make much more sense).
Now I’m guessing that you’re eager to learn how to influence this process - especially now that you’re aware of how much impact your emotions have on your life.
And this is exactly what I mean by emotional agility, the skill I’m teaching you in this mini-course:
The ability to adjust the way you feel in a way that serves you better.
As I explained in the last episode, that doesn’t necessarily mean changing emotions that make you feel sad, frustrated, etc - although it can.
What it does mean, is taking a look at the way you feel in a specific situation, and asking yourself whether this serves you. And if it doesn’t, change the way you feel using all the tools I’m going to give you in this Episode and the next.
I’ll give you a couple of examples to help you get a feel for this.
Let’s say you’re frustrated about climate change. You could totally change that emotion. But do you want to? Or is this something that, with your basic values and principles, you WANT to be angry about?
And then simply channel that anger into effective action - because that’s always an option, in fact, I have a whole podcast on using frustration as fuel, go check it out.
Or maybe you’re sad because your beloved cat passed away. You may want to keep that sadness for a while, sit in the rawness of the loss and let it move through your body. And then, when you feel ready to move on, you can transform the sadness into a feeling of deep appreciation for example, for the years you shared together, with a little twist of melancholy.
Maybe you hate your hair. You wish you had more of it. Or less.
Maybe you wish you had curls - or that your curls would go away.
In this case, you probably want to change the way you think about your hair - and that’s a technique I’m going to teach you in the next Episode.
Now one more thing before we get started: I’m going to give you a LOT of information and how to’s in this Episode. Way more than your brain can possibly remember.
So do yourself a favour and download the transcript and show notes - so you can refer back to the list whenever you need to. You’ll find it on my website, www.coachkramer.org.
Step 1: Taking Responsibility
Before we dive into all the tools to help you achieve emotional agility there is a first step you must take:
Take ownership.
You must accept responsibility for those emotions that are within your capacity to change.
Does that mean ALL emotions?
No. Some emotions come straight from your amygdala and you cannot change those on your own, for example in the case of phobias. If that is something you want to change you can work with a hypnotherapist, for example, to rewire the neural pathways that are now causing you to bypass the prefrontal cortex.
All the other emotions you can change, or at least modify.
So next time you feel something, instead of complaining about it, simply ask yourself:
Is this something I can change?
And, if so, do I want to?
And then decide to use all the things you’re learning in this mini-course to adapt, adjust, or modify it in a way that serves YOU.
Step 2: Creating a healthy baseline for emotional agility
The second step in managing your emotions is setting a healthy baseline for emotional agility.
I want you to think back to a time in your life when you were exhausted.
Maybe you had a young baby.
Perhaps you were cramming for exams all week.
Maybe you were doing all-nighters to ship a product.
Take yourself back to that time, and now imagine [A BAD THING HAPPENING].
Can you see your reactivity? How it would explode out of proportion?
That’s because when you’re not taking care of yourself it’s much harder for your brain to regulate your emotions.
So the first step in becoming emotionally agile is to get to work creating that healthy baseline.
And it’s not going to surprise you that the three most important foundations to create that baseline are
Getting enough rest
Eating healthy food
Moving your body
If you’re already taking great care of yourself in these three ways - amazing.
If you’re not - use the knowledge you now have about emotional well-being as an extra driver to make the changes you want to make.
In addition to these three basics, there is much more you can do - especially when it comes to creating feel-good hormones in your body.
Increase serotonin through nourishing physical touch.
Give and receive hugs. Get a massage. Gift yourself a soft and/or weighted blanket.
All these things will help support your emotional agility.
Make sure you get exposed to natural light on a daily basis
Check out Huberman Podcast for this
Spend time in nature, or fake it with a houseplant or forest print
There is now countless research proving increased health and well-being when people spend time amongst trees. So create time in your schedule to be amongst the trees, even if it’s only a park in your city.
If that’s a bit hard to realise right now consider houseplants or even large photoprints of forests - your brain doesn’t really know the difference and you will get similar benefits, although probably not at the same rate.
Get out of your head by engaging in activities that nourish you and get you in a FLOW state, whether it’s painting, gardening, reading a novel, etc.
We’ve all got things that shut up our inner chatter and take us into the wonderful state of FLOW, where you’re totally immersed in what you’re doing.
For me, that can be going on a photowalk, reading a great novel, playing the piano, or creating art.
For you it may be carpentry, cooking, crafting.
If you’re not spending at least a couple of hours each week in activities that take you into FLOW, start doing that right now. Your emotional well-being will increase immediately.
Keep track of positive experiences to correct the negative bias of your brain. (It’s kind of lopsided)
Your brain is wired to find problems and danger, and if you don’t intentionally correct that bias, you will think your life is filled with problems and danger.
This is quite easy to change: every night, before you go to sleep, write down three wonderful things you did or experienced that day.
They don’t need to be massive - it could be the way the light hit the brickwork on a building on your way to work.
Or it could be that email that you were putting off sending out that finally got mailed.
This practice not only helps with emotional regulation, it also increases your confidence in yourself. So if you only take ONE thing from this episode, make it htis one.
All these tools help you can establish a solid baseline for emotional agility - and, when practiced regularly, to up that baseline.
Now, this is important structural work to support your emotional wellbeing and regulation.
But what can you do in the moment that an emotion arises?
That’s what we’re going to look at next.
Step 3: How to manage emotions the moment they arise
If you’re experiencing an emotion that isn’t serving you, you don’t have to let that dysregulate you and then cause a whole chain of increased anxiety for example.
When you experience an unsettling emotion, there is a whole range of things you can do.
For fast, instantaneous ‘relief’:
Move to the energy of the emotion
Feeling frightened, shook, frustrated, angry?
Move. Your. Body.
It’s one of the best ways to simply process an emotion and get it out of your system.
How you move it is totally up to you - and the emotion.
Ask yourself: how does this emotion want to express itself through my body?
Or, if that seems like a very weird question to answer, simply ask:
“How does my body want to move right now?”
It could look like waving your arms, jumping, dancing, going for a power walk where you literally PUSH the ground away with your feet, etc.
Somatic practices
If an emotion dysregulates your nervous system you can soothe it again through somatic practice. There are many online resources on this, just google ‘somatic practices’ or ‘self-soothing’ and it will give you lots of ideas.
The most simple one I will give you today and it is this one: a physiological sigh.
Take two quick inhales through the nose, and then a slow exhale through the mouth.
Resetting your state: Music, scent, going outside
When you’re starting to feel kind of low, tired, or starting to fret about something that isn’t major enough to give a lot of attention to, changing the way you feel can be as simple as resetting your state.
I use perfume for this - citrusy scents immediately take me to a place of energised, joyful anticipation.
But you can also use a specific kind of music, take yourself into a different environment e.g. by going outside, or connecting with another human being in a meaningful, positive way.
It’s a ‘soft’ reset - you’re not hitting yourself on the head - but it’s incredibly effective.
Create gap between emotion and self - i.e. note the emotion and don’t identify with it - this is not about YOU
This is the very simple (but not necessarily easy) technique of ‘noting’ that is also practised in meditation.
Instead of saying things like “I am scared” or “I am angry”, stop identifying yourself with the emotion.
Simply notice it, by saying “anger’ or ‘fear’ whenever you DO notice it.
This also has the advantage of making you aware that you never feel the same emotion all the time, your emotions are constantly changing - and that in itself can be a game-changer.
Process the emotion (sit with it) and then take the rest of it with you throughout your day
Another great strategy is to consciously allow the energy of the emotion to flow through your body - this is called the emotional processing technique.
I have devoted an entire Episode to this incredibly powerful too, it’s number 16, I’ll leave a link in the show notes because you definitely want to check that out if you haven’t yet.
So you can process the emotion, and if some part of it remains, just take that with you. Let it accompany you - but not disturb you.
Transform it (frustration as fuel)
This is what I talked about with the climate change example: when you feel anger or frustration, sometimes it’s appropriate to ask: is there anything I can do to change this? And then redirect your anger-energy there.
Again, there’s an entire podcast Episode on this, number 10, called ‘Frustration as fuel’ so if you regularly experience frustration or anger or similar emotions do check that one out too.
Is this all? No, there is even more!
You can change the way you feel in the moment by changing your thoughts - and you can take yourself into a different state.
We’ll dive into that in the next instalment of this mini-course on emotional agility.
Ok, so I covered a lot here, let’s do a quick recap so you can remember it more easily.
It all starts with ownership: taking responsibility for the way you feel (outside of things like phobias and trauma-triggered responses).
Then, you want to:
Create a solid baseline for emotional agility
Physical nourishing comfort.
Nourishing environment (green etc.), reduce stressors
Get out of your head by engaging in activities that nourish you and get you in a FLOW state, whether it’s painting, gardening, reading a novel, etc.
Keep track of positive experiences to correct the standard negative bias of your brain. (It’s kind of lopsided)
But what do you do when you get rattled by an emotion? What can you do in the moment?
Here, I gave you six techniques for instantaneous emotional relief, here’s a quick reminder:
Creating instantaneous emotional relief
Move your body to the emotion immediately
Somatic practices: self-soothe
Music, scent, going outside, other ways to reset your state
Create a gap between emotion and self - i.e. note the emotion and don’t identify with it - this is not about YOU
Process the emotion (sit with it) and then take the rest of it with you throughout your day
Transform it (frustration as fuel)
Now I realise this is a LOT of information.
So I want you to, right now, pick TWO things you’re going to practice over the next week to increase your emotional agility (and if you have trouble deciding check out the Episodes on decision making).
Decide what ONE thing you’re going to practice to up your emotional baseline, and what ONE thing you’re going to practice to create emotional relief when an unsettling emotion arises.
Pause the recording if you need to.
Picked them?
Good.
Write them down in a place you’ll see them because you know what the brain is like - it will quickly move on to other things, and completely forget.
You have to MAKE it remember.
The bottom line of this Episode:
It is incredibly empowering to know that you can regulate your emotions - that you do not always have to feel the way you feel.
So start playing with that, and have fun with it.
And then next week, it gets even better, when we dive into all the ways you can change the way you think so you can feel differently.
Until then,
Have an amazing week,
Else a.k.a. Coach Kramer
Ready to get some help in managing your smart mind AND your emotions? I can help. DM me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook to learn how you can work with me, or email me via podcast@elsekramer.com.
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