one day i was feeling super stressed out about work i was transitioning from just
being a therapist to being a business owner and the legal and financial and emotional issues
were really stressing me out so i wasn't sleeping that well i got up really early one
morning to start working through my problems and i was just feeling more and more anxious
so as the sun was rising i started walking down the road
i thought if i can only get some exercise i can make this anxiety go away so i started walking
but i started feeling more and more anxious so then i thought oh if i can just use some
breathing exercises i can make this anxiety go away so i tried to start breathing slowly and
deeply but now i was feeling more and more anxious almost panicky and then i started to worry that
i wasn't going to be able to control my anxiety and that was just one more problem to deal with
so basically the more i tried to make my stress go away the more i sent a message to my brain
that anxiety was actually dangerous and that made my brain more anxious now i'm a therapist i know
lots of skills and tricks to decrease anxiety but at that moment nothing i was trying was working
why because i had forgotten that underlying your ability to change and heal and grow and work
through emotions the foundation of that ability is willingness being willing to accept how you
feel in that moment before you try to change anything because i wasn't accepting my feelings
because i was trying to force them to go away i was locking myself into a struggle with my anxiety
instead of a struggle for my values so today we're going to talk about how to know
when to accept what you're feeling and when to try to change how you're feeling and i'll tell you how
i got myself out of the struggle with anxiety and back to calm through a paradoxical approach
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okay so those of you who have watched a lot of my videos have probably seen
that i've made a lot of content about acceptance and about how being willing to feel your emotions
can be really helpful but if you've watched a lot of my videos you also know that i make a ton
of videos about growth and hope and change and decreasing anxiety so it's fair that i
often get asked how do i reconcile this idea of acceptance with change so for example i got this
question from a student i'm a bit confused about how doing exercises to regulate the nervous system
fits in with the previous section where we were encouraged to be willing to
feel emotions these exercises sort of feel like an attempt to get rid of negative emotions
now this is a great question and i think it's a really important question to carefully consider
i think it's really easy to get mixed up when it comes to figuring out how to manage emotions
because it does seem like such a paradox in order to resolve emotions you have to be willing to
accept that they may not resolve what i'm saying is that in order to change how you
feel you need to stop trying to change how you feel i can see how this is confusing
and i'm going to do my best to clear it up so first let's start with what acceptance is not
so first when i use the word acceptance i'm not talking about a permanent thing acceptance is not
a future prediction it's not saying oh i guess i just have to accept that i'm going to be depressed
for the rest of my life it's not okay i just have to feel this anxiety forever and suffer through
it acceptance is just about the present moment it's allowing yourself to be where you're at
it's allowing your sensations and thoughts and emotions to be there because they are there
second acceptance is not a label like oh i'm just an anxious person acceptance is a present moment
experience it's saying right now i am feeling anxiety and it's also acknowledging that emotions
come and go acceptance is not liking or wanting to feel this way acceptance is not agreeing with your
thoughts or feelings it's just saying these are here you can accept someone else's point of view
without having to agree with it you can accept that someone else has an opinion that is different
than yours without agreeing with them i accept that there are people who think the earth is flat
and the moon landing was faked these people exist their opinions exist i don't agree with them but
they do exist emotional acceptance is probably more specific more narrow than how the term
acceptance is generally used acceptance is like a warrior who's been fighting a battle against
a dragon maybe he's been fighting this dragon for a very long time acceptance is the courageous act
of putting down your sword and walking away from the fight you're not losing you're choosing to
walk away i think there's a couple of parts to this the first is that acceptance is pragmatic
it's functional when struggling against emotions isn't functional in the long run so ask yourself
is struggling against my emotions helping me is it working in the long run if struggling against
your emotions isn't working then let's just try willingness as an experiment the big picture goal
is not just to change how you feel but actually to get better at feeling so that we get so good
at feeling emotions that they no longer control us that they don't make our decisions for us
that we get to choose how to live our life instead of giving in or avoiding loud emotions
when we make the choice to accept emotions we free ourselves up to stop struggling against
them and then make conscious intentional choices about our values when we can't choose how we feel
we can choose what actions to take we can try stuff we can experiment with growth and
change and see what is helpful and what isn't but if instead we're locked up we say like
i can't handle feeling anxiety i can't go to school i can't face my boss if it makes me scared
or uncomfortable then all of a sudden emotions have all the power to make decisions in our life
so back to my story when i was out on the road that early morning i realized that i was stuck
in the struggle against anxiety i also realized it wasn't working i had to just take a moment
and notice what i was doing then i was able to say silly emma you know what to do now so i said
anxiety bring it on do your worst i can handle it i can feel my feelings i can feel anxious about
running a youtube channel and a business because that is the cost of doing good in the world i said
bring it on anxiety and i took a moment and i just let myself feel and i cried a little
and then within minutes the anxiety was gone it had set its peace i had listened to it and it no
longer needed to shout at me okay now don't get me wrong this is not the outcome i was demanding
sometimes feelings hang around for a lot longer if you want to practice acceptance you can't just
fake it and hope that your acceptance will help you avoid your feelings but much of the time true
acceptance does help resolve emotions it's a weird paradox so when i teach people to accept emotions
to get willing to feel i say this not because i think all emotions are truthful or helpful or that
we should stay immersed in all emotions is that the foundation of growth and emotional flexibility
is to drop the struggle with emotions first as long as you are devoting all your energy to
fighting your emotions you have no energy to focus on what you do want to be creating with your life
and because emotions can't be forced into anything you're essentially giving them control of your
life so that's the first reason why we start with acceptance because the struggle against emotions
gets in the way of living the life you value but force is not the same as invitation so just
because we can't force emotions to change doesn't mean we can't invite them to change when we open
our heart to fully experience an emotion we make it more likely that it can release and let go
i often use the analogy of a seed within a seed of corn is the potential to change into a corn plant
to swell and create roots and expand and create leaves and a tall stock and then ears of corn
with hundreds or thousands of kernels but if you try to force that seed to sprout right now
tearing it apart to make it change you'll only destroy your kernel and your chances
for growth so with a seed we have to start right where we are we have to start with acceptance
of this present moment experience this is a tiny seed that has the potential for change
so let's take that first step towards change let's get this seed moist let's get it wet then
the next step is to get it into soil and then to allow it to sprout and drop roots and grow shoots
so does accepting that the seed is in seed stage mean that i can't also take action toward change
no it's just that acceptance being where you are has to come first when it comes to moving forward
so you just need to start where you're at i can think of a client who is constantly struggling
against his emotions his feelings of anxiety and panic and the more he felt the more scared he got
the more he tried to stuff them down he'd try not to cry try not to break down as he called it and
because he spent so much time trying not to feel upset he stopped doing the things he cared about
he stopped working in his garden he stopped going to church he stopped getting out of bed
and then one day about a year into therapy he switched to trying acceptance the moment
he said bring it on emotions bring it on anxiety these feelings can't hurt me then
he would start going out into his garden and sometimes he'd feel scared or sad or angry
and he'd say it's okay to feel this but i'm gonna keep working and very gradually he started to feel
better but in the meantime he was also living his values he was working in his garden something he
loved and so acceptance has to lay the foundation of change they aren't contradictory
it's like american football each play starts at the line of scrimmage acceptance means starting
where you are and then during the play the teams make attempts to move the ball towards their goal
if you spent the whole game arguing about where the ball should start you'd never get to play
the game acceptance doesn't mean that you always win but it means that you get to play
and so in your journey towards growth stop wasting your time and energy struggling against emotions i
find myself doing this sometimes trying to use my skills to avoid my feelings and it always leaves
me trapped if you're doing this drop the struggle allow yourself to feel what you're feeling
make space for your thoughts and sensations and that allows you to make the next play to keep
working toward growth then when you're working to decrease anxiety by changing your thoughts or
calming your body or facing your fears you keep working those skills until you find yourself
perhaps getting sidetracked and sneakily falling back into old patterns of fighting anxiety
and at that moment go back to your default setting go back to stage one go back to the seed and say
to your emotions bring it on i can feel and it's okay so when it comes to balancing acceptance
versus change when things aren't working when i find myself feeling stuck or overwhelmed i have
to go back to that default setting of emotional acceptance that's the foundation of growth
i say to myself this is what i'm feeling right now i'm allowed to feel this this
feeling is just a feeling it won't hurt me and when i've allowed that to be there for a while
i can take a look at my values and choose what's the next helpful action to take i hope this is
helpful very grateful to all of you who are taking the time to improve yourselves and
learn and grow and make the world a better place thank you for being here and see you next time
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you