One day I was at lunch with one of my friends who happens to be a therapist.
We had previously worked at the same treatment center and she started to tell me about how
she was struggling with feelings of burnout. She mentioned a case that had been weighing on her
heavily, it involved a client who had gone through a lot of trauma in her life and my friend told me
how working with her client's situation had impacted her personally. She was feeling worn out,
anxious, and stuck, and at some point in the conversation I just mentioned how it sounded
like she was going through secondary trauma. This is a term that another therapist would understand
to mean: Having a traumatic response to someone else's traumatic experiences. We chatted a little
bit more, but we couldn't go into much depth due to the, you know, constraints of time and
the fact that the Mcdonald's Play Place isn't the best place to go deeply into our emotions.
We were there with our kids. I swear. The next day, she texted me and said something along the lines
of 'our conversation yesterday was so helpful, it makes so much sense why I've been feeling this way,
I had been so wrapped up in work that I didn't even realize that I was experiencing trauma in
my own way. Now I know what kind of steps I need to take to start to work through it.'
I was, you know, happily shocked because I didn't do anything special. I didn't use any sophisticated
therapeutic techniques, I didn't even help her process through her emotions that much.
All I did was throw out a word for what she was experiencing, secondary trauma. For her, that was
enough to get a toehold and begin the process of resolving that problem herself. A few months
later she had done some work, made some changes, and rediscovered her joy and passion in work that had
previously been buried under unresolved emotions. Most people, most of the time, are somewhat aware
of emotions, but they don't define or explore them or much less even name them. When we don't
know what we're feeling, we tend to be reactive and impulsive in ways that mess up our life.
When our emotions are vague, nebulous, unexplored sensations, when when we feel something but we
don't know what it is or we aren't sure where it comes from, we have little power to change it.
When we don't know what we're feeling, we tend to be reactive, and impulsive, in ways that mess
up our life. We can start improving our lives by learning to identify and name what we're feeling.
It's really simple, but it makes a big difference. The reality is that we can change our life with
how we use our words. In this video the first of 30 skills in my emotion processing course,
you're going to learn how to get better at feeling by getting better at naming your emotions.
This video is sponsored by Better Help, where you can get professional,
affordable, online counseling for around 65$ a week. So check out the link in the description for 10%
off your first month. When we're not sure what we're feeling but we know that it's uncomfortable,
then we tend to act in ways that are impulsive and self-defeating.
So for example, you just got home from a long day of work, maybe you had some frustrating meetings,
some conflict with a co-worker, and a lot of you know running around. You're tired and you're edgy.
What is the first thing that you do? Do you shove some food in your mouth? Do you turn on the tv
to escape? Do you snap at your husband? Write about your typical responses to emotions in the workbook.
What are the positive and negative consequences of these behaviors? What kind of difficulties are you
facing in your life? How might your life be better if you had better ways to resolve your emotions?
Answer these questions in your course workbook, or if you're on YouTube, go ahead and write it in
the comments or in your journal. Oh, and by the way, here's your second exercise. There is some very
good evidence on the benefits of keeping a journal and writing down emotions. It has been
shown to change brain chemistry, improve emotion processing, and even resolve trauma. Now, just in
case you didn't know, this video is section 1 of my 30 part course on emotion processing.
You're going to need a notebook or journal to work through some of the exercises and if you'd
like to purchase the course and the workbook you can do that in the link in the description,
but I'm going to publish the 30 main skills right here on youtube for free, so you also could just
write this down or even leave your answer in the comments below. Okay, so back to the question, how do
you tend to react when you're feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? In this 30 day program,
one of the ways we're going to defeat mindless, emotional, and behavioral reactivity, and build
emotional resilience, is with skill number one: "Name It to Tame It". We're also going to expand your
emotional tool belt, the range of skills that you have to work with emotions. So how do we do this? If
this were the seafood processing plant mentioned in the intro? This stage would be looking at what's
in the trucks and naming it. Is it salmon, is it halibut, is it lobster? For us we'd say, "what
am I feeling? Is it anger? Is it annoyance? Is it Sadness?" When we use words for our emotions we can
feel a greater sense of clarity. How we use our words can help us have greater power over our
emotions. We can create greater clarity and power by making our thoughts more concrete. So if you're
having a hard time figuring out what to do with a thought, a problem ,or an emotion, the first step
to process your emotions is to take the time to notice, name, and express your thoughts and feelings,
share them with others or write them down to get more power over them. Now, as you do these exercises
you may be surprised at how often you're feeling something, but you're not identifying that feeling.
When we don't know what we're feeling it leaves us helpless to act. When we do identify and express
our emotions in writing or speech it gives us the ability to slow things down, develop some insight,
and then choose a course of action that lines up with our values, you know, the kind of person
that we want to be. If, on the other hand, we act impulsively to suppress or react to our emotions,
then our life begins to feel out of control. Now, let's talk about how this works in the brain.
So to speak very simply of the brain, your brain has a rational thinking part. To simplify this we
call this the upstairs brain and this upstairs brain can think through problems and can plan
and can make good choices. And then your brain has a more emotionally reactive part. So this is the
feeling part, the downstairs brain. So this is the limbic system or the survival part of our brain.
This is where the fight-flight-freeze response happens and this is the impulsive, emotional part
of our brain. Now both of these parts are good, but when our brain is stuck
in the downstairs brain it can be hard to think clearly and we're often more reactive, but when
we give our name to our emotions it's like we're connecting those two parts of the brain together
so that they can work together to solve problems. So in life this looks like using "I feel"
statements. An "I feel statement" is simple, you just say or write "I feel" followed by an emotion word. It
can be helpful to use a list of emotion words or one of these emotion check-in or checkout charts
which I've attached to the resources below on the course page. Now, this is really simple,
and it's really powerful. It's probably one of the most common interventions I use in therapy, simply
assigning my clients to pay attention to and write down a name for their emotions and this can
be enough to help many people really kick start the healing process because deep down you have an
inner wisdom that knows what to do with emotions when you sit with them long enough to notice them.
You may be surprised to see that as you notice and express an emotion it naturally dissipates
on its own much of the time. Now real quick, let's talk about a couple of ways that "I feel" statements
can get you know, twisted into something that's not helpful. So the first way is saying something like
this: 'I feel like the world is a terrible place, I feel like everyone is out to get me, I feel
like a terrible human being'. Now notice, these are not feelings, these are our thoughts. There was no
emotion words here. The first word after feel needs to be an emotion word. Not "I feel like" or "I feel
that". So let's get back to what an emotion is. "I feel worried, I feel scared, I feel disappointed,
I feel regret", these are emotion words. So make sure that when you are expressing your emotions, you
use an emotion word in the sentence. This sounds simple, but if you watch yourself, most people are
not very good at this and this is the key to emotion processing and emotion regulation. The
second problem I run into a lot is a problem with our English language. It confuses "I am" with "I feel".
So for example, if you say "I am depressed", you've turned what you're feeling into your identity,
you create with your words a reality that gives you little to no power to change, but if you say
"I feel sad right now", or "I'm having feelings of sadness right now", that describes something
you're experiencing, but it puts you in this role of the experiencer. So when you shift to noticing
yourself as a person who is having feelings, it gives you some ability to act. So try to say "I feel
sad" instead of "I am sad" or "I feel hopeless" instead of "I am depressed", and just pay attention to your
words as you work through this course. The type of words that we use matter. If we use words of truth
and kindness as we describe ourselves and others, we're going to create strength and power. If we use
words of fear, or distortion, by twisting or exaggerating the truth, then we tend to create
helplessness. The third problem with expressing emotions is being vague. So research shows that
the more specific we are with our words for our emotions, the more power we have to resolve them.
I often encourage my clients to use an emotion chart to increase their emotional vocabulary. You
could also try typing in what you're feeling into a thesaurus to see if there's a better way to put
a word to what you're feeling. So, are you feeling angry or irritated or furious or disappointed or
annoyed or bitter? The more specific you are, the more power you'll have to resolve your emotions.
Okay, so here's your homework for this week. If you're watching this on YouTube, you don't have
access to all the course resources, but there is a free download you can use. So go to my website and
download my free mood tracker. The link is in the description. Track your emotions every day for one
month. You could use the attached emotion tracker in this workbook or use a mood tracking app, and then
plan a regular time to do it and then set a timer on your phone. Each time the alarm goes off, write
down what emotions you're feeling. It can be really easy to notice the big loud or painful emotions
but it often takes more effort to notice the subtle ones. You may feel more than one emotion
at once and this is normal, write down as many as you can notice. Learning to notice and feel
a couple of emotions at once is going to help you get better at feeling and live a healthier
and happier life and then in your notebook go ahead and set three goals for this course.
I've made a short video on setting helpful goals, so you may want to watch that first.
Thank you for watching, and I know you are off to a great start.