hi everyone Emma macadam here today we're gonna be talking about how to get better at feeling
so that means increasing your capacity to feel emotions the ability to experience both joyful
and painful emotions without needing to escape avoid or act on them and this is a skill that's
been transformational for me and many of my clients and it's called willingness okay real
quick before we get started I just want to remind you I've got a couple of courses on
udemy.com that help improve mental health so I've got coping skills for mental health and
I've got change of brand at ten alternatives to medication to improve depression and anxiety so
the length of those is in the description check those out if you want to learn more about how
to improve your mental health okay so back to the skill of a willingness so in this video I'm going
to invite you to do something that's completely safe but a little bit uncomfortable and that's
to hold it your breath so we're going to do this to explore whether willingness can help
you sit with uncomfortable emotions so first off I want you to find a timer you can use
your phone timer or one on the internet but what I want you to do is get this timer out
and I want you to hold your breath as long as you can so when you're ready pause this
video hold your breath as long as you can write down how long you lasted and then come on back
willingness means the ability to sit with and experience what you're currently experiencing
is the ability to be where you're at to feel what you feel and to expand your heart to be able to
feel your emotions whether they're comfortable or painful so first we're gonna talk a little
bit about willingness and then we're gonna do a little exercise from the book get out of
your mind and into your life by Steven Hayes so research has demonstrated that people who can't
make room for their uncomfortable feelings have a very hard time with self-control because they
feel the need to escape control or suppress painful emotions they often resort to anger
blame drug use or other avoidance techniques that in the long run they end up making them
pretty unhappy and disconnected from life now on the other hand practicing willingness can help you
strengthen your emotional muscles so you get more skilled at feeling and this makes heavy or painful
emotions feel lighter it's an approach to emotion management that's sustainable because over time
things get better and better instead of harder and harder so let's compare avoidance and willingness
real quick when painful emotions come up avoidance says try not to think about it distract yourself
and the willingness says notice what it feels like and make some space for it avoidance labels things
that are painful or uncomfortable as bad saying this is awful or I don't like this the willingness
doesn't judge emotions it describes them it acts like a curious scientist and explores what those
emotions feel like and willingness brings your attention back to the present saying I can be
here and now avoidance says I shouldn't feel this way what's the matter with me and willingness says
I do feel this way but I will choose my actions avoidance is all about escaping avoiding and
shutting down and willingness is about being curious and describing and exploring now you're
gonna hold your breath again but don't start yet I want you to listen to these instructions
first we're going to how willingness can change the experience for you so this time when you do
the exercise and the urge to breathe it becomes stronger I want you to do the following so I want
you to notice exactly where the urge to breathe begins and ends in your body locate exactly where
that urge is now this is going to be a little bit of an uncomfortable sensation so we're gonna
practice willingness with this discomfort see if you can allow that feeling to be precisely
there and at the same time keep on holding your breath so this is like turning your willingness
dial all the way up just feel the feeling and do not breathe pretend this is a special opportunity
to feel something you rarely feel now another step of willingness is noticing any thoughts that come
up and just gently thinking your mind for the thought without being controlled by that thought
so watch out for the sneaky thoughts that can quickly lead you to breathing before you decide
to breathe after all who is in charge of your life you or your word machine look around inside
of yourself you're feeling this strong intense pressure to breathe but look around and see if
there's some other emotions that are there to see if you can make room for the different types of
emotions that are going on inside of you and do the same thing with your sensations so survey
your entire body and notice that in addition to that urge to breathe your body also has other
sensations and continues to function so if you're feeling a really intense pressure in your chest
or a lot of pain in your chest you might notice that pain and then also just notice what your
feet feel like then stay with the commitment to hold your breath as long as you can as the urge
to breathe becomes stronger imagine that you're continuously in creating this urge on purpose that
you can replicate this urge in your imagination and with every pain in your chest with every worry
that you might have maybe you're thinking oh my gosh I might pass out or whatever instincts you
have to breathe shift it from something unwelcome that's being visited upon you to something that
you're creating on purpose just for the sake of feeling what it feels like this new urge is
essentially the same but this time you're making it see how that feels different so for example one
time I was working in the wilderness I'm working with these troubled youth in a youth group we're
out in the desert and it was like 110 degrees it's July in Utah it's like a hundred and ten
degrees we are sitting and sweating all day but we had this special ceremony planned for the evening
called the sweat lodge ceremony and we were going to create a very hot environment inside of a
willow shelter and sit with it and the thought of doing an activity that was like really hot after
a whole day of being hot seemed awful so what I did to help myself be able to do the sweat lodge
that night with these kids because there was an important part of their graduation ceremony
also it was a way to acknowledge the really hard things that they had done during their eight or
ten or twelve weeks out in the desert so we didn't want to skip it but we were also kind of dreading
it so what I did to encourage myself to do this hard thing was very physically uncomfortable and
emotionally uncomfortable was I just imagined that all I wanted to do was to feel hot and
during the day throughout the day I imagined I was like relaxing in a hot bath which is one
way of being really hot that's actually enjoyable so I kind of tricked my brain into thinking I I'm
creating this feeling of heat I'm choosing this feeling of heat I'm choosing this feeling of you
know being sweaty and it's so relaxing is what I told myself and that made it so that instead of
me walking around me like oh my gosh it's so hot I need to escape this I can't handle the thought of
doing a sweat lodge this sounds horrible you know that mental dialogue of I can't handle it instead
of that I created the belief in my mind that hey this is something I want this is something I'm
choosing this is something I am going to willingly experience I can't say that I said like I don't
think I ever said like and willingness isn't about liking a sensation because that's a judgement
it's about being with the sensation whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable so went through the
whole day hundred and ten degrees in July then in the evening as the sun's getting ready to go down
it's still really hot we do the sweat lodge it was wonderful difficult experience and then as
we come out of the sweat lodge that night the Sun has set and it's cooling down and you get
out of the sweat lodge and the air outside feels amazingly cool it was probably like 95 degrees and
it felt so cool and refreshing and your whole body just feels amazing because you just asked it to do
something hard and you did it anyway so that's an example of pretending that you're creating
those uncomfortable sensations for a purpose and when you do that they don't seem so awful number
seven you're gonna feel some discomfort can you notice and describe those feelings thoughts and
sensations without needing to act on them right away now we're gonna start this exercise I'm
gonna leave the screen up on the screen for two minutes and you can read through it as you hold
your breath so you can glance at this list and remind yourself of the things to do while really
feeling what it feels like to want to breathe while not breathing you're ready to see if it's
possible to control your behavior which is holding your breath by learning to accept and make room
for your thoughts and feelings so go ahead and pull out your timer and get ready to start take
a deep breath and hold it as long as you can when you're finished write down how long do you held it
you
now the purpose of this exercise was not to hold your breath longer so it doesn't actually really
matter how long you held it but rather the purpose was to experiment with what it felt like to want
to breathe but not breathe what was that like for you were you able to get a small sense of
what it feels like to sit with painful or uncomfortable emotions without needing to
act immediately to make them go away initially most people feel like they want to escape that
feeling of not breathing so did that aversion tend to come and go and did it go up and down
how did your mind try to persuade you to breathe before you really had to what was the sneakiest
thing your mind did for a lot of people their brain is convincing them all this is a silly
activity or I don't really need to try or you know it's no big deal no one's gonna notice now
do you see any possible implications that this simple exercise might have for how your life has
been going especially in any area that you've been struggling with when we feel uncomfortable
emotions our strongest desire is to escape and avoid them but learning to sit with emotions
sensations and thoughts without needing to escape them is a powerful skill that can help
with depression anxiety and other mental health areas willingness allows you to feel more peace
in the present moment and be calm enough to find solutions in the future I'm gonna make some more
videos on willingness so keep your eye on this channel if you'd like to learn more and please
share this video you never know who might benefit from it thank you for watching and take care