When feelings don't go your way
Do you ever feel controlled by your emotions? Or mad, anxious, upset or sad, but you don’t know why? Or, you know there’s no need to feel those things, but you can’t stop it from happening? And sometimes maybe it takes you over a little bit (or a lot). Find out what to do when your feelings don’t go the way you want them to.
Sometimes anxiety and stress work on their own timeline.
What I mean by that is, you might know, "there's no reason for me to be worrying!", or, "I can't stop thinking about this issue, even though I know I'm fine." Yet you still feel the feelings of anxiety or worry.
To explain my point, I'll share a personal story:
So, I'm super proud of where I've gotten with my relationship to my body. I fricken LOVE my body!! It is beautiful and miraculous. I take care of her and love moving her.
It took me a loooooong time to get to where I'm at, and part of the process was to STOP WEIGHING MYSELF. Like, ever. I stopped equating my body's goodness with a number, and stopped poking, prodding, and analyzing her. I started moving in loving ways, and feeding my body foods that truly nourished.
In order to help the process, when I would go to the doctor, I let them know I'd prefer to not see my weight, because it would just make me "get in my head" about it. I had luck with this until yesterday, I accidentally saw my weight on the printouts from my recent visit. The number was actually a lot lower than I would've thought, but I still felt an anxiety come over me. "What if now I stop doing the things I'm doing that have gotten me there?" "What if somehow by knowing this number I'll lose where I'm at and gain weight?" "What if I can get this number out of my head, and THAT somehow makes me gain weight?!"
You can see that the thoughts are not logical or productive. And entertaining them is participating in OCD. Even knowing all of this, the worry, stress, and anxiety WAS STILL THERE.
So what did I do? Armed with the knowledge, skills, strength, and determination that I have, I did nothing with the feelings (except for feel them).
Sometimes anxiety works on its own schedule. You can know that you're fine, and still feel the feelings. Yes, it's important to work in your beliefs, exercise, get sleep, eat well, get support, and do the work, but even then, things will still come up.
So first and foremost, you have to ACCEPT. Accept the feelings. FEEL them. This is the place to start. Let go of judgements (they're worthless), and figure out what the belief or beliefs are that are fueling the feeling, but ultimately, if you don't accept and allow first, you're stuck. You're frozen in between what is and what you want to be. You're paralyzed in your resistance.
This was a great opportunity for me to learn. After accepting that I was in fact feeling what I was feeling, I had room to ask myself a couple questions.
#1 what beliefs and/or judgements might still be lingering there about weight?
#2 where am I not having faith?
#3 in what ways am doubting myself and expecting the worst?
Armed with these questions, I knew exactly what I needed to do: LOVE. Love myself even more. Remind myself that I've committed to unconditionally loving myself no matter what. Because ultimately what's the fear? The content of the thoughts is not important. The fear is essentially that I won't be loved (because xyz), and that I'll lose love. Essentially it all breaks down to that.
After I accepted the feeling, I also moved TOWARDS the fear.
Sometimes with OCD we become disempowered and let a thought or feeling be more than US. YOU are WAY more than a thought or a feeling. Sometimes, you have to take back the power (there's a delicate way to do this, and done wrong, can actually just be resistance and fighting). Don't run away, but instead look whatever the scary thing is right in the face.
In what ways are you gonna be a badass, and decide that your life keeps going, no matter the thoughts and the feelings? I'm curious to know. Share below, and decide to move from disempowerment to empowerment, KNOWING that you are the co-creator of your life and you have a choice in your actions.