Moment 131: Why You Need To Start Embracing ALL Your Emotions: Dr. Julie Smith

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0:33Society has a role to play in telling us how to manage the emotions we feel when we go through life. On one hand, you have this sentiment where it's like, kind of just shrug it off, ignore it, keep going. Which doesn't seem to be possible. With deep emotions, it actually seems to be that you're just compartmentalising it in the back room. It's going to erode your brain from subconsciously. And the other one is that, you know, the other narrative we hear is to, when you feel strong emotions, to really like embrace them and to like, but that feels like it can be a bit too consuming that I might not get out of bed in the morning if I really sit and wallow in my emotions.

1:07So what is the balance of embracing emotions or kind of shrugging them off and ignoring them? Yeah. And actually, it's quite sort of complex work when you look at sort of what happens in the therapy room. You know, there are people who, when they experience emotion, it's quite unsafe for them because the coping structures that they've had throughout life have been unsafe or dangerous ones. And so, you know, we'll never kind of advise people to just, you know, open the floodgates and allow everything in. It's very sort of careful and there's a process of gearing people up with the tools. And I often talk to people about this when they're thinking about going to something like a trauma therapy, right?

1:46So while that involves going over the trauma, no decent therapist would ever get you to do that without first gearing up with the tools to be able to cope with the emotion that comes up. So, for anyone who feels like they, for example, kind of shut down emotionally and sort of block it out, you want to open up gradually to things and open up gradually to emotions that feel maybe less dangerous or less sort of overwhelming. In small ways, in supported ways as well, so that you know you can manage it and it's not going to completely be overbearing. So, but I guess on a kind of day to day level, lots of people don't even recognize that they're blocking.

2:31They just recognize that whenever they've done something at work that's embarrassing and they feel awful, they just go home and crack open the fridge and they're just looking for anything. Or maybe it's go on Netflix for like six hours and block out the world or gaming or whatever it is. And so often it's hidden in the behaviour, people say I'm fine with emotion, but it's my 50 a day. And you know, it's a kind of, you know, what's the function of this and that and the other. And it's always about looking at it with curiosity, not judgement, but curiosity. Why am I doing that? What's the function of that?

3:09What's it doing for me? And often it'll be some level of safety around something that's uncomfortable. But it's really key that there's no judgement there because it's something that we all do. It's human and that's because our brains are so brilliant at taking over for us and doing something very quickly that we need to make things better. To make us comfortable, to make it feel comfortable is some, even if it's some destructive medication or something. And on that, you know, on that point of we have a behavioural response to some stress or emotion we're feeling and maybe not confronting. I think I did that a lot when people used to ask me how I dealt with running this big global business, 700 employees around the world, when times got really tough.

3:55I mean, on the worst days where there was no money in the bank and paid A was today, those kind of days. I used to, I used to, I think I used to sell interviews and stuff that I used to come up with all this nonsense about how I dealt with it and how I coped with it. But in hindsight, one of the things I came to learn was that only times I ever got sick or my skin ever got bad, where I'm like two days after that, those really high stress moments. So on the surface, I was kind of shrugging off and playing it cool. But my body, as the famous book goes, held the score. My body would tell me, even if my conscious mind wouldn't admit it, my body would tell me.

4:32And then even more recently, I've noticed that in certain situations where I'm pretending everything is fine, I'll notice maybe my eating habits or my other habits get a little bit more extreme and out of control. And I always thought I was invincible. I always thought I was some tough guy. And I think people followed me. Well, I don't know. But I think they saw me as that as being this mentally, perfect, resilient character. But even I've noticed that in my behaviour. And it's been so interesting to just pay attention to it. It's sometimes difficult because especially if you engage in these coping mechanisms, shall we say, a lot.

5:10You might find them harder to notice. But for me, I don't. So when I see any shift in my behaviour, I remember going through a pack where I was just eating crap again. And I thought, why am I doing it? Oh, shit, yeah, because of that thing you've not addressed. That's playing on your mind every time you wake up. And then my skin tells me straight away, I get some break out on my skin. Men are the worst at this. I mean, that's how they say. They're the worst at talking about how they feel. Because the stigmas and stuff. Yeah, certainly. I mean, about a 75 % of my followers are female. But saying that of the male followers that I have, they're among some of the most engaged and asked questions and, you know, come up with new topics and, and respond to you, positively in comments and things.

5:54And so I think there is a shift in the right direction. And I think social media has had a lot to do with that, actually. It's enabled people to start having a conversation that they wouldn't dream of having face -to -face with people. And certainly, I recognised that in when I was just working in my private practice, I wanted to do it around the family. So I couldn't do it all. So I kind of left the NHS and I thought I would just work in like school hours and I'll manage it around that kind of thing. So I thought I would have to advertise. And I never did. And that's because, well, therapy is a really private thing when you're already struggling.

6:33When it works and you get better. And then you're doing fine. And it finishes and you go off about your life. And then you come across someone who's struggling. And they go, that really helped me try that. And so actually, all of my work was based on word of mouth. And I think that's happening more and more that people, once they struggle, work out a way to get through it, then believe in the tools that they learnt, whatever they were, they're willing to share that. And because they didn't want to see other people go through the same thing. And I think that's a bit of the shift of that stigma.

7:09That people are going, oh yeah, I went through that. Or something similar. Go and try that. It really helps. And if people are sad at home and there's something that they know they haven't addressed, that's playing on their mind, that they're thinking about a lot often and trying to just kind of compartmentalize and not. What would you say to those people? Because they might be seeing the behavioral symptoms of not addressing that thing. How do we get it out of the back room? And prevent it from causing us behavioral self -harm? Well, I guess, you know, some people will go to therapy because they'll have access to that.

7:47Others won't even consider it or have access to it for whatever reason. And I think whatever the situation, human contact and human connection is everything. If you can find someone that you trust to talk to. And even, let's say, worst case scenario, you don't have anyone you can trust to talk to. Or you feel so awful about this particular situation that you can't bear to talk to anyone. Write it down. Just use words. Use art, whatever it is. Try and get to grips with what could possibly be going on here. Start reflecting on experiences. Not with judgment, but just looking at what's happening.

8:27What happens here? What happens before that? What leads up to it? That's a lot of what happens in therapy, actually, is people come in with a feeling, oh, felt this awful thing. And then we'll look at, okay, what led up to that? Let's go back a week. And let's work to it. And what made you vulnerable to that? And then equally, what came after? What did you do? Did it make things worse? Did it help? A lot of those things that we end up doing habitually are the things that work instantly. And they're addictive because they work instantly, right? It's going to the fridge or grabbing the wine or whatever it is that...

9:00They're addictive because they give us instant relief. But in the long term, they keep us stuck. So they're the things that then get us in that cycle of. The next time you have that feeling, you feel even more need for that safety behaviour or that blocking behaviour because it worked so quickly last time. And actually, the things that tend to work in the long term are hardest in the moment, like sitting with it and feeling it and using skills to get yourself through it.

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