110 | Why Quick Fixes Won't Help When You Feel Overwhelmed

We've been talking about spiritual bypassing and how it keeps you from learning to manage your emotions well. Quick fixes are something that doesn't help either. (Sometimes we use spiritual bypassing as a quick fix)

In this episode, I'm talking about why we gravitate towards quick fixes, why they don't work and what to do instead so that you can embrace the process of self-awareness and growth needed for emotional well-being.

Join the Peace-Filled Mind group coaching program here: https://latoyaedwards.net/group

Related Episode:
107 | The Real Reason Your Faith Isn't Helping You Manage Your Emotions
108 | The Perfection Trap: How Trying to Be the Perfect Christian Keeps You From Managing Your Emotions
109 |  The Hidden Problem of Ignoring and Suppression Your Emotions

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We have become a society of people that don't like to wait. We want our things right away, okay. We want Amazon Prime packages delivered sometime the same day, right? We want our food fast with the drive-thru. We want everything quick, fast and in a hurry.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Well, you know what? The same thing happens when it comes to managing your emotions. So many times I talk with people and they're just like I just need to feel better right now. And I get it. I was just like that when I was walking through like really, really hard times, like just a few years and like a decade ago. Okay, I understand this need for a quick fix, but here's the thing, right, there's no such thing as a quick fix, especially when it comes to something as complex as emotions. Dealing with your emotions, managing your emotions, healing you know from certain things that are in your path, there is no such thing as a quick fix. And so today I wanted to talk with you about why I think quick fixes are a myth and what you can do instead when it comes to navigating and figuring out how to deal with the emotions that come up, that are often big and overwhelming when we are walking through hard times. Are you looking to manage your emotions and calm your mind, so that you don't feel overwhelmed by all the hard times going on right now. Would you like to find true rest and peace in God and a little joy in your weariness? What about understanding why you feel things so deeply, especially when you're stressed? If so, you're in the right place.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Welcome to the Peace-Filled Mind podcast, your go-to resource for practical tips, real talk and encouragement. I'm your host, latoya Edwards, life and mindset coach and, most of all, a woman who's walked through pain and suffering just like you. No matter what you're currently facing in life or how you've dealt with things in the past. I'm here to help you find peace, joy and hope again. Pop in those earbuds and let's get to it.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Are you tired of constantly searching for quick fixes to manage your emotions during hard times? Are you overwhelmed by the never-ending cycle of temporarily feeling better, followed by a return of the same thing, and sometimes it's even worse when it comes back? It's really frustrating, isn't it? You try everything distractions, numbing right, more Bible study, less Bible study, doing more, doing less, just looking for a quick escape from the overwhelm and the anguish and the turmoil that you were feeling emotionally. A quick escape from the overwhelm and the anguish and the turmoil that you were feeling emotionally. But deep down, you probably know that this is a really superficial answer, right, that it's not actually getting to the root of your problems, but you're still stuck in a cycle of up and down and around and around and around, right, and what you really really want is some way to find long lasting peace of mind when you're going through these hard things.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Well, if this is you, I want to invite you to check out the Peaceful Mind group coaching program, because inside this program, I am teaching you all about how to manage your emotions, how to build resilience, and it's not full of quick fixes. Okay, I'm very open and honest. There are no quick fixes inside this program, but what I am gonna do is I'm gonna give you the knowledge and the tools and the support so that you can develop your own plan, your own kind of toolbox that you can go to when you're struggling, because the more that you do these healthy habits and these positive coping mechanisms, the easier it becomes to get back to that point of peace that you're looking for, right? So if you are looking for learning how to be more aware of your emotions and the effect that they're having to embrace vulnerability, to develop these health and coping strategies, right? I want to invite you to come check out this program, right? You can say goodbye to quick fixes, right, because those are only temporary and you're going to be able to say hello to lasting peace of mind and emotional wellbeing by joining our group program. So head on over to my site, latoyaedwardsnet slash group, and you will find out all the details there and you can come and join us in the program. I can't wait to get to work with you, all, right.

Speaker 1: 4:01

So I was out the other day with my little guys they are currently eight and four and it was so funny because we had to wait in line for a little while and my four year old and all of his four year oldness goes. It's taking forever, and y'all, we literally been waiting in line for about two minutes. Right, it had not taken forever. And y'all, we had literally been waiting in line for about two minutes. Right, it had not taken forever. But to him it was taking forever because he does not like waiting, he's not used to waiting, he's used to having things pretty much like instantaneously, and I thought you know what I am the same way sometimes, like. I am like that when things are hard, when things don't make sense, when I'm tired, I just want it to be done, and I want it to be done right now. But that's not the reality of the world we live in, right? So I want to talk today about, like, this myth of quick fixes and kind of what you can do instead.

Speaker 1: 4:54

But I was wanting to start by just looking at this question of like, why, like? Why do we want quick fixes? Like? Why is that usually like the first thing that we go to? Why are we such a culture of instant gratification? Right, and honestly, we're wired like. We are wired to seek comfort and relief. Right, as quickly as possible, and it's a good thing. Like, when you put your hand on the stove, that's still hot and you have that pain, right, you want to quickly get relief from that discomfort, right, you want to quickly get relief from that discomfort, right? You want to pull your hand off really quick. You don't want to be like, oh, something's off, something's off as you're burning the skin off your hand. Okay, right, it's for protection. Right, but we've gone beyond that you know need for protection to where we just want quick fixes all the time for all the things.

Speaker 1: 5:45

All right, and I think a lot of this comes from, like society, like we are always looking at how to do things quicker, faster, better, more efficiency, more efficiently, you know, cheaper, right, that's what we're doing, that's those are our goals. And, my goodness, social media. It is all about the instant gratification, right, we want that like, we want that comment, we want that share, we want that heart right away. And like, if I don't have enough comments on my post within two seconds of posting, like, what's going on? What's wrong? What does that say about me? Okay, right, we want our food fast. Like, we have, like, instant communication. Right, we don't no longer have to wait for letters to go through the mail. No-transcript, and sometimes that has a place and it's great, and sometimes it does harm.

Speaker 1: 6:42

And this is like, no, never more true than when it comes to your emotions. Okay, a lot of times, what I have seen and I went through this myself for a time is that we are looking for quick fixes for, like, our emotional discomfort. Okay, we go somewhere and there's a little bit of tension right in a conversation and we want to figure out how to get rid of that tension really, really fast. Right, I'm just going to agree with you. So the tension goes away. I'm going to argue as best as I can make the tension go away. I'm just going to avoid it all together to make the tension go away.

Speaker 1: 7:14

That's how we live our lives, okay, but listen, fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, like all of those things, are just part of being human. It is part of how God made us right to have all of these experiences and these emotions. And, like any quick fix that you find is going to be temporary. You're going to temporarily have relief from whatever you're experiencing, but it's not going to go away. It's going to always be there and the longer that you avoid it, the worse it's going to become. Right, and I think we lose sight of this because the things that we see right in books, in movies, on TV, right, we see things happen really, really fast. We're getting everybody's highlight reel.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Oh, I started here and now I'm here, right, even here on this podcast, right in that women finding God, you guys get the benefit of hindsight. So when I share my story, right, I might say well, I used to be here, but now look at how great things are how much better things are on this side, and it seems like it was instant, right, it seems like it was short, but it wasn't like it's decades of work, decades of making mistakes, decades of looking for help right, decades and decades and decades to get to the place where I am, and even though I feel like I'm in a much better spot than I was even like five years ago, I still have growing to do. I still have room to grow. There's still, you know, more things that I can accomplish.

Speaker 1: 8:39

So we need to be really, really careful about reinforcing, right, this idea of instant solutions. Okay, so if you are anywhere and somebody's gonna tell you that they can help you fix you know, help you get over whatever's making you angry, right, in like five days or less, please walk away. Right, they're like it doesn't happen. It takes time, it takes hard work, it takes dedication, and you're going to get some things right and then you're going to mess up some things like it's a process, and so we have to let go of this need and this desire to have things fixed quickly, because you shortchange yourself when you are always looking for something quick and fast, all right. So I want to just encourage you to just take a moment and think right, are you the kind of person that tends to seek out quick fixes, like? I mean, if you are, you're in great company, because I think we all tend to do that right in some ways to perform.

Speaker 1: 9:29

But I want to just really invite you to think through, right, what was the experience like when you got that quick fix? Was it what you were expecting? Did it last? Did it work? Okay, well, what was that like for you? Because if you're anything like me, you're probably going to say, yeah, I tried that and it worked. I thought it worked, but it really didn't, and in fact, it probably made things a little bit worse. All right, because I want you to recognize, like, what are the patterns of things that are going on in your life? Right, so that you can begin to deal with these.

Speaker 1: 10:01

So now let's talk about why these quick fixes don't work, all right. So, number one they're superficial. Okay, quick fixes are just dealing with and addressing the thing that they can like. That's right on the top, right on the surface. It's right on the top, right on the surface, and when it comes to emotions, that is usually not the actual problem. Ok, I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1: 10:31

I, for a really long time, I was angry, right, I was just mad about a lot of stuff. I had a lot of hard things in my childhood, a lot of hard things in my teens, and I was mad. And so, on the surface, I just needed to deal with my anger. Right, I need to stop being so angry. And I would have been fine. No, okay, two decades later, right after doing a lot of mindset work and emotion work and counseling and therapy, do you know what was at the root of my anger? It was fear. It was fear of being abandoned. And as long as I focused on anger and dealing with my anger, I would have never gotten down to this fear of abandonment. I would have never gotten there because I was looking at the wrong thing. So, yes, I may have temporarily, right, calmed my anger down, or I might have even, like, resolved my anger and gotten control of those things. But something else was going to pop up, and it did, because I didn't actually get. I hadn't gotten to the root yet. I needed to keep working, okay.

Speaker 1: 11:29

And so, a lot of times, what these superficial solutions look like are just ways to either distract you from what you're feeling, what's going on, or to numb yourself, okay. So I talk about like, over something, right, fill in the blank, over eating, over shopping, over exercising, over sleeping. Okay, it's these things that we do to focus our attention away from really what's bothering us and what's causing us stress. Okay, and all this does is just the lazy, inevitable, right, it's all that stuff still there when you come back to it, like when you're done shopping, when you're done drinking, when you're done whatever it is you're doing, it's all still there waiting for you, Right, and it doesn't help.

Speaker 1: 12:03

So the second thing that we see of why quick fixes don't work is because they mask the problem. So, instead of getting to the root of the problem right, that underlying issue it just masks the problem, right? I'll go back to my anger thing. I was like, oh, I'm fine, I dealt with my anger, I went to counseling, I got some anger management skills techniques, I know what to do, I'm fine, I don't need to deal with anything else. Wrong, there was a lot of stuff underneath that anger that I needed to go through to get down to that fear of abandonment that I was experiencing, to get down to that fear of abandonment that I was experiencing, okay. So ignoring and suppressing emotions doesn't help you in the long run, because they always come back, and they come back with a vengeance. Okay, like my anger came back with a vengeance. Okay, I was taking it out on my children that had nothing to do with any of the things that I was upset about. Okay, it came back and it came back like 10 times as strong. So we need to be careful about masking the real issue, right, because it's gonna bite you in the booty when it comes back.

Speaker 1: 13:12

The third reason why it doesn't work is like there's actually no results. Okay, you're not actually accomplishing anything by seeking after these quick fixes, right. Like there's no long lasting change None, not possible. You know why? Because true emotional growth, right, learning to manage your emotions and be resilient, and all of that requires introspection. Like you have to actually sit down and take a look at yourself to really see what's there. You've got to be aware of what you're feeling, of what it looks like, of what it feels like in your body, of what your behaviors are, right, and all of that takes intentional effort over time, okay, so that quick fix often will give us the sense that we're in control of something, right. But when that thing comes back and looks a little bit differently, or when something stronger than that comes back, you don't know how to cope because you didn't actually take the time right to do the work and you're going to risk escalating.

Speaker 1: 14:15

I talked about this before, right, how my anger came back with a vengeance. Anytime that you don't deal with something right, it just seems to get stronger and stronger and stronger. And by the time all of that came back at me, I was extremely depressed, I was extremely anxious, right, I was like, chronically stressed out. It was affecting every area of my life. Like it wasn't just a behavioral thing right, it was emotional, it was mental, it was physical, it was spiritual right, it was emotional, it was mental, it was physical, it was spiritual right, it was affecting every aspect of my life because I didn't want to deal with it.

Speaker 1: 14:48

And the final thing that I want to share with you is that these quick fixes, they really keep you from growing, they keep you stuck. Okay, because, like, you're not actually dealing with anything. If you're not dealing with it, you're not going to grow, you're not going to heal, right, you're not going to learn about yourself, you're going to not be able to develop empathy for people that are going through what you're going through, because you've done the work to understand. Right, you're missing all of that because you're after this quick fix. So quick fixes don't work, right, they cause more harm usually.

Speaker 1: 15:20

So what should you do instead? I'm glad you asked. I have some answers for you. So, number one you should Look at like your emotions on multiple levels. Right, address yourself as a whole person. Okay, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, holistically. Okay, you are not just, right, a heart walking around. Right, you're not just your emotions. You have a mind. Right, you have a physical body that you need to take care of. Right, you have a soul. Right, you are spirit. You have to nurture and take care of all aspects of yourself. And so when you are looking at ways to deal with your emotions, keep that in mind. Right, you need all the tools in your toolbox that you can find. So it's not just you know, spiritual growth practices. That's not going to cut it alone. But you know also, like counseling is not going to cut it alone either, like you've got to address every part of yourself if you want to be well.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Number two is that you have got to develop self-awareness, you have got to know yourself, you've got to observe yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, your choices, the results of all those things. And it begins by being able to just acknowledge and name your emotions without judging Right, I'm worried, I feel betrayed, I'm exhausted, whatever it is. Just this is what it is, because when you do that, you can do this next step, which is acceptance and validation. Ok, you can accept and validate your emotions, even the ones that you, like, are really uncomfortable about. Ok, and we, a lot of times, we look for external, like validation and external acceptance. Well, if so-and-so says it's OK, then it's OK. Listen, the only person that needs to validate what you're experiencing is you. The fact that you say I am experiencing frustration right now, it validates the fact that you're feeling frustrated. Be comfortable with accepting whatever it is that you're feeling. Okay, all of your emotions are valid and they are going to give you a lot of important information about what you're dealing with right, what you need, what you don't need.

Speaker 1: 17:38

Okay, all of that is important if you're going to learn how to manage your emotions. Well, you also need to have a growth mindset. Okay, a growth mindset is so important because it looks at challenges and hard things as opportunities to learn and to grow. Okay, so, oh, like I had a setback or a misstep, that's okay. What can I learn from this experience and take forward with me for the next time? Right, you also need to develop coping strategies, right, a quick fix does not teach you how to cope. It does not teach you how to manage and process right and move forward from whatever you're experiencing. You also have to, like, build this muscle called resilience, okay, and you know how you do that. All the things we already talked about, right.

Speaker 1: 18:28

The more that you can have hopey, hopey, healthy coping mechanisms, right, and these strategies for dealing with life and your emotions, the more resilient you're going to be, because resilience is not at all about avoiding what you're feeling or avoiding what you're experiencing. It's not about ignoring it or pushing it down. No, resilience is about bouncing back and bouncing back better. Okay, that is what resilience is about and that's what we want. It's gonna allow you to be. Have self-compassion, right. Have compassion for yourself. Be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself right, give yourself permission to be human and make mistakes, and all right.

Speaker 1: 19:08

What else can you do? Look for support, look for connection, look for community. You're gonna hear me say this a lot. You need to get whatever help and support you need Okay, medically, emotionally, spiritually, physically, like counselors, doctors, mentors, friends, family, whatever you need. You need to get that, because it's hard work managing your emotions when you're going through hard things and you don't want to do it alone, like that's not what God wants us to do. He doesn't want us to be isolated and lone wolves. So you've got to build your support system, you've got to build your community, okay.

Speaker 1: 19:48

And so when you're able to do all of these things, you really can see that quick fixes, really they aren't it. They're not the answer, they're not the solution, right, because they don't actually accomplish anything. It's a lot like spiritual bypassing, right? I talked about how we often default to spiritual bypassing as like a bandaid for our problems. Right, it's a quick fix. I could just pray, I could just pick up that Bible study right, because we want something that we feel like is accomplishing something, but if it's not actually getting to the root of your problem, it's not helping you.

Speaker 1: 20:20

So learn how to identify when you are chasing after a quick fix, right, and remember all of these things that you can do that are going to actually give you long lasting change, long lasting peace. All right, it's worth the time. It's worth the effort. You are worth the time and you are worth the effort that it's going to take for you to manage your emotions well and to be able to have just peace of mind and rest and strength and hope when you are walking through life. I hope you were blessed and encouraged by today's episode. I would love to hear from you. The best way to do that is to leave a five-star rating and review on your podcast player, sharing what you loved or found helpful about today's episode. This helps other women find the show and it's a huge blessing to me. Thank you so much for joining me today.