Rethink Your Rules
Dr Jenny Hobbs is a practicing physician with ADHD, a wife, and a mom to differently wired kids. She combines candid, insightful conversations with practical tools to help you enjoy better relationships at home, at work, and with yourself.
Rethink Your Rules
The Power and Paradox of Emotion: Surprising Truths For Working Moms (Part 2)
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Join Dr. Jenny Hobbs as she continues with 5 more surprising, paradoxical truths about your emotions and how to handle them.
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Navigating Emotions
Speaker 1Welcome to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD . A fresh perspective on relationships , success and happiness for high achieving moms .
Speaker 2Hey , there it's , jenny . Welcome back to another episode of Rethink your Rules . This week I am going to be doing kind of a part two that picks up where we left off last week . So , if you'll recall , last week I talked to you about five paradoxical truths about emotions and emotional regulation . So these are things that seem kind of counterintuitive or you might not expect , but are actually very true about navigating the world of our emotions , and I actually have five more for a total of 10 . So I showed some constraint . I just did five last week to keep it a little bit more manageable and we're going to do five more this week . The ones this week actually focus even a bit more on some practical truths that you can use in the moment when emotions feel really overwhelming or confusing . So these are some of my favorites and again , just like last week , just kind of listen along and notice which ones are things you haven't thought about before or perspectives that you think might be helpful for you , and maybe focus on a couple of these this week as you notice big emotions coming up in yourself or family members . Okay , so number one for this week , which is number six overall , is emotions can feel like they will kill you , but they will not .
Speaker 2So the idea here is that your primitive brain , which has been under evolution and has been around for a very long time thousands of years , longer than your higher level thinking brain okay , this primitive brain has been designed over many years to have a heightened fight or flight or freeze response to imminent danger , and that's a good thing , right . It was very important to protect us in the past . Response to imminent danger , and that's a good thing , right . It was very important to protect us in the past and it still could be important if you are truly in danger , like actually being chased by someone or something that may kill you , right , actually starving to death , things like that . However , our modern life creates many situations that may feel similar to what has previously triggered our brain with this strong response , but are not actually the same . So maybe you have plenty of money and plenty of food , but you're worried that you may run out of food if something in the future happens right .
Speaker 2Or maybe you get your feelings hurt because you get rejected by someone which , thousands of years ago , being rejected by the group would have meant that you're out on your own and could be killed by a wild animal without anybody to help defend you yourself . So your primitive brain is like oh my gosh , you're rejected by another person . This is an emergency right and goes into this strong fight or flight response , thinking that this emotion of rejection is actually going to kill you . But it's not necessarily true in this day and age that being rejected by another human being is going to result in your death is actually a life-threatening event , right ? Kind of like they say you won't die of embarrassment . Right , that's actually true , you're not going to die from embarrassment .
Speaker 2But the theory is that our primitive brains have , over the years , kind of developed this belief that rejection , embarrassment , anxiety , things like that are associated with life-threatening events , most likely because they were life-threatening at some point in the past , right ? So if you think about it in that way , when you have a negative emotion it can feel as physically painful as if you are going to die , because your brain is kind of getting these signals kind of mixed up with one another and once you're in that state it's very hard for your brain to actually sort of calm down and be logical and recognize that the event that's happening is not directly impacting your safety . And in most cases in the modern era , for most people who have the money to be sitting here streaming this podcast , right For you , the worst thing that can happen in most situations is actually the emotion itself , like feeling bad . Right , it's not actually going to kill you , but your brain can get mixed up about that . So that is why I say emotions can feel like they will kill you , but they won't , and so you want to remind yourself of that , and particularly , I would point out , for those of us who have ADHD . We tend to have a very strong sense of what's called rejection , sensitivity , dysphoria , and we , even more than other people , are very , very heightened in our response to this sense of perceived rejection , even if it isn't actually rejection , and it does feel like physical pain when we get rejected , and so I know that that sounds kind of bleak in the one sense , but once you realize that you can actually remind yourself of this truth . Okay , it feels like I'm going to die , but the worst that will happen is the emotion . I'm not actually going to die , it's just my brain is kind of programmed to think that . Right , and even that bit of clarity in that moment can help take the edge off a tiny bit .
Speaker 2Okay , number two on the list for today so number seven overall is emotions can feel like they'll last forever , but they don't . So again , what we know is that when you're in the throes of a really big emotion , it can feel like it will just never go away . For some reason , in that moment , your primitive brain takes over and you're not able to think logically . And I say this to my kids all the time right , something bad happens and I try to remind them okay , I'll feel better in a little bit , and they won't hear any of it . They're just convinced that they're always going to feel that way . And then it's almost like the next time it happens , even though they have evidence from just the day before that their frustration only lasted five minutes and then they got over it . It doesn't matter . It's like again .
Speaker 2Once they're in the minute , the moment of that emotion , it's so big that they can't see logic and recall what happened yesterday and that it went by fast . Now , as adults , we can maybe be a little bit better about this , and that's why I love this belief . And I will say , as an adult with ADHD , where we really have a hard time with this type of self-awareness and we tend to kind of catastrophize things in the moment more than others . For me , as an adult with ADHD , it's been really huge to just be in the moment where I'm so upset and to remind myself okay , this feels so intense right now that I can't imagine ever not feeling this bad about it . But that's not how this works . This is a time frame , right .
Speaker 2Emotions have a certain amount of time that they last , and then they move through your body and you're on to the next one , and when you're in a calm , regulated state as an adult , I think you can pretty obviously see that this is how the world works . You have ups and downs throughout your life , but we kind of have to accept that in the moment that's not going to feel true to us , okay , so remind yourself of that . They feel like they'll last forever , but they don't . And again , speaking of the research , people have actually studied this and so an emotion in and of itself takes somewhere between like two and , I think , five minutes at the most on average to go through your body and go through your system . Two to five minutes , okay .
Speaker 2The reason they often feel longer is because we resist them and we pile more things on top of them . Like , let's say , you're angry , like your anger may only last two to five minutes , but if , while you're angry , now you lash out at someone else and then they lash out back at you and now you have , on top of that , maybe some guilt and maybe some frustration with them or some hurt from them , now you've piled on more negative emotions , and the pile-on from the way you responded to the original anger right is what makes it seem like it's actually lasting much longer , whereas if you could simply sit and say , okay , I feel angry , this won't last forever , right , and accept that part of life is sometimes having negative emotions and that they will pass and that it feels like it will kill you if you don't do something about it but that's actually not true then ironically it will actually last less . It will take less time to work through your system because you're not piling on all the negative impact of your actions and words and other problems and simply the negativity of resisting it right , because emotions want to be heard and the more you allow them to be heard , then the faster they get through your system . So again , for me as an adult with ADHD , this has been huge . These two truths I will remind myself in the moment okay , this feels like it's going to kill me , it feels like I have to do something about this , but it won't right . And then , okay , no-transcript realistic place . Okay , so paradoxical truth number three about emotions or number eight for the whole list , if we include last week is emotions are not a problem , but they can lead to problems . So I've just talked about the fact that emotions , of course , do feel bad at times and that can feel like a problem in one sense , right .
Speaker 2But what you want to remember is that having negative emotions is an expected part of life . So an emotion itself , in and of itself , is not a problem . It's not a problem to feel sad or down or depressed or angry or insecure or worried , necessarily in and of itself , right . So if you feel that way , you have to remind yourself nothing has gone wrong here . I'm a normal human . It's not a problem to have emotions . And if you really want to dig deeper on that , right , like life wouldn't be life if it was always positive , right , it just wouldn't be a full life . And there are examples of situations where you actually want to have a negative emotion . You know If someone you really love and care about has died or has broken up with you on some level . You do want to be sad about that , right ? Because if you weren't sad about that , then did you really even care about them or love them or were you even , like , fully invested in that relationship if you are a robot who just doesn't care , right ? So the emotion itself is not a problem .
Speaker 2However , because emotions can impact our actions , like we talked about last week , emotions can lead to problems and this is the part we get confused and we often give this message to our kids . You know , if my kid is angry and they hit someone , right , the hitting the person is for sure a problem , right . But it gets kind of messy because the message that they can get sometimes when you reprimand them for the hitting right or you get frustrated with their loud outbursts of anger because it's frustrating you , you can sometimes be giving them the message that the anger itself is the problem right . And if you imagine some of us who grew up in very restrictive households , and women in particular , we are often given the message that anger and strong , big emotions are a problem right , that we just shouldn't feel angry , and so we can actually be really hard on ourselves as adults because we feel angry and we feel like we shouldn't feel angry . We're trying to talk ourselves out of it , right , but maybe the anger itself isn't what we need to talk ourselves out of , and maybe , in fact , what would be better is if we could understand that it's okay to be angry , that's not
Understanding and Managing Emotions
Speaker 2a problem .
Speaker 2What's a problem is when you lash out and hurt other people , right , and when you blame other people , or when you bottle it up and it eats away at you and then it erupts in another time or causes you to avoid doing things that you want to do because they make you feel angry and sad and you think those feelings should be avoided , right . So it can be really helpful to just remind yourself it's okay to feel angry . So emotions are not the problem . The actions that they lead to can be a problem sometimes and , again , not always right . It depends . Maybe there's a way that you can channel some of those emotions in a way that's more positive .
Speaker 2But I love this because I actually and I actually will spell this out for my kid my one kid who's very violent when they're angry , and I actually will spell this out for my kid my one kid who's very violent when they're angry , you know , I will say hey , I understand that you're angry and it's okay to be angry . I won't let you hit people when you're angry , right ? And I very carefully say those two things over and over to that child because I actually don't want them to feel bad about themselves , that they have anger because that's not true and authentic . And if they feel that they can't have the emotion of anger , right , but it keeps coming up in life , because life creates anger sometimes . Right , if you're paying attention , you're probably a little angry , right ? So if they're getting a message that anger is a problem and yet they're feeling anger in their bodies , right .
Speaker 2What they're telling themselves is like something's wrong with me because other people don't have anger . I should be able to not have anger , but here's my anger . Should I just pretend it's not there or am I just broken ? And I've had my kid more or less communicate that to me before that they thought something was wrong with them , and so it has been really helpful for me to articulate that the anger is normal and human and everyone has it right , and that the urge to lash out at other people and hurt other people when you're angry is also normal , but it's a skill that we work on through our lives to not actually act on that urge . And that is the piece that you get better at as you get older and your brain grows , and I think as adults , we can actually take a lot from that . I have literally sat down to an email where I felt really dysregulated and angry and it almost said like the same thing to myself that I say to my kid , which is like okay , it's totally normal to feel upset and frustrated by this . It's normal to want to fire off an angry reply and solve this problem right now . Or , you know , my angry brain is telling me that will solve the whole problem and tell this person off . And then I'll be like , however , I'm just going to practice not doing anything and just letting myself be angry and not taking the action . So the anger is not the problem . The problem is when I respond hastily and make those choices , and that is something I can control .
Speaker 2So , moving on to paradoxical truth , number four for today , number nine overall is we think that ignoring or resisting our emotions will make them better , but it actually makes them worse , and another way that coaches and therapists talk about this is what we resist persists . Okay , and so the way emotions work is that if you pretend they're not there , if you're not honest with yourself about them and you don't allow them to kind of run their course which we mentioned is a finite time course they build up bigger and bigger and they don't just go away . They kind of eat away at you and they work behind the scenes and they actually create more and more problems and they get bigger and bigger and then they can often erupt later on in other ways . They can come out in subtle ways that we don't even realize and they can create more and more drama and problems in our lives . The analogy we think of is like a beach ball and pushing it under the water in the pool . Right , you think you're hiding it and getting rid of it , but first of all , look at all that effort you're pushing , you're using to push it down there and all the focus that you're having to use on that . That's not going to other things , right . And then eventually , if you do let it go which you're going to have to to go and move on it's going to come up with even more force that's been building up during that time no-transcript . And that actually leads me to my fifth paradoxical truth for today , 10th overall , which is very closely related , and that is we think naming or allowing our emotions will make them worse , but it actually makes them better , right ? So again , we have another phrase that we like to bring along with this , which is name it to tame it . It so , anytime there is an emotion in the background that you're trying to pretend is not there or you're trying to push away from the surface , right , actually , simply naming it , allowing it to be there , recognizing that it's part of life , it's not a problem , right ? That honesty and openness actually decreases the power and effect that it has over you .
Speaker 2Again , if you think of kids this is one of those parenting concepts they talk about a lot is when a kid is really upset . Often , part of why they're so upset and so at the mercy of their emotions is because they literally don't have the words to explain it and they think they're all alone in it . But if you can say , oh , that sounds like you feel jealous , or it sounds like you feel frustrated , or that makes sense because da-da-da , and you name what's happening with their emotional life , often just that process of having words for it will decrease the intensity of it significantly , right ? And so you got to do that for yourself too . Not to say that we're all like kids , but on some level , when it comes to emotions , our brains revert back to a lot of childish things , because this is our more primitive brain , right ? So you want to name it , detain it , remind yourself that , allowing it to be there , acknowledging it ironically , if you can make yourself do that , will actually give it so much less power .
Speaker 2Notice how , then , your interactions with other people become so much more honest and open and vulnerable . You don't have to spend so much energy on defensiveness or hiding or hoping they don't see what's under there and having it constantly sneaking out . It also allows you to just name how you're feeling and what you're thinking and be humble and let the other person tell you if you're getting it right or not , or maybe hash out the underlying problem in an honest , real way . That comes to closer understanding . But if you're resisting it and holding it back , other people can begin to feel that and it creates more and more distance , right ? They don't feel as comfortable around you and they may not be able to put their finger on why , or you may lash out in ways that feel out of your control and that's all . And they are out of your control because you haven't named it and been honest with yourself about what's going on . Right , you can't treat something as I'll bring a doctor analogy in here it's really hard to treat something if you don't know the underlying cause right , you're not getting to the root of it .
Speaker 2So those are my five more additional paradoxical thoughts for today , kind of picking up where we left off last week , for a total of 10 . The five from today , just to recap , were emotions can feel like they'll kill you , but they won't . Number two they can feel like they'll last forever , but they don't . Number three they are not a problem , but they can lead to problems . Number four we think that ignoring or resisting emotions will make them better , but it actually makes them worse . And , number five we think naming or allowing emotions will make them worse , but it actually makes them better . So I hope that you found some insight from one or more of these here and are thinking about how you can remind yourself of these truths in the moment when it's so hard . And , trust me , I have been there and I know this is work . This is not easy , but I will tell you that my interactions and my relationships have become so much better since I started recognizing these .
Speaker 2Emotional regulation is not something we are taught . It's not a skill anyone articulates to us in this fashion like I'm doing here . They don't give us classes on this in school , which they should , and particularly for those of us who are neurodiverse , with autism or ADHD or things like that , we need this spelled out to us in a black and white way , because it may not be as easy for us to deduce these things and because our emotions are incredibly strong and powerful . Our emotional regulation is a major issue , and so you can learn to regulate yourself better , but you have to have these fundamental basics , which you're not just going to stumble upon , and that's why I'm really excited to bring this to you in this very clear way . If you know someone in your life who's discouraged and feeling frustrated with their interpersonal interactions , send this to them .
Speaker 2I think a lot of us just don't know what we don't know about this whole world of emotional regulation , but it makes all the difference , and if this is something you want to work on , this is what I specialize in working on with my clients , both as they help their kids grow up and regulate emotions better , especially in neurodiverse families , but also for themselves as working moms .
Speaker 2I know it feels like you may not have time for this , but trust me , it will save you time in the long run and it will bring you so much closer to your family and give your life so much more meaning . It is so worth it . So reach out , set up a free console if you want to talk about how some of these might apply to your life . Or if you're skeptical about one of these and think it doesn't make sense , I get it . That's fine . Bring that to a console call and let's talk it through . Fine , bring that to a consult call and let's talk
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Speaker 2it through . So the link is in the show notes to set up your free consult and otherwise I will see you back here next week .
Speaker 1Thanks for listening to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD . Would you like to learn more about how to apply this to your own life through personalized coaching with Jenny ? Visit us on the web at JennyHobbsMDcom to schedule a free consultation . If you found value in what you heard today , please consider subscribing to the podcast and giving us a five-star rating so we can reach even more women like you .