To say I feel anger is an understatement. I can feel my face crinkle, the lines between my eyebrows start to crease. I don’t think my face is flushed yet, but it’s going to get there. My hands are a little bit sweaty. My chest is tight and I can even hear it in my voice. I sense a hardness that’s not usually there. I really don’t want anybody to see me like this and I get off my phone call as quickly as I can.
One of the greatest tales I have about anger is that it’s everybody else’s fault, it’s never mind. Unlike where, with fear, I just want other people around me to make me feel better, anger makes me want to isolate myself. The quicker I can get away by myself the better, because I don’t want to feel the shame of being angry. That’s my anger anyway.
You might be wondering where all of this anger is coming from. Has somebody physically threatened me or my family? DidI just get the news that I have some kind of illness? Have I been treated unfairly? Am I having road rage? (Many of us have that…right?) Nope! The simple truth is that my website is down. It’s not actually down but it looks horrible and a “404” error message is blinking all over the place like I somehow won a lottery.
There’s a lot of history here, and I don’t feel like I have a lot of control in this area. This anger is not at the website. It\’s not at someone else. It hasn’t been given to me by little fairies in the air, and it’s not righteous and to be taken out on someone else. It\’s anger at myself. Anger for not listening to myself when I knew that I needed more understanding of my own website.
I don’t know if you know anything about emotional resilience coaches and speakers, but we’re human and we make the same exact mistakes as everybody else. What’s the number one mistake we all make, or at least I do? I don\’t always listen to what my emotions are telling me.
I’ve been feeling some uneasiness and anxiety around my website for at least a year, like I should know more about it, hire a professional to help me with it…all kinds of actions I could’ve taken and I didn’t. Or I could even say that I took half actions, but whatever I did, it wasn’t enough. See, the thing is, the 404 error can be probably easily fixed. What takes a bit more work to fix is understanding the fear and anxiety that I’m feeling around this particular area with my website. Anger is a secondary emotion, plain and simple. It’s much easier for me to be angry that my website is not fixed than it is for me to actually acknowledge that my fear and anxiety around this area of my work has led me to a place where I don’t have somebody to quickly call to help me resolve this issue, or even know how to fix it myself.
We’ve all been in this place: ashamed of having an emotion that’s truly unacceptable in society, or at least we feel that way in the moment. If we checked in with most people we would find that they’ve all felt what we’re feeling, and they probably would have a lot more compassion than we think. We’ve all felt empathy others whether it’s for somebody who is scared of their website, afraid to engage with their kids because they think they’re going to get too angry, pissed off at their boss, so they sit at their desk with a fake smile, I really want to ask for that raise, but chicken out…you name it. We are human and, if there’s a way that we can avoid feeling the uncomfortable emotions that we have in our body, we will do it. The problem is that those emotions are there for a reason. Had I listened to my uncertainty and anxiety and allowed my fear to motivate me, maybe I could have done a little bit more with this website. In which case, I might not be in the position that I’m in now. It wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it’s gotten… And wouldn’t be feeling that shame or that anger over the fact that I could’ve done more… Like most human beings, I am finally in a position to listen and to hear what my emotions have to say. But how do we listen to it before we get to this place? The answer is simple but not easy.
Learn to identify your emotions and what they mean to you.
Anger at myself is an easy one. It usually means I should’ve taken action sooner and I’m having a bit of regret probably with some fear to back it all up. But now that I know that, and I also know that I don’t want to feel those feelings again, I can use the information they’re telling me, namely, “Hey! Get yourself that web designer, learn some more about the process, and watch how quickly these feelings subside.” Honestly, even just talking it out right now or blogging it out has me feeling better because, honestly, I didn’t even know why I was angry in the first place 🙂
So, here are some effective ways you can identify your emotions sooner, so they don’t get hung up in your body and stop you from taking action that would help you meet your challenge:
Choose Courage – I say this and you’re probably thinking to yourself: what does courage have to do with it? If you’re in a situation where you’re not feeling good, there is nothing more courageous than allowing yourself to have the emotion that you’re having. Most of the time, we try to numb our emotions, so that we don’t have to feel anything uncomfortable. Numbing may come in the form of using a substance: nicotine, alcohol, or food. Or it may be using something in your environment like video games, social media, or watching television. The problem is that, if we numb to avoid feeling our emotions, then we never learn what they actually have to tell us. The other issue with it is that you can’t numb only selected emotions. If you\’re numbing sadness, anger, fear, and uncertainty, you’re also numbing happiness, connection, love, and empathy. So, before the situation even comes up, make the choice that you’re going to be courageous and…
Feel your emotion – Feeling or emotion is not an intellectual process. It would be great though, right? Feeling your emotion means that, when you’re in that anger, fear, or anxiety, you allow yourself to feel it. In order to do that, you need to identify what you’re feeling, so you know what’s going on for yourself (a.k.a. that was the courageous part that came in before…). I like to do a head-to-toe scan. You can try this for yourself: notice where you are feeling your emotion. Is it in your head, your face, your chest, or your hands? Are you feeling your legs or toes? Does it feel like heat, or shivers, twitches, or a tightness? Whatever it is that you can identify with that emotion, use it, so you know what’s going on for yourself. Once you’re able to do this, the emotion doesn’t last as long as it normally does, because you’re letting it say what it needs to say. It’s also less intense because you’re more familiar with it!
Ask yourself why it’s there – Most of the time we don’t have a spontaneous emotion… Notice how I said most of the time. Biologically speaking, from a physiological perspective, we could be feeling an emotion because of a cheeseburger we ate at 2 AM just as likely as we can feel an emotion go through us because we were sitting at a red light too long and somebody behind us leaned on their horn. These are known as catalysts that send the energy into motion (a.k.a. emotions) in our body. They don’t create the emotions in our body, we create the emotions. But, a catalyst can get us going in a certain direction. My website going down scared me, but so do horror movies. Once we know why our emotion is there, we can listen to it, then we can actually take action that will help us move in a direction that will probably help us meet our goals.
I’m serious. I\’m literally done writing this blog and I feel much better. Why? Because I identified what was actually causing me to feel anger. I do not hate my website. I do not believe the 404 is really the code to launch a nuclear missile at my website. I do not despise computers, nor do I feel incompetent about them. But, I can recognize that if I do not spend time every single week doing the important, albeit uncomfortable, task of managing the ‘store front’ of my website, these emotions will come back to be sure I know I wasn’t taking action that was in my best interest. And, honestly, wouldn’t I want them to? Wish me luck. 🙂
If you would like help lessening your fear and anxiety, reaching your goals, breaking habits, or creating new ones, I’d love to work with you. We can meet virtually or in person at my office in Waterbury, Vermont. Just click the button or the link below for a free consultation and let’s talk.
