Attuning to vs Controlling Our Emotions

EPISODE 89 | ATTUNING TO VS CONTROLLING EMOTIONS

When we try to control emotions, we are not allowing ourselves to feel our feelings, to feel our emotions and to feel our feelings. There is a slight distinction, there's an overlap. So, emotions are kind of like the emotions, right? Feelings include emotions, but it also includes how the emotions feel in our bodies.

[00:00:17] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:54] Good morning, and today is day 14 of my 30-day IG Live challenge. Okay, so, this morning I thought I would do something more practical. Practical in the sense of it's I'm going to share with you what I'm actually doing for myself right now or like in the present, this couple of days. So, the topic today, the topic this morning is about attuning to versus controlling our emotions.

[00:01:28] Okay, so, I think one of my earlier videos in this IG challenge, I talked about the importance of rebuilding trust with our emotions, right? So, that was kind of like the larger picture, the bigger picture explanation of why we need to rebuild trust with our emotions. This morning's sharing is going to be a bit more about what does it actually feel like or part of that process.

[00:01:50] Okay, so, caveat, I am not sharing as an expert in teaching people how to attune to emotions. I'm not a psychologist. I am not a therapist. But I am someone who has an intuitive understanding of these things and have been learning and applying these things from my own journey. Okay, so, the value in my perspective is more of like a player coach. Okay, someone who is learning all these things as well, applying it, experiencing the difference that it makes. 

[00:02:23] Okay, so, in yesterday's video, I mentioned that I'm also going through some kind of interruption in my life, personal life, family life right now. There's some anxiety because there's something going on right now that is kind of sending everybody within my family of origin into their scripts, into our scripts.

[00:02:43] BIG (NEGATIVE) EMOTIONS
Okay, so, that's always a stressful time and this also means that a lot of big emotions that I'm going through. And as I was trying to regulate my emotions and attune to myself, I thought, okay, I'm going to share this as part of today's live to also show you what has changed from my younger self, when I have to deal with difficult emotions versus what I'm doing now and what difference it makes. So, we usually start when - in terms of any relationship, let's say with a significant other, with a friend or family members, with some kind of end in mind, right? I mean, we want to be connected, since we were kids, let's say, with our parents. We want to be in a comfortable, loving connection with our parents, with our siblings.

[00:03:31] We do not like being in conflict. We do not like the experience of being rejected. We also do not like, usually, the experience of being angry with someone, right? I mean angry with someone that we love. Especially when anger then also often leads to conflict. So, let's say I'm experiencing anger at someone that I love and I'm thinking, well, I don't want to be angry with you, right?

[00:03:59] Because when I'm mad at you, I'm going to be terse with you and then there's going to be conflict. And then that relationship that I value risks being ruptured. So, I'm going to be thinking, I don't want to be angry with you. I'd like to be able to accept you. At least I don't want to fight with you. I want to be connected to you.

[00:04:17] Now, if you layer on top of that, what we believe - the values that we have. So, for example, again, as a Catholic Christian, I value, I subscribe to the belief that I need to forgive my enemies, forgive people that I'm angry with, to try and be in a loving relationship with people.

[00:04:35] So, there's this added religious and spiritual dimension, right? That's kind of like the end in mind, okay. Or the end goal. I would like to be able to be loving, to not be in conflict. So, any negative emotion that I may experience that makes me feel like it's getting in the way of that goal, I'm going to think that I need to deal with it, right?

[00:04:58] I mean, clearly, I have to do something with, let's say, anger, if I don't want to rupture that relationship. Okay, so, here's the thing, a little jump ahead that oftentimes emotions like anger, they are just at the surface. And below anger, it's actually carrying or masking fear or grief or shame.

[00:05:23] Okay, but usually the first thing we experience is anger. Now, what we do to respond to that anger will determine whether or not we will even get to the point of realizing that underneath that anger, actually, is shame or is fear or is anxiety. Now, the way that most of us have learned to deal with negative emotions, I think is some form of trying to control the emotion.

[00:05:47] Because we've learned usually, from our childhood days, that if we don't control our emotions, if our emotions get too big and unruly, we get into trouble, right? So, whenever we feel big emotions, especially if they are negative, what we think of as bad emotions, like anger - instinctively, we feel like, okay, I can't allow that.

[00:06:06] I'm going to suppress it. Okay, it's actually quite physical, I think. We all do this automatically and maybe you don't even realize it. But when you become more aware of your body when you're more connected to your body, notice the next time you instinctively try to suppress anger it actually can feel like something is being pushed into your chest.

[00:06:29] Okay, so, for me especially, when I try and suppress anger, immediately, I feel like my neck gets very tense. I feel like something is being pushed down my chest. My gut begins to clench. My gut is very sensitive. It's like the most sensitive part of me. Which is probably why I have all kinds of digestive issues.

[00:06:48] But anger, as well as anxiety, immediately I'll feel it in my gut. I don't think you can see where my hand is - kind of right by my gut. So, my neck, my chest, my shoulders, my gut. This, immediately, I can feel like there's a pressure there when I instinctively try and suppress anger, right? So, that's what usually happens. We actually push our emotions into our bodies when we try to control emotions.

[00:07:14] Think of it. We don't want it to come out. We are afraid of what will happen if the emotions, let's say, explode, right? So, we push it down. And another thing that we often do, that I often do, is that I use reason and logic to try and talk myself out of feeling that way. Okay, so, when I feel angry, let's say somebody let me down. He failed to do something or did something that makes me feel very disappointed and I'm upset. I may use my reason and logic to tell myself, well, you already know that this person is this way. Why did you expect more from him? You know you can't expect more from him, right?

[00:07:54] So, the problem is that you were expecting too much, so, let it go and don't feel angry. So, that's an example of me trying to use reason and logic to also control my emotions. Basically, what I'm saying to myself or the part of myself that's feeling angry is, you know there's no reason for you to be angry. It's your fault in the first place to think that this person was capable of doing more, right?

[00:08:18] You should have known better. Feeling angry is not going to help. So, stop being angry. So, again, it's trying to use logic and reason to cancel out as if emotions can be cancelled out, right? As in like to cancel out how I'm feeling now. It doesn't work. I don't know about you, but I've done this my whole life.

[00:08:40] ALLOWING OURSELVES TO FEEL
I mean, it's still an automatic script that happens when I'm angry. It doesn't work, right? If anything, it actually makes my body feel worse because now, on top of feeling angry, I have kind of added shame to myself for feeling angry because I should have known better in the first place than to expect more from this person, for example.

[00:09:00] Right, so, when I'm trying to control my emotions, when we try to control emotions, we are not allowing ourselves to feel our feelings, to feel our emotions and to feel our feelings. There is a slight distinction, there's an overlap. So, emotions are kind of like the emotions, right? Feelings include emotions, but it also includes how the emotions feel in our bodies.

[00:09:21] So, like I mentioned, when I'm angry, the emotion may be anger but, and when I, I feel it in my chest, I feel it in my gut, especially if I'm trying to suppress it, right? If I try to control it, usually that's where it stops. My consciousness kind of like, I want to try and ignore it. I mean, numb myself out.

[00:09:38] I become very terse in my interactions. Now, if we're talking about someone that, well, actually usually when do we get really upset with people, it often happens with people that we have to be in repeated interactions with, right? So, whether it's at work with a colleague or somebody at home, when we don't process that emotion well, we actually do get disconnected from that person because every time we come closer or we have to relate to this person, the anger comes back, right?

[00:10:09] And we become more terse or we start projecting that anger on to the other person as well. And then there's more and more discomfort and awkwardness and misunderstanding. I've seen this happen so many times in my life, unfortunately, in my family life. Escalation from anger that could have probably been acknowledged and shared and discussed. Especially if the anger was actually masking something like insecurity and anxiety.

[00:10:36] So, what do I mean? When, for example, I'm angry at my husband, a lot of times underneath the anger, if I can listen to the anger, there's actually loneliness. I may be angry because I feel neglected, and a part of me feels like he should have noticed that I'm sad, and he didn't ask anything, ask me how I was doing. And so, I'm angry because I now added on the narrative that he doesn't care, which objectively is not true, right. But when we are feeling all these feelings and emotions, we can't rationalize.

[00:11:14] ATTUNING TO OUR EMOTIONS
We need to tend to the parts that are feeling so vulnerable. Okay, so, now I'm going to talk about the other side, which is if it's not controlling our emotions, what would it be like to try and so called attune to our emotions? Okay, attunement is really like you're tuning in, right?

[00:11:32] You're trying to listen, you're trying to give space to whatever parts of you are feeling that anger, for example, to let it come out. Imagine a child - because oftentimes, the parts of ourselves that are feeling very strong emotions tend to be younger parts of ourself. When I say younger parts, I mean they can actually feel quite young. Have you ever noticed that when you're really upset, the "upsetness" doesn't seem like the upsetness of, let's say, I'm in my mid 40s?

[00:12:04] But the quality of the upset feels almost like it's a, let's say, it's an eight-year old's upset; there's almost a sense of the overwhelming emotion of an eight-year-old that's really angry. And then feels, at the same time, really scared and not able to express her anger. It's a different quality of an 8-year-old that's angry and sad and afraid to express her anger compared to, let's say, a woman in my mid-40s. 

[00:12:28] If I'm in full possession of my faculties and everything, the feeling of the anger will be different. But all of us, we are a multitude, in that sense. There are many implicit memories that are stored in our nervous system, in our bodies.

[00:12:44] And so, the lived experience, even as adults, when we get upset, sometimes it's the younger parts of ourselves that are triggered. And those could be parts that, since we were that age, never got to express themselves. They were never heard. And so, it's like, they're stunted. Okay, there are parts of us that are emotionally and developmentally just stuck at those times.

[00:13:03] And it's important that in this interior journey that we're on now, of integration, what we're trying to integrate as well are all these parts of us that have been stuck at different ages that had never been heard. If we can now include them, if we can now begin to let them experience that they are important and they are seen and they are heard, slowly what happens is they get integrated into our full self.

[00:13:29] They are no longer kind of like separated and isolated and exiled all alone. You know they know they're part of like, in a sense, a healthy family, right? With a parent, and that would be ourselves, like an inner parent that they can trust, that sees them and cares for them. So, every part of us deserves to be heard, but that's not our experience when we were growing up, often because maybe our own parents never learned to hear themselves. They could themselves be very disconnected with their emotions and so, they don't have the ability to help us identify and regulate our emotions, right? So, many of us grow up with emotionally immature parents of some sort of the other.

[00:14:16] May have been generation after generation, and we take that on too. So, our journey of integration is actually a journey of growing up. Growing, becoming more emotionally mature in the ways that maybe our own parents, even if they're in their 70s or 80s, never did. So, it's actually possible, if we do this work, that as the adult child in relationship with our parents, we can become more emotionally mature than our parents. And the dynamics in our relationships can shift because in some sense, we may even begin to be able to attune to and notice the younger parts in our parents who are frightened, who are scared, who are acting out.

[00:15:00] But it's difficult. It's very challenging, I think, for us to be able to reach that point because for our whole life, we were in the dynamics of being the child and the younger parts of us that still need to be that child. Okay, so I'm going to just, at this point, lead you into the last part of today's sharing, which I'm going to give you I'm going to walk you through what I'm going through now.

[00:15:22] So, it's very interesting. Okay, one thing I've learned is that sometimes when I get upset, when I get triggered by my parents, the part that gets upset is still very young, or it's still a younger part of myself. Okay, and in the past, I tried to suppress the emotion. Like I said, I may try to push down emotion or not allow myself to feel that way.

[00:15:44] But what I've learned is more helpful - is to let it out and let her say, no matter how horrible the words may be, okay? Imagine like if a kid kind of throws a tantrum. If you allow a child to just vocalize and say what he or she needs to say, especially very young children - they can tell their parents, " I hate you", " I wish you were dead". Right, and when as adults, we don't allow the child to say that because we say, if we hit them or we scold them because it's a horrible thing to say. We are not allowing them to express what they don't actually have the right words, perhaps, to express. They're actually expressing themselves. They're being very sincere.

[00:16:24] The vocabulary is limited, right? That's what they had. But if they're able to express themselves and if we can acknowledge how they are feeling and say, okay, yes, that's angry. You're angry. Why is it that you're angry? It's because you couldn't get what you want or you were trying to say something and I didn't let you say it and actually that's a good reason to be angry because well, you're frustrated. You couldn't express yourself, right? That allows the child to move beyond that explosive or really, really, that tantrum kind of anger to reach a point of understanding him or herself. Why that emotion is there, that he had a right and she had a right to be angry because she has dignity. And in that case, specific case, as it deserves to be heard, but we don't always get what we want and it's okay to be angry.

[00:17:12] But then how do we move on from that, right? How do we move on from that after we have heard our emotions and acknowledged that emotions had an important role to play in telling us that something is not quite right. Now, for me, now as an adult, sometimes when I - just recently I experienced that anger, that feeling of being abandoned again, that feeling that this person just doesn't care for me or for the family. And there's a part of me that really needed to express my pain.

[00:17:47] So, at that time, I have a good friend and he's a wonderful listener. And also, I guess we kind of share a father wound. Okay, I mean, I think many people I know have father wounds. But in more recent times, we have been journeying a bit together because I think we've both been trying to work out our respective father wounds, to some extent. So, I left him a voice message. I said, lend me the space. I said, I just need to express myself and I ended up crying on that voice message. Because as I allowed myself to speak, I realized that that daughter in me - so, the little girl in me wanted to say how sad she was and how angry she was and how upset she was at a certain response that I had received from my dad, whom I love.

[00:18:31] But at this moment, like I said, we're all kind of like on tenterhooks. and after that I realized, I know objectively, currently, this is my father giving his best. And logically, I've also, in the totality of my growth, reached a point where I can actually accept and don't really expect him to change.

[00:18:55] You know, in a sense, when I was little, I really wanted him to change. I really wanted more from dad. Because that little girl in me, that daughter in me, really wants more. Even now as I'm sharing, I'm kind of tearing up. Because I can feel that emotion. I don't know whether any of you will identify with this.

[00:19:11] OUR YOUNGER EMOTIONS
When you allow yourself to remember how the child in you longed for the attention, longed for the presence, longed for the love, the protection of your parents. And many of us, we didn't have that, right? And even when we're older and we know rationally why we couldn't get that, it doesn't change the fact that we deserve that, that every child longs for that kind of relationship with their parent.

[00:19:40] So, while the adult in me knows that it's probably not going to happen. And I have chosen, in a sense, not just forcing myself, but I've reached a point where I can accept that. In the moment, when I get triggered, when an interaction happens, that younger part in me still feels what she feels. The grief is still there. The anger is still there. The" why is it that you don't care", "why is it I don't feel like you care enough" is still there, right? And then I noticed that there was, then the part of me that I learned as I was growing up, especially the teenage part of me, that was kind of like trying to clamp that down, you know?

[00:20:18] When I was a teenager, I was very bitter with my father. I hardly talked to him. I hated him. I had no relationship with my dad when I was a teenager. Hardly any. And actually, it was trying to protect myself, right? Protect myself from the constant disappointment and grief and anger. And so, I could feel that inner teenager in me kind of, you know, trying to just steal myself and shut up. Okay, and it's hard to communicate when you're shutting up. But I noticed that, okay. So, I had to also later give some time to that teenager and hear her pain, remember her pain. But at the same time, remind both the teenager and the younger child in me that they're not alone.

[00:21:08] I have resources in me now. I am listening to them. When I was growing up, I didn't feel My parents couldn't do that for me. They couldn't attune to my emotions. But I have learned to do that now, and I'm doing that for myself. And as I gave the different parts of me the room to feel what they feel, instead of shutting them up, it's like after they've expressed themselves, they naturally quieten down, not in sullenness, not because they were suppressed, but because they've said what they have to say. And then there's a calm, at least for the moment. And for me to be able to then consider what is the best thing I can do right now. Let's not think too far ahead. What is the best response I can give right now, given the limitations of the situation, given the limitations of the people that I'm dealing with? What can I do that is loving, but at the same time, does not make me the default sacrifice?

[00:22:19] Because last time my script was always I'm the default sacrifice. I have no place in this. I should jump into fill in the gaps when other people don't play their role and because that was my past experience and I don't want that anymore. I've been recovering from that when I'm in a situation like I am right now, where the stakes feel pretty high, there's a lot of unknown.

[00:22:44] And because the family dynamics are still pretty much the same. So, there are people who their defence mechanisms maybe make them less available. and then that triggers the script in me, the very old script in me, which says that then I have to be the saviour. I have to step in. I have to be the saviour.

[00:23:03] Now, in the midst of all this, there's the younger part of me that is actually screaming at me. She's very fearful. Because all my younger years, I have relegated her. I've kind of like shut her out in the cupboard. Her needs didn't matter. It was too painful for me to even consider or hear her needs because it was like not an option that her needs are equally valued. And now, that over the last, maybe six, seven years especially, I have been taking better care of her. When these old scripts kind of like kick in, that part of me actually still gets scared. That, oh no, what if I get shoved back in the cupboard? What if I get pushed back into the dark?

[00:23:48] What if Ann now decides, again, like last time, that I'm the least important, right? And that manifests itself. So, I'm speaking now, of course, with a lot of awareness, which is why I can articulate all this to you, Okay. In the moment when it's happening, I don't know these things, okay? So, I'm able to articulate this to you only because I've already gone through that process.

[00:24:11] Okay, but in the moment, all of these different emotions, including the younger part that's afraid that I will neglect her, it just shows up in the body. For me, like this clenching in the gut, a headache, oh my gosh, like immediately I'll start developing a tension headache, it goes up my neck, gets very tight, right, and I start developing a tension headache.

[00:24:32] And I begin to feel extra vulnerable with my husband. Okay, so, my relationship with my husband is actually a very, very secure one. Relatively speaking, it's actually a pretty good base. Okay, and rationally, logically, in every way, I know he is very different from - like our marriage is very different from the one that I have seen growing up.

[00:24:54] But at the same time, when this younger part of myself begins to feel really scared that I'll be abandoned, or that she'll be abandoned by me, instinctively, I also start feeling very vulnerable in my marriage. Okay, and then I become very sensitive to any signs of rejection, any signs of that I'm not important.

[00:25:16] Okay, see how everything's kind of like connected? And I have learned though, fortunately, in my relationship - my husband also - to be able to let him know when I'm feeling vulnerable so that I give him the chance, in a sense, to be more aware that right now, I'm feeling very vulnerable.

[00:25:34] And then sometimes, small things might really make me feel like nobody cares for me anymore. I think when we feel these kind of big sensations, very absolute sensations like no one cares for me anymore or I'm nothing in all these very absolute kind of thing. Those are usually younger parts of ourselves.

[00:25:54] If you remember, when look at little children, everything's very absolute, right? That's a sign that all the more we need care, we need attunement, not control from ourselves. This is an ongoing experience for me. It's an ongoing learning experience for me. You know, I'm actually using this opportunity as I'm sharing, to also process this even deeper for myself, hopefully make me more ready for the new day and whatever lies ahead.

[00:26:20] THE CORE SELF
But what I've learned is that this process I was describing to you is actually a process of leadership. So, in, I think day three, when I was talking about self - or was it maybe day four? We're talking about earning the trust of emotions. I may have talked about having the inner governor, a wise governor, a wise leader within ourself. And that is the core self. As we begin to integrate, we realize that we can take care of these different parts of ourselves. And we can give that space for them to be heard, for each part to know that they are important and that they're valued, that they're welcome. And so over time, they are more cooperative and, and more easily comforted even when they are dysregulated and upset.

[00:27:11] This I found helps us to, or helps me at least, to be more present. It's still a struggle. There's never perfect presence to be able to soften more, which we need, which means when I soften more that when I fail, when I fall, when there's conflict. When I can't keep that impatient tone in my voice from being there, when I can't help but snap at my parents or whatever, it's easier to make amends. You know, it's like I fall more gently and the amends doesn't have to even always explicitly be an apology.

[00:27:46] Because when you become more sensitive, you notice when you are getting dysregulated and you also notice when you're more sensitive as to how you can actually be more gentle again. There are many ways of communicating and conveying care and graciousness, sometimes even without having to actually say that explicit words, right?

[00:28:07] I think this is especially the case for Asians in Asian culture where many things are not explicitly expressed verbally, but the intangible or the indirect ways of expressing our love or our apology is also very important. So, that's a tuning tool versus trying to control our emotions and our feelings.

[00:28:31] It's a very important process of the interior integration journey and it's also a very important part of becoming a more safe environment for ourselves. So, internally becoming a more safe environment for ourselves but also becoming a more safe environment and presence to the other people that are in our lives.

[00:28:51] I hope that this sharing has been helpful to you or interesting and that maybe some parts of it resonate. I want to thank those of you who have been sending me messages offline about how specific days of this IG Live have spoken to you. I really, really appreciate that.

[00:29:07] I haven't really had the chance to actually answer any questions live yet, in these IG Lives. And because today, right now, I also have to rush off. I can't, but in future, I would love to be able to answer a question. And just know that because of the nature of these topics that I talk about I am aware. Usually, I wouldn't say your name, where the question comes from. I'll just address the question. 

[00:29:28] So, thank you for those of you who joined me and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye!

[00:29:36] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

If you like what you hear on this podcast and would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me, as well as be updated on my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!