What Are You Avoiding Today?
If you’re like most ppl, you’re probably ignoring the very thing you need to be actually attending too...lets use mindfulness to change that
What are you avoiding today?
If you’re like most ppl, you’re probably ignoring uncomfortable feelings.
And even tho feeling your feelings is important, as they’re able to communicate all sorts of information to us, Ive preferred to ignore some of that information that has come my way from time to time too.
Because let’s get real here. Wouldn’t you much rather feel the good feelings & just skip right over the not so good ones?
Many of us love feeling good & happy. And I can imagine some truth in me thinking that when it comes to feeling bad or sad, most if not all of us are all experts at finding ways to avoid feeling that way.
For me, I can escape my feelings by checking social media (tiktok preferably, if I really want to escape), I’ll eat food, I’ll listen to music, or whatever else that can take me away from not feeling good. And for the most part it works, until it doesn’t…
What do you do to avoid your feelings? Take a moment to think about it. What are your avoidance techniques?
In this weeks email…
We are going to go over why we don’t feel our feelings
Discover practical simple ways we can start to learn how to by using the power of mindfulness.
So let’s get into it:
So why don’t we feel our feelings?
Why do we struggle so hard to just sit with our uncomfortable emotions but when it comes to experiencing good emotions, we can do that with ease?
A simple answer to this is…well we weren’t really taught how to feel our feelings…
And before I dive into this reality, I want to share this understanding that regardless of gender, we all have masculine & feminine energies within us. Having a healthy balance of both these qualities can help us to be more goal-oriented yet surrendered, logical yet intuitive, confident yet receptive. When it’s unbalanced, we tend to struggle and experience more friction & stress in our lives.
Understanding this, you may feel that you’re experiencing an imbalance in your energetic flow. And you’re not alone. Majority of ppl, especially here in America, are living with a imbalance in their masculine/feminine energy.
It doesn’t help that society is built with the destruction of the feminine energy, which rids any ability to cultivate a sense of emotional connection to self or others. Our society instead glorifies constant thinking/doing behavior —which focuses in on the masculine energy instead.
Why does this matter?
We have constructed a society that uplifts constant thinking and doing, & we reduced/eliminated the value of feeling/being.
And this is the root to WHY we’re in the state that we are in right now. A state of destruction, inequality, fear, & abuse.
If we are instead rooted & connected to self/feelings, we would see, at a political & societal scale, ppl treating each other with more love and respect & less of seeing people treat each other negatively.
The way I see it…society is broken…and it is up to us to change that. When we become the change, the world around us changes too. Remember this…
But this imbalance goes deeper than just society. Because who else is apart of society?
You are. And so is your family.
Much of our imbalances stem from our families. Because trauma is passed on from generation to generation, your family is most likely living with this sense of imbalance, which trickled down onto you, whether you like it or not.
We tend to be a product of our environment. So when we are born into this trauma, in which our families are essentially living in survival mode, when we grow up and try to understand ourselves, our emotions, and life in itself, we’re not taught. And this makes sense because nobody around us knows what’s going on either…So this vicious cycle continues on until someone decides to break it. And that somebody can be & start with you.
How To Feel?
Emotions are energy in motion. When we experience a feeling or sensation in our body, it flows through us. It doesn’t last forever, but it does linger. And despite whether we want to feel these feelings or not, time is the only thing that allows it to eventually dissipate.
And so knowing this…
When we start to feel uncomfortable feelings arise within us, we can sit with the feeling, we can recognize that it’s not going to kill us, and we can understand that it will eventually go away.
This process or new way of being, allows us to feel our feelings in the present moment, when they arise.
And we can turn this into a habit, & learn to do this effectively, with kindness & non judgment, when we create a daily practice for ourselves.
A daily practice brings on a sense of discipline. It allows us to create space for ourselves to feel and be, which gives light to our feminine energy—& this helps to instill some balance within us again. It helps us to learn how to reduce stress in the body, increase awareness of thoughts, and allows us choice to how we want to move in our lives.
A daily practice can be meditation, which is something I consider to be extremely effective, but it can also be something else— like yoga, walking, dance, or even journaling. Whatever can connect you to your body and the earth in the here & now.
Mindfulness Tips**
Affirm positive messages into the universe. This is a powerful technique to challenge you to overcome self sabotaging and negative thoughts. Some examples of what these messages can look like can be—
“I am worthy.”
“I am allowed to feel my feelings, both positive ones & negative ones.”
“I accept myself in the present moment, fully as I am.”
“I am in the process of reparenting myself, healing all wounds and past trauma.”
“I feel safe & secure in my body.”
“I acknowledge & honor myself when I am not feeling like my highest self.”
“I am enough.”
When you feel emotional, check in with yourself, & ask yourself a few questions—
What happened? Become aware of what triggered you to feel the way you do.
What thoughts/beliefs and I experiencing? And does it align with my truth? Pinpointing the thoughts you’re having about what happened can lead you into a better understanding of any old beliefs or thoughts that no longer serve you. This question is the first step to healing them.
What story am I telling myself (if any) about what it means to feel this way?This is one of the most difficult, yet critical questions to answer. Many of us have developed connections between our self-worth and things that have nothing to do with our self-worth. For example, many of us feel like we’re only worthy if we look a certain way or have a certain job. Understand though —Neither of those things has anything to do with how worthy you are as a human being.
If you catch yourself telling these stories, you can externalize them and recognize that they’re just stories, not the truth. You can remind yourself that the strongest people on this Earth feel these things, too.
Then after asking yourself those kind of questions, find acceptance, reframe the thoughts to something that aligns with you instead, & aim to learn from what it taught you.
It took a long time for me to get to this place of emotional intelligence, where I can sit with & understand my feelings. But now I truly believe that there is a place for every emotion and that it is totally ok to feel them.
And if you’re not there yet, I understand. It takes some getting used to.
I’ll leave you with this…
You can feel emotions however you choose to feel emotions. It’s your life. If you want freedom from them, if you want your power back from those diagnoses, then you may consider trying this process, too.
It won’t happen overnight, but you’re worth the work this takes.
Keep on feeling my friend. It’s the way of being human.
Namaste.
I’m Victor.
Or the mindfulness guy.
I aim to find calm & balance in my life through inspirations between alternative Eastern traditional Buddhism styles of meditation & mindfulness, as well as modern secular styles too.
I believe that we ALL have the capacity to create greatness for ourselves & I’m willing to show you how.
you can find me hanging out on:
Instagram —@2whomitmayconcrn_
Facebook — @iamzenrn
TikTok — @iamzenrn
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~I’m here to hold space for you because you deserve it.~
Victor Padilla