As human beings, the one thing that sets us apart from every other living creature is our capacity to experience every spectrum of emotions and the ability to choose what we do with them. This is great news, but it can also be our stumbling point. Because we get to choose, we have the option to ignore, to judge, and to mask our emotions, all which will lead to trouble. My encouragement this week, is to feel every moment.
I have just published a powerful podcast with Shane Jacob, called Horse talk. Shane talks about his experiences with an alcohol addiction and how it was destroying his life, until he started to feel the moment. As a horseman, he found lots of wisdom from horses. He explained that horses do feel emotion, they just don’t have the same capacity as humans to choose what they do with those emotions. He explained how they feel the moment. They stay in the moment, they experience the discomfort, and they move through it to their next moment in life.
This may not sound like it, but it is an incredibly profound and powerful idea if we embrace it. As Shane was talking, I reflected on the times in my life I didn’t want to deal with certain emotions, such as; fear, anxiety, insecurity, and lack of self-worth. So, rather than feeling the moment, and dealing with the feelings, I masked the moment and pretended everything was okay, when clearly it was not. I can give you loads of examples of how that simple and single poor choice, which I was so good at making, has exploded in my face at some later date. Being sacked as a professional athlete, losing money in business, three divorces, just to name a few.
So, what does ‘feel the moment’ mean? I hear you asking. It simply means, when you feel an emotion of any type, sit with it, allow it, feel it, try to understand it, and then it’s amazing how you will be better able to process it. As I was editing the podcast, and getting it ready to publish, I was feeling my own anxiety, which up until that moment, I was choosing to try and ignore. If you have ever experienced anxiety, you will know it is very difficult to ignore. So, I decided to take Shane’s horse-talk advice. I got up, went for a walk, found a spot on a park bench in the sun, looking over the water, and I sat.
I closed my eyes, I took a deep breath in, and I felt that moment. I leaned into the anxiety, I thought about a situation I am currently dealing with that was leading to the fear that was driving the emotion, and again, I sat. I stayed in that moment for about ten minutes. In that time, I validated the feeling, analysed the feeling, I examined my thinking that was leading to the feeling, and all of a sudden, an insight came. It was a different way to look at the situation, and immediately the anxiety was gone. I have to be honest, it was replaced with other emotions, one was peace, the other was anger. Not bad anger, but empowered anger that represented me taking back my power in the situation.
I walked home, and I was very grateful for Shane, and the suggestion to feel the moment. This strategy is not just good for moments when there is fear, anxiety, and resentment. It is also great to feel the moments of joy, gratitude, love, and happiness. To sit with all feelings helps to understand them, embrace them, learn from them, and be able to either keep them, or move through them, as the case may be.
So, as you are reading this blog, I want to encourage you to think of an emotion that you may have buried. One that hurts. Maybe a conflict with someone, a feeling of lack, anger at a certain situation, a comment someone made to you, fear of taking the next step in an area of your life, or anything else. Just know, if you continue to ignore it, stuff it, or mask it, there will be an explosion at some point, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Now is the time to feel the moment. Take yourself somewhere peaceful and sit with the feeling. Lean into it, learn from it, process it, and then move through it. Trust me, you will feel so much better as a result.
My other podcast this week is called Mena-power with Natalie Moore. It is an awesome conversation about the feelings associated with menstrual cycles and menopause. It is important to feel the moments, even those affected by our hormones. The more we do, the more we will be able to move through them, with joy, wisdom, and gratitude. Today, test the theory, when you experience any type of emotion, feel the moment.