Uncomfortable Feelings: Learning to Surf the Wave

There’s a phenomenal TedX talk with Dr Joan Rosenberg; it’s about being with unpleasant feelings. It falls in line with many of the coaching topics we go over, and I think this is a key many of us are missing (the key to our dream home that we are trying to build… it’s really hard to enjoy if you don’t have the key)! She describes that what holds most people back is their inability to deal with unpleasant feelings, partly because no one really teaches us how to handle them.

Dr Susan David (Emotional Agility) talks about the impact of avoiding uncomfortable emotions and the impact on our mental health. Briefly, she talks about two common ways: bottling and brooding. Bottlers tend to push away negative emotions, avoid the discomfort, suppress emotions (often thinking expression is a sign of weakness). Unfortunately, they often surface in life through unintended ways. Brooders, on the other hand, tend to get stuck in negative emotions and ruminate in negative feelings and hurt, often causing a cycle of uncomfortable emotions. Do either of these sounds familiar? These tend to be short-term coping skills we learned as kids, especially if we didn’t feel safe to express our feelings. 

What’s the alternative? Dr Rosenberg talks about if you can move through eight unpleasant feelings, you can deal with most things in life. The formula she describes: one choice, 8 feelings, 90 seconds. The moment-to-moment choices we make add up and ultimately, if we choose to stay fully present, we can process uncomfortable emotions. It’s about awareness, not avoidance– which often causes us to run, hide, shut down, escape, or distract (think about food, alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, social media).

By staying fully present with the unpleasant feelings like sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, we have the opportunity to process them. Most of us see these emotions as bad or negative; what if we re-label them unpleasant or uncomfortable? 

We avoid them because we are afraid that we’ll lose control, or we can’t handle them. Our experience of feeling capable in the world and showing emotional strength is directly tied to our ability to feel and move through uncomfortable feelings.

So how do we move through them? First is to allow them. Know that it’s a biochemical reaction. What we feel emotionally is experienced in the body first as a physical sensation. The biochemical wave lasts 60-90s seconds. Feelings can come up like a wave tumultuously, sometimes linger a bit, then subside. Dr Rosenberg calmly explains that you need to surf the 90 second waves. 

Last week, I mentioned you have the choice to feel love at any time. Sometimes, you’ll choose to feel uncomfortable emotions: sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration. 

Those are available to you any time, but so is love.