Finding Flow 🌱 uncomfy feelings & what they're trying to tell us

Summary

In this insightful monologue, furrylittlepeach explores the significance of embracing uncomfortable feelings and the narratives they tell us about our emotional state and life journey. She reflects on the lessons from the book '101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think' by Brianna Wiest, particularly focusing on emotional intelligence, facing discomfort, and the liberation that comes from fully experiencing our emotions. By resisting feelings, we might be missing out on essential insights about our life path and personal transformation. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, she emphasizes the importance of not demonizing emotions, listening to them, and understanding them to guide ourselves more effectively and compassionately.

Highlights

• Browsing through Brianna Wiest's essays provides new perspectives on feelings. 📚
• Real emotional maturity comes from experiencing every emotion and its lessons. 🌈
• Resisting feelings equates to prolonging discomfort and missing out on growth. 🌱
• Recognizing and leaning into discomfort can indicate you're on the right path. 🚀
• Balance of flow and resistance shapes the experiences we are proud of. ⚖️

Key Takeaways

• Emotions are guides, not enemies; embracing them can enhance self-awareness and growth. 🌟
• Suppressing feelings can lead to prolonged discomfort; instead, let them flow for healing. 🌊
• Routine can be a pathway to finding flow and creativity in daily life. 🌀
• Trying to change immediate feelings is less effective than understanding what they signal. 🔍
• Emotional autonomy is crucial for a fulfilling life; own your feelings and choices. 💪

Overview

In the compelling narrative by furrylittlepeach, she delves into the profound insights garnered from Brianna Wiest’s book, focusing on the chapters about understanding and embracing uncomfortable emotions. Through her personal anecdotes, she emphasizes the importance of not just experiencing emotions, but listening to them as they often guide us to unexpected places of growth and self-awareness.

The video reflects on how suppressing feelings or avoiding discomfort doesn't solve problems but rather extends them. Discussing personal experiences and insights from therapy, she mentions how using avoidance as a coping mechanism can hinder emotional progress and maturity. By confronting fears and acknowledging emotions, one can cultivate a deeper understanding and control over their personal journey.

Embracing discomfort is highlighted as a pivotal part of personal growth. By reframing negative emotions as opportunities to learn, we potentially unlock a deeper connection with ourselves and our life’s purpose. The video concludes with notes on the intrinsic value of being emotionally autonomous and how owning our emotions and experiences can lead to a more fulfilling and authentic life.

Finding Flow 🌱 uncomfy feelings & what they're trying to tell us Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] it on Tuesday could I stop in and see [Music] smile if you don't have lunch plans I'm not busy I could stop by for a bik in a while
• 00:30 - 01:00 hello everyone welcome to my house I just got back from beautiful Tasmania where I was visiting my family but now we're back I have unpacking to do I cannot let it sit there for 2 weeks I just can't [Music]
• 01:00 - 01:30 hello everyone laundry is done I wanted to take a second to review another chapter of this book I'm reading at the moment if you watch my last video on routine and like the psychology of daily routine you will know that I love 101 essays that will change the way you
• 01:30 - 02:00 think by Briand whis it actually is changing the way I think whether that be because I just don't have these basic thoughts or because it's actually incredible you'll have to find out if you read it but I wanted to hello I wanted to look at another chapter that I relate to a lot and that I feel like could help you guys if you're like me so this chapter is chapter 7 it's called what the feelings you most suppress are trying to tell you emotional intelligence is not how infrequently you feel anything bad because you develop the discipline and wisdom not to it's not how easily you choose what to think
• 02:00 - 02:30 how you let it affect you or how placidly you react to any given situation real emotional maturity is how thoroughly you let yourself feel anything everything whatever comes it is simply the knowing that the worst thing that could ever happen is just a feeling at the end of the [Music] day I feel that this first line is something that I've fallen for I have felt that like preventing like bad feelings will like make my life better
• 02:30 - 03:00 but by doing that and like exerting so much energy and trying to predict all these bad things and try and make sure that these bad things don't happen I'm just one experiencing every possible thing that can go wrong I emotionally feel like that's happening even though I logically know I'm trying to predict it and also I'm not actually acquiring the skills it takes to deal with the bad things when they come I'm just worrying something I learned in therapy is thoughts and not actions and so like all
• 03:00 - 03:30 the time I spent thinking about what I would do when things go wrong or trying to prevent things from going wrong or thinking about things I think I like an avoidance technique I felt like I'm preparing and readying myself emotionally but what I'm actually doing is avoiding being fine with the discomfort of something could go wrong they say a sense of fear a pinch or a throb or a sting a hunger Pang or ego kick the sense of worthlessness the idea of not longing interesting how physical feelings are always quick and transient but the ideas we hold of pain always
• 03:30 - 04:00 seem to stick around in the past I felt like ruminating on something prevents it or will help me avoid it but I think all it does is prolong the discomfort surrounding the said thing and that's also rumination not just before something could happen it's also like after things happen you know when you're just up late at night and like worrying about this thing you said like years ago that's also the same thing like Let It Go obviously easier said than done but it's interesting what I like about this book is it reframes things that I think I have a grasp on it reframes things that I think I know are good for me I'm
• 04:00 - 04:30 like oh maybe that's not so good for me and not not in a way that completely shakes my world but more in a way of like oh I am in control of these things but we avoid feeling anything because we have more or less been taught that our feelings have lives of their own that they'll carry on forever if we give them even a moment of a our awareness have you ever felt joy for more than a few minutes what about anger no how about tension depression and sadness those have lasted longer haven't they weeks and months and years at a time right that's because those aren't feelings they are symptoms healing is really just letting yourself free a common theme of
• 04:30 - 05:00 this book is like resistance causing you a worse life than you could have and whether that be like resistance to change resistance to things you know are good for you resistance to feelings you think are bad there's also a theme of we don't fully know what's good for us we don't actually know what will make us happy I think all of those things come into play in this chapter numbness is not nothing neutral is nothing numbness is everything at once I use this analogy all the time and it's so based on a cartoon I was laughing with n this
• 05:00 - 05:30 because it's not real it's like a Trope in a cartoon but like when many characters are walking through ding they get stuck I feel like that's what numbness is it's so much is happening you feel nothing it almost cancels it out cuz you don't know where to focus if you feel like you don't care about something you wouldn't feel anything your anxiety is your resistance to the process your last grasps at to control you of becoming more and more aware that you do not have this is really interesting because I always thought the anxiety is before the bad thing but it feels like it is actually at the start of the process it's the last last ditch
• 05:30 - 06:00 effort to feel okay personally I feel like I do a lot of mental gymnastics to feel somewhat in control of like things that I cannot control which is so silly because I know logically I can't control the things it gives me like an immediate relief however in the long term it's worse because I believe that I can change things that I can't or I believe I have control or responsibility over things that I don't and your arrival at the conclusion that you cannot go on like this that you're missing out that you're off track and feeling stuck and
• 06:00 - 06:30 lost is you realizing that you need not change your feelings you just have to learn to lean into them and see what they're trying to tell you I feel like there are certain feelings that I have demonized certain feelings that that come quickly to me like for example anger or frustration or insecurity I pull away from them because I don't like them but I think it's because I'm not experienced in sitting in that discomfort if you learn to lean into them you're able to see what they're trying to tell you because all feelings are neutral they're just messages to yourself about something trying to
• 06:30 - 07:00 change how you feel is like finding a road sign that points in the opposite direction of where you had intended to go and getting out to try and turn the sign rather than your course of action I've written here by trying to force progress we don't validate ourselves sometimes I feel like I want to like immediately get rid of the feelings so that I can jump to the part where I'm fine or I have felt in the past that that is good like I'm resilient or I can compartmentalize things but I think what I'm doing is completely invalidating like those feelings and therefore like further demonizing those feelings which is not good because if I'm not
• 07:00 - 07:30 comfortable with having those feelings or certain emotions then I can't actually adequately assess them and figure out what the what it means and what it means to me and my goals and what I like so it's not about changing how you feel it's about listening not accepting what they appear to mean that's important but really following your instincts down to what they're trying to Signal they are how you communicate with yourself every feeling is worthwhile you miss so much by trying to change every one of them away or thinking there are some that are right or wrong or good or bad or that you should have have or shouldn't all
• 07:30 - 08:00 because you're afraid that you'll tell yourself something you don't want to hear the feelings you most suppress are the most important ways you guide yourself your apprehension to listen is not your own desire it's fear of being something more or less or greater or worse or simply different than those around you have implied that they will accept that discomfort is just your fear that someone will reject you or you won't get what you want but that's just like an assumption if we're guiding ourselves based on our assumptions that's not really like a well investigated path to it could be a
• 08:00 - 08:30 miscommunication it could be someone feeling off that day it could be your fears clouding the way that you're perceiving a situation why would I want to guide myself on something that isn't true obviously like I can't know if it's true like if I try and if I try to silence certain emotions then I can't actually listen to all of my gut feelings because I am saying this one is bad or I shouldn't listen to this or I should push this one down sadness will not kill you depression won't either but fighting it will ignoring it will trying to escape it rather than confront it will allowing it no place to go other than your deep subconscious to embed and
• 08:30 - 09:00 control you will not that you'll take your life or destroy everything good though you might but it will kill you in the way that it will rob you of every bit of life you do have you either let yourself feel everything or numb yourself into feeling nothing you cannot select emotions you are either in accord with their flow or in resistance to their nature in the end the choice is yours and again this like I don't know if the right word is dichotomy but again this like balance of flow and resistance there are certain points in my life I I allow the flow I embrace the flow and those are the points of my life that I really embra proud of the points in my
• 09:00 - 09:30 life that I continue to resist are the stuff that I'm ashamed of I thought that by resisting it I would like alleviate it or learn to control it trying to control it is a form of resistance and like avoidance I don't know why I'm in I'm emotional now the previous chapter chapter six is uncomfortable feelings that actually indicate you're on the right path should we read it I feel like this one also goes hand in hand with the one I just read discomfort is what happens when we're on the precipice of change unfortunately we often confuse it
• 09:30 - 10:00 for unhappiness and cope with the latter while running from the former it usually takes a bit of discomfort to break through a new understanding to release a limiting belief to motivate ourselves to create real change discomfort is a signal one that is often very helpful here are a few less than desirable feelings that may indicate that you're the right path after all so I would like really love to become someone that really listens to my feelings I feel like I'm so reactive and when I say reactive I mean I'm so instantly set like taken back by certain emotions or feelings I don't even listen to them I'm
• 10:00 - 10:30 just like I don't want to be around this I haven't built resistance to that but I would love to become like a safe space for myself because clearly there are certain emotions I'm like I can't have these or I don't want to have these because I feel that they're bad by trying to please by shoving down these emotions I think are displeasing to others like I'm completely disregulated myself and I'm like a less pleasant person to be around I feel so I think what I need to do is reframe discomfort fear and negative emotions as positive things or at least in the way that they
• 10:30 - 11:00 I have an opportunity to like gather something from this by learning how to cope with this discomfort I can feel even less stress even though it may be stressful to begin with I feel that parts of the previous chapters relate so in the last essay I talked about the psychology of daily routine they say you must learn to let your conscious decisions dictate your day not your fears or impulses I've also said when you regulate your daily actions you deactivate your fight or flight fear instincts have turned off long enough for you to actually enjoy something as your body self-regulates routine becomes
• 11:00 - 11:30 the pathway to flow which is important for creativity as I discussed last time but also important for life I feel like there are so many lessons I've learned and taught myself through my creative practice that have not applied to my life but are the same trusting that my abilities going with my gut having confidence in the way that I think and work finding the Flow State as a positive thing why why do I compartmentalize so hard that I completely separate them from each other in chapter one which is subconscious behaviors that are keep you from having the life you want I've noted that
• 11:30 - 12:00 something that relates to this chapter is you believe that creating your best life is a matter of deciding what you want and then going after it but in reality you are psychologically incapable of being able to predict what will make you happy I feel that I have immediately turned away from things that cause me stress or discomfort when really maybe I just really care about them which is what I said before we don't really fully know what's going to make us happy cuz we are Guided by also like ego and like culture and stuff like that I've also noted that you needlessly create
• 12:00 - 12:30 problems and crisis in your life because you're afraid of actually living it I do that as avoidance and I feel like I felt that it made me like oh I I'm fully self-aware and I know this and I know this but like intellectualizing certain things is just avoidance in a way you think problems are roadblocks to achieve what you want when in reality they are Pathways and this is the shift I feel like this chapter helps you make one feeling as though you were reliving your childhood struggles two feeling lost or directionless feeling lost is actually a sign you're becoming more present in your life you're living less within
• 12:30 - 13:00 narratives and ideas that you premeditated and more in the moment at hand it will feel as though you're off track you want four having random influxes of irrational anger or sadness that intensify until you can't ignore them anymore this is something I deal with when emotions erupt it's usually because they're coming up to be recognized and our job is to learn to stop grappling with them or resisting them and to Simply become fully conscious of them after that we control them not the opposite way around I always thought that I could control them first and then understand them and solve it later cuz I would do this thing where
• 13:00 - 13:30 I'm like I'll just suck it down and then deal with it in my own time but I actually couldn't because it included other people and I think that comes from like becoming obsessed with wanting to fix the problem or taking responsibility for things that I could I thought I could change when really like I didn't allow anyone to help me 10 feeling like the dreams you had for your life are collapsing what you do not realize at this moment is that it is making way for a reality better than you could have thought of one that's more aligned with who you are not who you thought you would be I feel like I had this moment
• 13:30 - 14:00 recently I don't remember what it was but I remember being like it was better than I ever thought 11 feeling as though you're worst enemies are your thoughts and it's often not until we're pushed to our Wit's End that we try and take control of them feel like I had a moment of this recently I feel like I also felt this a lot when I first started therapy when I realized like so much of it is in my control I also feel like I felt at least the symptoms of this when I first started making
• 14:00 - 14:30 work because I was I felt that it was important to make my work while documenting it and sharing it or at least there's some subconscious part of me felt like compelled to do that I always had a lot of self-doubt as if I was like not a real artist or I didn't belong in the spaces that I was occupying or shared with other artists or online and in real life and it made like certain comments that I like that I received kind of like kind of like back that up back my fears up but really they
• 14:30 - 15:00 may not have been saying that at all 12 feeling unsure of who you really are your past Illusions about who you should be a dissolving you feel unsure because it's uncertain you're in the process of evolving and we don't become uncertain when we change for the worst we become angry and closed off in other words if you what you're experiencing is insecurity or uncertainty it's usually going to lead to something better 14 knowing things you don't want to know such as what someone is really feeling or that a relationship isn't going to last or that you won't be at your job much longer a lot of irrational anxiety comes from subconsciously sensing
• 15:00 - 15:30 something yet not taking it seriously because it isn't logical that's so funny and because you don't take it seriously you don't address it and because you don't address it it might fulfill your worst fears 16 realizing you're the only person responsible for your life and your happiness this kind of emotional autonomy is terrifying because it means that if you mess up it's all on you at the same time realizing it is the only way to truly be free the risk is worth a reward on this one always we can make choices that lead to better to a better life and more happiness even if like
• 15:30 - 16:00 your threshold for happiness is lower than someone else's you can still be within your spectrum of Happiness there are things that you could do to up your happiness a little and maybe even like expand the ceiling which your happiness caps at I feel like those were two chapters that I found interesting this book is really good so I haven't really read that much I've only read about 15 essays but if you are interested please get it some of them are available online so maybe have a Google if you're not really interested in getting the book but you're interested in Reading I didn't read everything I read mly the headings and some points that I found
• 16:00 - 16:30 interesting and then my thoughts on that this video is a very chill homew I'm going to fold my laundry while the sun goes down I hope you're having a good afternoon I hope you got some work done if you're working while you watch this um and if you have any thoughts on like the essays that I read or the thoughts I shared like please let me know long form you know I love to read them I read every single one I respond to lots of them especially cuz they're always so interesting I had a lot of good ones about my driving video and a lot of good ones about the routine video both of which had great suggestions that and advice that I would take on board or just sharing your experiences which will
• 16:30 - 17:00 then affect my experience and a reminder that like I get to speak to you and you get to hear me long form but I don't often get to hear that from you so if you're hesitant to comment but you have something to say I would love to hear it I want to say a big thank you to Squarespace of sponsoring this video as per usual Squarespace if you don't know is an all- inone platform for building your website I spoke about this last time about creating routine to affect your website and since we're talking about lots of flow and resistance create space to share the work that you've worked so hard on in a way that's beautiful and does it justice whether
• 17:00 - 17:30 that be carving out some time each week carving out some time each month whether that be preparing files preparing uh blurs so that when you do update your website it's so easy and so painless Andor use Squarespace to run your website because it is definitely going to be easy and painless and stunning I can say this wholeheartedly because I was a customer before I was sponsored by Squarespace but I love it they're always trying to improve they're always trying to create new features for you to run your business all in one place which I think is really important um I run my
• 17:30 - 18:00 store on Squarespace my blog my portfolio my newsletters on Squarespace everything sits in this little cute online space that I've curated just for me if you've never tried Squarespace before go to squarespace.com little peach or use the code fairy Little Peach you get a free trial on 10% off your first purchase thank you Squarespace and thank you guys for sitting with me I hope to hear from you I will see you very soon with another video I had like a um commercial illustration project that took up most of this month or some of this month and I'm only able to share
• 18:00 - 18:30 like the process of that next month so I will be creating two shorter videos at the very end of November so if you're watching this the other one might be out check it out um otherwise I'll see you very soon happy holidays if I don't see you before you celebrate with your family bye [Music]
• 18:30 - 19:00 n