What’s inside your handbag?
“Better out than in.” That’s what my dad used to say about sick.
It was the May bank holiday weekend of 2016, we were camping with two other families in Wales. As I looked around Oscar did a full on sick onto his plate of food. Within a few hours Jenson and Mark were also being sick. I had stomach pains, but part of my brain told me that I was the only one running this show.
I used my brain to override my body.
The next day they all felt fine, but it took me six days to feel better.
It’s the same way with emotions
We can use our thoughts to push them down, numb ourselves with Netflix and keep so busy that we have no time to feel. The problem with suppressing emotions is that we haven’t actually let them go. We are still carrying them around in a big handbag which spills open whenever we are triggered by a new situation.
Sometimes the reaction to a situation feels like an emotional eruption or far bigger than is warranted because of all the other stuff that came before. Everything that is in the handbag.
Suppressing the ‘negative emotions’ like guilt, anger, embarrassment, shame, hurt, grief has the equal and opposite effect of suppressing the ‘positive’ emotions such as: joy, fulfilment, excitement, passion, happiness.
You can’t selectively numb emotions
They all reside behind the same door inside ourselves. So, to feel more of the positive emotions we have to open ourselves up to feel more of the ‘negative’ ones too.
They don’t call it an emotional rollercoaster for nothing.
What’s inside your handbag?
Speak soon,
Hannah
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PS Would you like to be guided through a process to explore thoughts, beliefs and emotions holding you stuck and create an action plan to move you towards what you do want?
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It’s comprised of three parts :
(1) Women’s Leadership Profile to look at areas of your leadership that you are excelling in and home in in areas which need some attention and will make the biggest impact for you when transformed.
(2) A 1hr 1:1 coaching session designed to look at your career and any personal challenges from multiple different perspectives. With a new found clarity, map out a series of 3-5 aspirational intentions for your future broken down into the very first steps you can take within 2 weeks to move you closer to those goals. Your action plan will be supported by NLP, coaching and leadership-based tools to help you integrate the actions with ease.
(3) A 30-minute Accountability Call two weeks after your session to go through those actions, look at things that went well and add further distinctions and also uncover any blocks to your progression. During this session we will also map out the next set of steps.