Ep 6: Control Your Emotions and Stop With the Explosions

Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships Podcast. I'm Michelle Penning, your host, intimacy alchemist, trigger queen, and founder of the connected woman. AKA your new go-to bestie for all things love, sex, and relationships that won't blow total smoke up your ass. I believe you deserve to have it all, to feel worthy, confident, and have a fulfilling as fuck love life. In this podcast, we're dropping the insecurity and doubt so that you can transform into the powerful, confident, and secure woman you know your destined to be. So, grab your favorite glass of wine and let's get to work because it's time to reclaim yourself with baby. Oh, Kino-ki, let's get into today's episode. Today, we're going to be talking about something which is very near and dear to my heart. Don't run away. Don't be scared. We're talking about, da, da, da, da, your feelings. I know, I know, this is supposed to be fun and we're supposed to be chill here, but we gotta talk about your fucking feelings, man, because they're running the show. They're running the show. Let me tell you a couple stories about what happens when you don't feel your feelings, okay, in a healthy way. So, this is probably like, I don't know, eight, nine, ten years ago, maybe not that much, maybe like eight years ago. I was seeing a guy and I woke up next to him in the morning. And I was feeling disconnected from him. I wasn't sure what the disconnect was, but I just wasn't feeling it. But naturally, instead of sitting with the feeling of there's a disconnect, I don't know how to get my needs met here. I don't know how to connect with him. I'm feeling very vulnerable. I got angry. Right, I'm sure a lot of us can resonate with this. I picked a fight over nothing as you do. And was like, fuck this, I'm leaving. You know what? This isn't even the relationship for me, which, you know, hindsight 2020. I'm sure you'll gather by the end of this story. It 1000% was not the relationship for me. But anyways, I was just, I was just shitty and I was just making a threat basically so that he would chase me out the door and come follow me. Okay, so anyway, so I left. He was staying at a hotel because he was like a fucking, I don't even want to say it. He was a contiki tour guide. I swear if he's listening right now, I'll be mortified. He was a contiki tour guide, so he just used to like come into town when he was doing a tour, the makings of a beautiful relationship really. And so he was staying at a hotel. So I left the hotel, I closed the door and then I got down the hall and then decided, nope. I don't want to leave actually, I want to get back together because now I'm feeling abandoned and even though I was the one who left, I'm feeling abandoned because he didn't chase me. I'm feeling rejected. So instead of being like, oh wow, like what am I feeling? What do I need right now, which I'm going to get into. I decided to go back to the hotel room. So I did what any, you know, any 22 year old or whatever, 22 or 23 year old would have done in that situation. I proceeded to bang on the front of the door for about 30 minutes, screaming and crying for him to come out and talk to me like literally ugly tears. Please, please come talk to me. Okay, it was not cute at all. But you finally, after about 30 minutes, he comes out of the door and I realize I've been banging on the wrong door for 30 minutes. But he's like, you could obviously hear me because it was the next door over. So he was like, oh my God, what are you doing? And I'm like, please just talk to me. You'd think, oh my God, Michelle, pull it together, leave it, drop it. No, no, he had to go to work. So I proceeded to chase him and follow him through town in my pajamas, bowling my eyes out. It was a real low point. I'm not going to lie. What's a fucking low point? And I hope you're getting some laughter out of this because it's hilarious now, right? But the point being, if I was not triggered, I would never have done that. Right, if you just said to me right now, like, how would you have dealt with that? I would have just been like, wow, okay, I'm leaving. I'm going to go just do what I need to do, whatever. But when we're triggered, we're not in the right state of mind. Like your rational thought leaves the building. Because what happens is basically we get triggered and then we go into fight, flight, freeze, or fun. Fawning is people pleasing. So if you didn't know that, that's an actual trauma response. And if you haven't listened to last week's episode on people pleasing, go do that if you resonate with the fawning. But yeah, that's an actual trauma response, okay? So we go into those states. And what's happening is we're going into the primal brain, which is the part of our brain that's responsible for those automatic responses. So we're not in the prefrontal cortex anymore, which is the part that's like responsible for you being a fucking adult and like using rational thought and your words to communicate, right? We just go into being an absolute caveman or cave woman, right? And so we're going, okay, fight, flight, freeze, fun. I wanted to go into fight. I wanted to like, come on, fun. I want to feel something. I want to, I'm triggered, right? I don't want to, I don't want to leave until this is all resolved, whatever. And so what I find that people do, and this is certainly the case that I see and connected woman all the time. And this was, you know, I used to swing between these two. But people either explode their emotions like I did, right? So they're either really angry or I was very dramatic in my antics, right? Or they're completely shutting down, which is what I would do when the exploding of the emotions doesn't work, then I would go into the shutting down, right? And I would completely withdraw. And so that's what I see people do most often or they do what I did, which is like go from one to the other, right? Because essentially, all that's happening is you are just trying to get your needs met in whatever way you know how, right? And so you may have learned as a child that throwing tantrums got you what you wanted. It got you attention, it got you love, it got you validation, it got you attention, like whatever the thing is, right? Or you may have found that like shutting down was actually what got your needs met, right? You felt safe in shutting down or people will go like, what's wrong? Or you were just like, you know, the conflict around you would stop because you'd just be a good girl and be quiet. Yeah. So we're just doing what we know how to do to meet our own needs. And if you're familiar with attachment styles, then I'd say this isn't a complete blanket statement, but generally speaking, people who tend to be more anxious can tend to you know, gear towards being more explosive with their emotions because what happens is they go into protest behavior, which is kind of I like to explain it almost a little bit as like retaliation, right? If you're not getting your needs met. So for instance, it's kind of like, I'll show you, right? Okay, you haven't called me back now. I'm going to do something to make you jealous, whatever. So that's kind of protest behavior, right? And there can be an explosion of your emotions to try to get your needs met, right? Look at me, look at me, pay attention to me, pay attention to me because all you want to do is feel seen and heard. And if you're not feeling that, you're going to do whatever you can to make that happen. Now, if you tend to lean more avoidant, dismissive avoidant, then you're probably going to lean towards shutting your emotions down, right? And if you're a child, you've learned how to deal with your emotions completely on your own. You don't actually trust that anyone can be around to help you soothe. And so you've just learned that you have to deal with everything on your own, right? And then if you tend to lean more towards being the fearful avoidant, or you may know it as anxious avoidant, then you're a combination of both, right? Which was what I was doing, which is I'm going to go to the anxious part, which is the protest behavior, right? The exploding, spitting the dummy, throwing a tantrum essentially. And then when that doesn't work, then I'm going to shut down my emotions, right? It's like I just wanted attention so fucking badly that I would do whatever I needed to do to make that happen. And the thing is like generally speaking, what's happening in front of you isn't actually what's triggering you, right? If you're in a relationship and your partner's not doing the dishes, it's not the fucking dishes that you're fighting about. Like nobody could give a shit about the dishes. What you're fighting about is what's actually underneath that, which could be like, I don't feel respected. I don't feel valued, whatever it is, right? And we're being triggered from past events, okay? Where else have you felt like you haven't been respected? Where in your childhood did you feel like you weren't being respected, or that you weren't valued? And so that's the actual core event that's being triggered over the dishes. You picking up what I'm putting down. So these all come from triggers and trauma, which is why it's so important for us to understand our patterns and understand our triggers, right? That's what the whole first module of Connect to Woman is about, the relationship blueprint, because I need you to understand your patterns so that you can be aware of what's the shit that really gets to me so that you can deal with that, right? Because I don't want you getting triggered over dumb arguments. And the thing is, I say that with a little bit of a grain of salt, dumb things, because, yeah, it's the dishes, or it's someone not responding to you within an hour or whatever, things that are maybe a little bit small, but it's triggering past trauma. And now when I say trauma, there's different types of trauma, okay? There's big T-trauma, which is like sexual assault, any sort of abuse, things like that, things that we can obviously go, "Oh yes, that's trauma, right? Divorce, death, things like that." And then there's also little T-trauma, okay? Which is like going through a bad breakup, having to end a friendship with a friend, obviously, having to set a boundary with your boss, right? Those are things that you might go, "Oh, that's not traumatic," but it is. And so we have to be aware of that, even things like being sent to summer camp, right? It can feel like an abandonment to a child. So recognizing that and having so much compassion for yourself. And I mean, if I was listening to this episode a few years ago, what I would want to hear is the way that you are right now, it doesn't always have to be that way that you can actually change. And this isn't about fixing anything or making you better because you're not broken, nothing's wrong with you, you're not a fucked up person, okay? I also would have needed to hear that. I sometimes still do need to hear that. This is about like, is what I'm doing working for me right now? If not, what else can I do? How else would I like to respond? Because that's something else, right? There's a difference between reacting and responding. So whatever is happening in front of you, there's a gut reaction, right? Which comes from the trigger, which comes from that flight, flight, freeze and fawn. So there's that. And then there's responding, right? So for me, it's super important that when I'm triggered, I take a step back. Now if you are more on the anxious side, this is going to feel like absolute torture and probably feel like I'm asking you to climb Mount Everest without any mountain climbing training. It will feel virtually impossible because everything in you is going to want to tell you, fight, keep talking about it, push him, ask him more questions, right? So I used to have this voice in my head that would come up with some evil thing to say. And it was literally like the devil and the angel on my shoulder. Like the angel would be like, don't say that. That's an awful thing to say. And then the devil is like, say it. You know what I mean? And I just be like, okay. And I would say it. Yeah, because I couldn't actually sit with what I was feeling, which was, I feel hurt. I feel vulnerable. I had no capacity to explain that to someone. I remember one of my very first coaching sessions that I had with someone like as a client. And she said, can you repeat after me? She said, I can be vulnerable. And I was like, I can, yeah. I genuinely could not say those words because the word and concept of vulnerability was like you saying to me like, tell me you're a murderer. And I'm like, well, I'm not. You know, it was so foreign to me and absolutely not my truth. So me trying to be vulnerable about my emotions, absolutely not. There was only one emotion that I would feel. And that was anger. And what my experience has been is that people who carry a lot of anger are generally repressing a lot of hurt and sadness. And then people who go into tears really easily and feel sadness quite easily, like that's their dominant emotion, they're generally repressing a lot of anger. So ask yourself what's underneath this? What am I actually feeling? So for the anxious person, it's really important that you take space to be able to do that, right? So you could make art, you can journal what I used to do because me asking to like write actual words when I'm triggered is just like, I can't. So I would just take a pen and I would just scribble into a black circle of oblivion on a piece of paper because that would help me to move some of my anger. All right, all right, all right. I just have to tell you something really quickly. The connected woman is here again, cue the champagne. This is my signature 12 week program that takes you from feeling anxious as fuck about your love life to feeling confident, worthy and secure. So if you're constantly needing external validation, shutting down your needs, you're not in touch with your actual emotions. You feel unworthy of love, you keep attracting emotionally unavailable men, or maybe you're a super sexy combination of all of the above, then this is the program for you. I've had over a hundred women go through this program now and they all walk away feeling really secure in themselves and actually ready to tackle the world, right? They can show up as the most authentic and connected version of themselves. So whether you're single, you're in a relationship, you're married, you've never been in a relationship, this is for you. Because this is about becoming fully connected to yourself so that you can experience real intimacy with men. So if you're feeling a little bit curious, like a little curious cat, then head to mishelcanning.com/connectedwoman to see all the deeds. Okay, let's get back to the episode. This is why it's super, super important that you get connected to your body. I spoke about this in the last episode. I'm going to speak about this several more times, but this really is the foundation of everything. Get connected to your body, feel the sensations, right? Because you need to become familiar with the signs that you need to release. Okay, so for me, this is like, I know that I get really fussy when I need to release. I get lethargic. I have a very short fuse. And that's what I know, like, something's off. I'm at capacity. I usually get anxiety. I get a buzzy kind of tight feeling in my rib cage. These are all the signs to myself that, okay, something's got to go. Something's got to move right now. And so that's when I will, you know, do the journaling or I'll speak to a friend, but mostly, you know, before that, I would say do some emotional release tools. So I go through these in the connected woman, but, you know, it could be as simple as throwing a tantrum on your bed in your own company by yourself in a safe space. Okay, this is not for you to like lose your shit in front of someone else. And it's not about not wanting to be seen in that. It's just like you need to feel safe that you can actually move this on your own. So punting. launching a pillow, crying, sobbing, like whatever you need to do to actually physically move the emotion, because it's not enough that you just go like, I'm feeling anger. Okay, great, I've named the emotion. Next, like that's not enough. This is a somatic embodied experience. You have to feel it. And the thing is these emotions only have control and power over you when you repress them and when you deny them. So the more that you say, I'm not angry, I'm not hurt. I'm not upset. Whatever, those emotions are like, yeah, you're faggin' our watch, right? There's this concept of like the feather, the brick and the train. I don't know if that's the exact words, but that's what I'm going with. So basically it's like, you know, if you're feeling angry, then you're gonna get a feather, right? So the feather could be like a small kind of frustration. And then you're like not listening to that. So then you get a brick, right? Which is you feeling like kind of red hot and a bit angry of like, wow, and righteous, yeah? You're still not listening to it. So then what happens? You get a fucking train and you experience rage and you scream at your partner or at your child for pretty much nothing, right? Because you're not actually paying attention to the signs and symptoms that something's there for you. Okay, so start to connect with yourself and this is where I find coaching to be super helpful. This is what I will say help to bring me into secure attachment because I had a coach who could model that for me and could actually hold space for my emotions. You know, and that's something I do for my clients is like, okay, let's actually help you just feel safe in your feelings so that you don't have to explode or shut down your emotions. And I wanna say too, if you are the person who shuts down your emotions and you may be judging the person who explodes, like I don't wanna say it's just as bad, right? It's not as bad, but like it's just as severe, almost, right? Because it's a, what happens when you explode your emotions, you're punishing the other person, okay? But when you shut down your emotions, you're punishing yourself. Ooh, that was good. (laughs) When you explode your emotions, you are punishing the other person and when you shut down your emotions, you are punishing yourself. And that's what I did when I shut down my emotions before when I would explode and then I would shut them down. I felt embarrassed about me exploding so that I would shut down and I would punish myself, really. So think about the abuse that you are spewing out into the world, whether that's onto another person or whether that's onto yourself, right? So it's not a fun place to be. And when you shut down, people cannot connect with you. You cut off all connection. And if you are in a relationship or you want to have a healthy relationship with someone, there's absolutely no way for someone to get in. There's no access point because you have shut everyone down, right? Because what happens is you build a wall and nothing can get into a wall, right? With boundaries, it lets the good stuff in but keeps the bad stuff out, but with a wall, it keeps everything out. And that's what you do when you shut yourself down. So you sabotage connection. And there's only so much of that that people around you can take, whether that's romantic partners, family members, friendships, whatever. It's very difficult to build an authentic relationship with someone who's shutting down their emotions. That maybe you, that maybe your partner, that maybe an X that you can think of. I'm sure we've all had an experience with someone who's shut down their emotions. And again, this isn't coming from a bad place. Whether you are the person who shuts down and withdraws or you're the person who explodes in his dramatic, it's not coming from a bad place, it's coming from a place of ultimate fucking fear. So start to sit with the fear. Putting your hand on your heart, closing your eyes, taking deep breaths, what am I afraid of? What am I truly afraid? Afraid will happen. Oh, I'm afraid that they're gonna see parts of me that they don't like and they're gonna leave. I'm afraid that I'm going to be abandoned. I'm afraid that I'm not good enough. Whatever the fear is, feel it, ask it, what do you need and providing what it needs? Yeah. You'll start to see here that from my end, there is never any judgment. On the way that you may have acted in the past, maybe you did one of these things today. Maybe you did one of these things like 20 minutes ago with your on a walk cooling off. It's okay, it's okay. You're learning, right? So so much of what I teach and what I want you to get from this is having compassion for yourself, okay? Start to sit with your emotions, journal. What am I feeling? What am I feeling? Get connected with the sensations of your body. Work with a coach in a group setting or if you feel you need something deeper, then reach out for one-on-one so someone can help you to process your emotions. If you've never felt safe processing your emotions because of your childhood, then how are you expecting to be 20, 30, 40, 50 years old and just automatically know how to do it? That's insane. We need to be taught these things. You need to be taught emotional literacy and emotional intelligence because unfortunately, it hasn't been taught in schools. At least it wasn't in my school. I think they're doing a lot more now, which is amazing, but I don't think we're anywhere where we need to be. So we need to do these things as adults and have fun for us because we actually get to change the people around us, not in a way of manipulating them, but in a way of leading by example. So when you start to get comfortable with your emotions, you give permission to the people around you to be comfortable with their emotions. I've seen it in my own partner that he has started to really flourish and open because I create a safe space for myself to feel and then I create a safe space for him to feel as well. And he might not always take that space, but when he does, he trusts that it's okay. It's not judged, it's welcome. But that's only because I have started to do that with myself because I say to myself, "It's okay, you're welcome here." And there's no such thing as a negative emotion. There's no such thing as positive emotions. They just are, right? So we tend to look at things like pleasure and joy and happiness and generosity. That's not really an emotion, but like, you know what I'm saying? We tend to look at those sorts of emotions and go, "Oh, that's really great. I want to feel more of that every day," which is fantastic, right? You can absolutely hold that intention to feel more of those emotions. But then we look at things like anger, sadness, rage, jealousy, shame, all of these things and go, "That's a negative emotion." Well, there's no such thing as a negative emotion. Emotions are just emotions. The only thing that makes it go to bad is the meaning that you're giving it, the attachment that you're giving it. But all our emotions are doing is pointing us in the direction of what we need and what's actually going on for us. How incredible. You have this internal guidance system which is showing you every step of the way where you're at. And something that I hear a lot actually is people who have become pretty numb. They go, "Well, I just don't feel." Well, I want to say to your body and your nervous system, well done, well done, because you have done exactly what you've needed to do. You've clearly experienced things which have felt too much, too painful, too overwhelming. And so your body has created this numbness to protect you from feeling that. So actually take a second to acknowledge and celebrate your body and your nervous system for doing exactly what it's designed to do. And then recognize that numbness is a feeling. Numbness is a feeling. And the way that you heal numbness or start to wake up so that you can experience more emotions and sensations is not by going at your metaphorical iceberg of numbness with a fucking ice pick and slamming it. Okay, that's not how we do it. We sit there patiently and we allow it to melt slowly. Okay. So this is how we do that, is we sit with it and we accept that the amount of time emotion is there. We make space. We hold space. Just like I said, I do for my partner, and he does for me, we hold space for ourselves. We hold space for our emotions and we say, it's okay. You are allowed to be here. You are valid. And this is going to feel especially difficult if you have been gausslet in the past, whether from your parents or previous relationships or your boss or whoever. It's going to feel difficult for you to validate your own emotions because your whole experience has been people invalidating your emotions. But this really is the key to you healing that. So I want to wrap this up by giving you a quick little summary. Just feel your feelings. You don't have to explode. You don't have to shut down. You can take space for yourself. You can sit with it. Even though it may feel like you're going to die, I promise you you won't keep reminding yourself that you are safe. You can hold yourself. And if you need extra support, then work with a coach or if you have significant trauma, I definitely recommend working with like a somatic psychotherapist. That's who I'm working with at the moment. And she's Oh, incredible. I absolutely have loved working with her so far and we'll continue to work with her. So somatic psychotherapy or somatic experiencing or EMDR. I will link those modalities in the show notes. And you'll have to find your own practitioners. Obviously, but I will link the modalities down below. And yeah, there are people out there who can, who can help you with this. You're not on your own. You don't have to do everything on your own. And again, final words, you're not broken. You're not fucked up. Whether you explode or you shut down. You're perfectly whole exactly as you are. And now it's just a little bit of refinement to see what could we do that would maybe work a little bit better. Okay, my loves. That's all for me. I will speak to you in the next episode. Love you, love you, love you. Thank you so much for tuning into the unfucked relationships podcast. I hope that this episode has helped you regain yourself work and reclaim your power. Remember, you deserve to feel safe and secure in your relationships. If you love what you learned, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss a future episode. And we would love you to help me reach more passionate women just like you who want to feel their relationship patterns so they can have real intimacy with men. Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories and tag me @MichellePanning. See you back here in the next episode.