Something to try when emotions feel too big

In dedication to angry customers, driving anxiety, and being stared at when doing something embarrassing.

Driving makes me… tense.

I sit up straight (probably great for my posture and core honestly) and because of my accident, I’m still a smidge anxious when merging. Despite this, I attempt to talk myself through it and continue to try to live as if driving next to several other speeding vehicles is normal for me.

I just thought of this, but it reminds me how irrationally anxious I’d get if my cousin would ride his bike next to mine when we were kids; nothing bad had ever happened to justify that fear!

Anyway, something that’s helped me when I strongly feel emotions in my body–muscles tensing with anxiety, a shrinking feeling when someone around me is irritated or angry, etc.–is to shake.

Like a dog shaking off water.

Shake, shake, shake.

Seriously. I’ll explain a bit more later.

Exactly a month ago, I decided to leave the house for a reason other than work, but like I mentioned earlier, driving has been a bit anxiety-inducing for me. Especially since my car accident!

But driving to places other than my easy route to work is something I wanna work on! So last month before my shift later in the day, I decided I really really wanted to run errands.

I noticed time slipping away from me as I tried hyping myself up to go out before work. Because of this, I started talking down to myself, and had to calm down, breathe, and encourage myself to just get out there and do it!

Decide that it’s easy!

I changed my identity into someone who leaves the house to run errands ALL the time. It’s nothing new, nothing crazy… It’s normalized.

I left the house, got into the car, and in my rush to rip the bandaid off and just GO, I hit the trashcans at the end of the driveway.

While I was pushing them back toward the house, I saw some construction workers down the street turn to watch me (crashing into trashcans in a quiet neighborhood can make quite the ruckus!). I thought to myself: Was that embarrassing? Sure! Does it matter? No. I will not let that ruin my day. It was an accident, and it’s over.

I punched my destinations into the GPS (a grocery store, and the liquor store a few doors down for a pumpkin spice hard cider my boyfriend let me try the last time we went out and got pizza–it tasted like cinnamon applesauce!), and was off.

With my “I’ve already got my desired life” mindset, I did my grocery shopping and it felt empowering to spend a day buying whatever I wanted and not worrying about the price. I decided I was living in a time of my life where running errands was something I did all the time!

I went in for cheesy garlic bread and a small package of ground beef for the spaghetti I’d been craving and left with that, and everything from the newly released raspberry and peanut butter Uncrustables (it’s how I eat my PBJs! I had to try it!), to a loaf of rosemary olive oil bread and Kerrygold butter.

I’m like those guys who take pictures of fish they’re holding.

How adult. How luxe.

It took longer than I expected, and felt my body tense up again as I saw my time management app continue on with my daily tasks while I was only checking out from my first errand run!

I felt myself wanting to rush, though there was no need to (I’d get back home and get ready for work with more than an hour and a half to spare). My body began to tense up again, and I felt like rushing to get home, but I talked myself into slowing down. Reminding myself that when I got back home? I’d shake shake shake.

Well, I forgot. I unpacked the groceries, made a task list for later, got ready for work, and left. And proceeded to have my first “bad” day at work.

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There were angry customers, tons and tons of backed-up orders, blaming, frustration, chaos, and I even burnt my fingers!

My manager and a leading co-worker took the brunt of the exasperated customers, but I got in the crossfire of one woman who had waited 45 minutes for a sandwich and hushpuppies.

She was annoyed–rightfully so–and her tone and annoyance was projected toward me even though I had no clue she was waiting that long for her food beforehand.

I felt my insides twist and heat up in shame and anger. I could tell my initial reaction was to take it personally. But I kept it moving because: chaos.

We didn’t leave the store until an hour after closing and once I got home, I just microwaved myself a hot chocolate and went to bed.

The next morning while I was washing my face, the same flash of discomfort raced through my body as I randomly remembered the eyerolls and disgust of that customer from the night before.

Then I remembered: SHAKE!

I shook my body left and right like I was a massage chair incarnate. I twisted back and forth like a top-loading washing machine and let my arms lazily hit my hips and butt and a few seconds later, I felt so much better.

You see, those visceral feelings we harbor in our bodies when an emotion makes us, well, feel, need to be released.

Kinda like how you hear people say you need to scream on a mountaintop or in a pillow when you’re angry.

Or how we’ve been told that it’s unhealthy to bottle up emotions.

I’m just thinking about it now, but bottling up emotions is a part of shadow work. Not letting all parts of you be expressed and trying to push down parts of you, you may identify as “bad” is not the way to go!

But that’s a deep dive for another post.

I’ve been doing all sorts of inner work and self-coaching as I try to figure out “what’s next” in my life, writing, (reemerging) business, and creativity, but I’m so happy to be back and to have you here. :)

Tell me, have you ever tried shaking after feeling feelings in your body viscerally?

Shoot, have you felt feelings in your body viscerally?!

Maybe we can start there and help you get to know yourself even better!

I’ll see ya in the next one.

Warmly,

Cierra M.

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Hey there! We’re trying something new and fun I’m calling, “The Extra Slice.” :)

I experience a lot of life lessons I reflect on and coach myself through in real-time, but to me, most aren’t significant enough to structure into a sendable newsletter or post… but I still want you to find takeaways, inspiration, and motivation from them for your own life! 

This one is going straight to your inbox, but future “extra slices” will be quietly posted. The weekly-ish Sunday Dispatch I’ll be starting very soon will include a brief roundup (and some bonus curated shares!) so you won’t miss a thing!

Some may be free, some may be paywalled… I’ll feel things out as I go but wanted to give you a head’s up!

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!