Willingness: How to Feel your Feelings 6/30 How to Process Emotions

Get the course: How to Process Your Emotions

How to feel your feelings. Willingness provides a practical way for you to allow yourself to feel your feelings. When you let yourself experience your emotions, you can get a lot better at working through them.

This is the one skill I wish everyone had: willingness, the ability to experience your emotions without needing to immediately escape or avoid them. Willingness is an essential skill from ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It's a practical way to learn to allow yourself to experience what you are feeling so that you can work through it.

Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC, and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.

About Me:
I’m Emma McAdam. I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and I have worked in various settings of change and growth since 2004. My experience includes juvenile corrections, adventure therapy programs, wilderness therapy programs, an eating disorder treatment center, a residential treatment center, and I currently work in an outpatient therapy clinic.

In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction.

Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC
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[asahk]

I live in the middle east. I don't have access to high quality therapy, and can't pay for therapists abroad because of currency. You have no idea how valuable and life changing your videos are. I hope you do. You're literally helping people living in horrible situations in a very bad part of the world. Not even Bill Gates is doing that. I let all the ads play full on your videos and click on any links you put out just to help out anyway I can. Just please don't stop this. Thank you so much.

[hritiksingh]

For the people who can't afford long-term therapy, you are like a divine angel. I'm so so grateful to you. Thank you so so much!

[sarapocorn]

„Overanalysing can be another form of avoidance“ - well well, if that ain‘t me.

[chrisalt]

Personal notes/summary

Willingness: sitting with your feelings and your current situation, tuning in and experience them fully. It does not mean you agree or like the feelings. They can be uncomfortable, but it means to be willing to sit and experience whatever it is you are feeling at the moment.

Steps:

1. @7:13 Describe don’t judge: describe your feelings without labeling them using words such as good, bad, great, awful, best, worst, etc. Instead, use words like uncomfortable, pleasant, tender, cold, hot, etc. (my personal note: find an emotional wheel chart to help you better describe your feelings.
2. @8:35 Be curious: practice being curious about what you’re feeling. Describe how it feels, where do you feel it in your body, does it have a color or sound or does it change, etc. Explore while staying in your body as much as possible. This is NOT asking why you’re feeling this way or uncovering childhood roots of problems, etc (“overanalyzing can be another form of avoidance”) just describe things as they are here and now.
3. @10:14 Instead of struggling, lean in: instead of trying to change your emotions but instead put that energy into somewhere more hopefully.
4. @10:46 Be present: instead of focusing on how long this will last, accept it and acknowledge it as it is right now.
5. @11:03 Get back in your body: it helps to place your hand on the part of your body where you’re feeling it, and breath in to give it space. You can notice your breathing. You can try to make your emotions worse (called “putting the kettle on”) you might realize that your feelings can be uncomfortable but they’re not gonna kill you so they lose power.
6. @11:57 Be compassionate: ask yourself if you’re being kind to yourself. Being mean to your feelings is gonna make it worse. You can practice telling your emotions to “take as much time as they need.”
7. @13:02 Watch out for your “stories”: things like “why me?” “I’m the only one…” and that sort of question that leads into a negative story about yourself. Exploring reasons has its time or place, but overthinking/overanalyzing is not helpful right now. Go back to feeling your feelings right now in your body.
8. @16:50 Shift your focus to something more important to you: AFTER you acknowledge your emotion, you can scan your body for sensations like peace or calm. Put your energy into things that matter most to you. Like sitting with your kids and being present with them. When emotions come up, acknowledge them, and then put your attention back to your values. You can check video “willingly out of breath” by this same channel.

Emotions might be uncomfortable but they don’t harm you. Trying to avoid them or trying to escape, however, can lead to behaviors that can harm you.

@14:13 Willingness is not the same as wallowing.

[lauramoore]

"you're supposed to feel your feelings" just hit me like a ton of bricks. I was taught (indirectly, mostly) from the time I was so small that my emotions were too big, too intense, too much for everyone around me, so i learned they must be too big for me as well. They may be heavy, but I'm meant to carry them.

[istp]

A few years ago, about 16 to be exact; this was called "Rock and Water" technique. When bad feeling come; imagine yourself as a rock on the seashore. The anxiety or depression is like a wave. Don't try to fight it; just remember that it is temporary and that YOU Will Still Be Here. So let the wave wash over you and wash or ebb away. You are the Rock and you are still here when the bad feeling goes out to sea . . .

[hejhajnehaj]

I love how she talks about these things in a relaxed and easy to understand manner instead of being smart and putting us who are struggling in a more deeper pit with their theories

[Samellon]

I’ve been struggling with over analyzing my thoughts and feelings to the point of spending hours every day fighting with my anxieties because I was convinced not doing so would be avoidance or suppressing, and I’ve been making it worse and worse. I realize now that I’ve been actually avoiding feeling the anxiety by trying so hard to understand every part of it. Thank you for explaining this and helping me start to wrap my head around what wasnt working!

[Mushroom-]

" stop putting energy into pushing feeling away " instead " this is the feeling rigt now " .. YES!!!, THANK YOU FOR making this video..

[normawigutoff]

Thanks! I’m a 72 year old social worker and this is right on! Thich Nhat Hanh says “embrace the pain tenderly.”

[francisturney]

"The path to healing from mental illness is learning how to move through emotions, not to avoid them." Bold statement

[robhasenwinkle]

8:50 " Curiousity is an antidote to worry "

[fembot]

Dealing with grief right now as my husband died suddenly 9 weeks ago. I was numb but now I am feeling the emotions and I am feeling super overwhelmed. I have two small kids so navigating life right now is just super overwhelming. I am going to try this. My grief sometimes feels like a wave that is trying to completely drown me. So hard. I miss my best friend and partner.

[btob]

1.Describe dont judge.
•Use words like uncomfortable, unpleasant, painful, sensitive, tender, hot, cold, sharp, dull, warm, smooth, gentle, soft, pleasant.

*The path to healing for mental illness is learning to move through emotions not to avoid them.*

[Lilas]

You're incredible Emma. I'm 17 and I have Harm ocd with existencial and suicidal obcessions, plus gad. And I've had depression in the past, it's so easy to get caught up in thoughts and feelings and get scared and apathic and melancholic and just be like "why am I feeling this way, am I supposed to?" I spend more time overanalysing than living and your videos are helping me progress, thank u so much

[andresanchez]

I can't afford therapy, I've been depressed and anxious for years, living my darkest days and watching everything around me fall apart, everything positive I build up in my life ends up crashing to the floor very quickly. Your videos have been helping me to fight off my demons and give me hope. Muchas gracias, de todo corazón.

[JeffJackson]

Thank you. I have been in therapy for 30 years, I've read around 150 self help books, yet this is the first time i have heard of the idea of Willingness.
I was never taught how to receive my strong emotional feelings and what to do with them.
Thank you, Jeff - your newest patreon supporter

[Rightsideup]

I'm a major ruminator. I've done therapy, I'm on meds, I try to reframe the thoughts, focus on other things. And I tell ya, this video has done much more for me. Thank you!

[konstaConstant]

My upbringing led me to believe that feeling emotions is damaging and dangerous. Feeling emotions would make me do mistakes, being too much would make my mom uncomfortable, my sister would actively use my feelings against me. Willingness is a nice way to frame the act of being present. I've already practised similar methods, but deep understanding of the self comes from multiple points of view. Thank you for the video :)

[AnyaReal]

This made me cry. I’ll just let it be. Thank you, Emma.