This week, I asked fellow coach Jenna to have a conversation about how we respond to our emotions. For people with ethnic backgrounds, showing emotions such as crying - being sad can be a sign of weakness. As children, we have to figure out our own way to cope especially if our family is not receptive to these powerful emotions. The previous generation can be quick to dismiss or make you feel silly, guilty, or ashamed of what is happening inside. This is due to the lack of understanding that they have of their own relationship with emotions. Other times when people don’t look within to understand their emotions, unhealthy patterns of coping can lead to substance abuse, drug/alcohol addictions, and stress-related illness like depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts/attempts. Emotions are our friends. It’s like our internal compass, helping us to figure out how a situation makes us feel. This then helps us make decisions about whether we want to be in that situation and allows us to figure out what we do and don’t want in life.

• Feeling your emotions is an important key to releasing overthinking. Gets your focus OUT of your mind and into your body and its signals.
• Curiosity & Compassion are superpowers when it comes to befriending your emotions; self-judgment keeps us in loops of recycling emotions and keeping us in shame and guilt spirals.
• An easy first step to befriending your emotions is gentle body scans & breathing throughout your day - little signals that bring your focus from your thinking mind to what is happening below your neck - this helps you tune into your body's signals, your own energy, and your emotions.
• Understanding your own personality pattern or stress responses is important to befriending your emotions so you can come to the present more easily, get yourself out of survival mode, and allow whatever emotion is present to fully process out of you.

Jenna Thanopoulos is a certified life coach who specializes in helping corporate women release stress, guilt, and shame, so they can live authentically to their version of success - while feeling feminine & radiant within their relationships & careers.

Podcast: Align Your Day

Instagram: @jenna.thanopoulos

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