Time block your Yuck
If you’re like me, you listen to podcasts, read books and listen to other people talk about how they navigate the ups and downs of everyday life. Lately, I’ve been most interested in the techniques people use to get unstuck. After all, we’ve all felt stuck at some point in our lives. I have been there multiple times.
Feeling stuck means not knowing what to do next or how to start something new. It can feel like waking up feeling overwhelmed about the day ahead, not knowing where to begin. It can sometimes feel like waking up anxious or depressed, wishing you could just roll over and go back to sleep. It’s usually tied to feeling worried or unmotivated. You may not feel all that excited about the state of your career, your relationship, your health, or whatever else feels off balance in your life. Feeling stuck is feeling stuck, regardless of the reason why.
I’ve felt stuck through various times in my life. The degree of “stuckness” depended on the underlying reason for it. My divorce ushered in my highest level of stuckness. Not only was my cohesive family unit coming apart, but I was also witnessing the death of my identity as a wife and facing the prospect of looking for a new job after many years as a stay-at-home mom. I was deeply, deeply stuck. Worse yet, I didn’t know how to get unstuck.
My therapist was encouraging me to “feel it all,” in order to move past my grief. Her advice was that working through my stuck emotions would uncork my deepest passions and interests and lead me to my true calling. My parents advocated for the more practical approach, meaning, just get some type of paying job. Looking back, I realize that both approaches had value. I had to work through all of the pain and grief that came with the demise of my old life. I had to feel the “yuck” in order to move past it and get unstuck. In fact, I now have a new side hustle as an energy healer, where I help clients do just that.
But there’s also value in taking some type of action, any action. Moving forward with something, anything, is important. Even if it means moving down a path which doesn’t seem very interesting (ok maybe even outright boring). It’s still important to do it anyway, because movement tells your brain that you’re ready for more, that you want to create change. When I tell clients this, I often get the question: “How am I suppose to spend my time feeling all of the bad feelings and doing all of this emotional healing, when I also need the energy to get up and go to work so I can pay my bills?” This is a great question. Feeling through the emotions can seem like a lot of effort, especially if just getting out of bed is a struggle. As someone who’s spent years doing all kinds of inner shadow work and healing, I can attest that it is EXHAUSTING. It can leave you with little energy for other things.
This is where the concept of time blocking your emotional releases comes in. You control how long you want to sit in the yuck, and when you’re ready to move away from it. You literally set a timer for how long you’re going to sit in the bad emotions, whether that’s crying, journaling, punching a boxing bag, or scarfing down a quart of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream (hey, a girl’s gotta do what’s she’s gotta do, so no judgment here)! Then when the alarm goes off, you move on. You move forward with the rest of your day. You take action, whether that means working the job you are in, or looking for a new one, or both. If it’s a relationship struggle, you let go of the anxiety around it and move on with your day, reminding yourself that you will make time for dealing with that struggle at a later time.
Time block is the way to do both — feeling the emotions to move past them, and taking action to create change.
Try This:
Decide how long you are going to sit in the bad feelings. Will it be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or more? Set a time limit and stick to it! Also be sure you have a plan for what you’ll do to get out of it. Will you turn on some music and dance around? Go for a walk in nature? Call a friend and make plans to do something fun?
Having a plan for how to move away from the dark emotions is as important as feeling and releasing them. It signals to your body and brain that you’re moving forward with your plans, your changing life, and your future dreams. So feel it and then move on! You CAN control your feelings, your thoughts and your actions. You CAN shift into a higher energetic frequency. After all, getting into that happier place is where all of the magic starts to happen!
