How often do you find yourself in conflict with what you feel?
Maybe you feel depressed and you don’t want to, but can’t seem to pull yourself out of the pit. Maybe you get angry at the tiniest things and you know you’re being irrational but keep snapping at your kids, your partner, your co-workers all the time.
Those feelings are trying to teach you something. Until you learn to trust them, you’re going to stay stuck right where you are, being a person you don’t want to be.
What would it look like…
What would it look like if you trusted your feelings instead of trying to shove them out the door as soon as they show up? If you’ve learned to trust the more positive emotions, like love, you can learn to trust the more negative ones too. Both sides of the emotional coin have the power to change your life.
The first step is to trust what you feel. Let me share an example from my corporate lifetime.
During my early years in Aviation Construction Management, the primary focus of my day to day work was with numbers. I created spreadsheets and pie charts and plugged formulas into cells to audit and verify invoices and calculate percentages.
I didn’t consider myself a “numbers” person, so I. Was. Terrified.
I felt anxious and on edge all the time, convinced my manager would discover “math” was my least developed skill and he’d have to let me go.
Every day, I woke up certain today was the day my job would end. This caused me to be irritable and tense, which wasn’t like me at all. And that’s when I knew I needed to take a step back and examine why I felt the way I did.
Stepping back…
It was true math hadn’t been my strongest subject during high school and college. I didn’t fully trust my abilities in that area which had caused the anxiety. However, the anxiety served a purpose – it pushed me to hone those math skills. I was so nervous I’d be “found out” as bad at math, I made it a point to learn how to use the accounting software better than anyone else on the team!
I learned to trust the anxiety and used it as a catalyst to learn. As a result, I became a highly valued and trusted member of the team. I became the person others turned to when they needed support. I received recognition for doing my job and doing it well, which led to advancement opportunities that exposed me to greater and greater challenges.
And when those new challenges arose, I trusted any anxiety that came along with them, and used it again as a catalyst to learn.
Exit through the gift shop…
You too can use your feelings as a catalyst to learn. The first step is learning to trust what you feel.
This first step is critical to your personal development. Without it, you’re always questioning your next step, at the mercy of your emotions. You absolutely need to feel whatever it is you feel but you don’t have to let those feelings turn you into someone you don’t want to be.
Learning to trust your feelings is key to changing your life.
If you need some support around learning to trust your feelings so you can become the person you’re supposed to be, drop me a note at hilaryclarkstudios@gmail.com and we’ll set up time to chat.
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