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This is Episode Number 172: Emotional Twist Cone. How are you doing? Happy February! This is one of my favorite months. It’s my birthday month. Valentine’s Day. There’s a lot of things to love about February, despite it still being winter, even the winter can be made better by the warmth and love of celebrating.

I’m really excited to share this week’s episode with you. First. I wanted to start with a quick segment. I call notes from nature.

Segment: Notes From Nature

Did you know that a lot of birds don’t reuse their nests? They build a new nest for every clutch each year that they lay eggs.

One year when my little boys were young, we were living in an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, and we were lucky enough to have a Mother Robin build her nest on our windowsill on the second-floor apartment.

The window was in the shade of a big tree. And it was interesting that she chose to build her nest on our windowsill rather than somewhere in the tree where it was safer from squirrels and other animals running around on the branches. This offered us an up-close look at the nest building process, as well as the whole process of eggs to tiny little hatchlings, to fledglings and to empty nest.

I remember being struck back then by how attentive this Mother Robin was to every detail of the process. Building this nest with such care. It took days and days of her gathering different materials from all around the neighborhood and bringing them and settling them in to then actually laying eggs and starting that chapter with a new brood of hatchlings.

As I watched the process, I was fascinated by the amount of attention and care that went into this one nest. That then as soon as the process was over, was abandoned and never used again. I thought wouldn’t it be so much easier if you just came back and reused the same area, the same nest, you just maybe fixed it up a little bit or built a little bit around it.

And while there are some species of birds that reuse the nests over and over again, in a new location with new materials for each clutch.

As our family has been moving from one home into the next, not far away, yet setting up a new house feels like nesting, if you will. In a new way, I’ve been reminded with this lesson from the birds that it’s okay and even natural to put a lot of preparation and thought and love into something that might not last forever.

There’s something really sweet about the preparation for the current stage, for the current chapter of your lives. And many different times in our lives, we’ve lived in temporary spaces in apartments or in condos or in homes that we were renting. I tried to give those spaces as much love and care and attention as I would something like a “forever house”.

It’s allowed us to live well in every season of our lives. Knowing that today is our life today matters. Even if the season we’re in, isn’t going to last forever. If you’re going through something right now that requires a lot of care and attention and preparation, and it feels maybe like it might not be worth it.

If it doesn’t turn into something that is everlasting, no, that it’s not silly or trivial to put care and love and attention into something that might be temporary. We can love and enjoy and nest in the present,  even as we focus on and prepare for the future. Both matter.

And if you feel like you’re at the end of a chapter or a season, don’t be afraid to abandon that nest, even though you put it together with such love and care. It might be time to let it go and move on to a different area, to a different section of town, to different tree or windowsill where you’re next nest awaits.

Emotion Twist Cone

Today’s episode is called emotion twist cone, because that is the visual that I get every time I think about this topic. If any of you were children of the eighties and nineties, like I was. If you’ve frequented, McDonald’s like I did as a kid, you may remember this amazing dessert that McDonald’s offered during that time.

It was an orange vanilla twist cone. So, it was orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream in a soft serve twist cone. And it was amazing. It kind of gave you Orange Julius vibes like that orange, icey sorbet, super tart and tangy. And then the creamy, vanilla soft serve all on top of your favorite crunchy cake cone.

I think they were like 75 cents and every time we drove through McDonald’s I asked my mom if I could get one and often, she agreed solidifying the orange twist cone from McDonald’s as one of my very favorite early childhood desserts.

So, what does this twist cone have to do with anything you might wonder?

As I mentioned, every time I think about how to describe the way that I’ve been feeling over the last few weeks. This is the image that comes to mind. And so, I decided to just go with it and talk about the emotional twist cone. What I mean, of course is feeling more than one conflicting emotion at once.

You know that feeling of bittersweet or happy/sad? It can be really confusing when we are learning about emotional intelligence and we’re doing our best to be emotionally mature beings to try to name and claim emotion. When there’s multiple all happening at once, that seemed to be somewhat contradictory.

I recognized this was happening in my own life about a month ago, as we were going through the process of buying and selling homes. Getting ready to move, list, dealing with financing and pricing and moving and managing the kids and the holidays and going on a trip and then coming home and all of the different excitement and overwhelm and stress and frustration that goes along with it.

During one moment of conflicted emotion, I remember venting to my husband, to Dave, trying to just get out some of the different ideas that were swirling around in my head and the thoughts and how I was feeling so excited and hopeful. And at the same time, really struggling with feeling some grief and some morning and a little bit of sadness for this chapter, this home that we were leaving behind.

As I was explaining this spill of all of these different feelings that I was having at once, I was able to talk myself into some clarity. When I explained that even though I had all of these different feelings happening, I really felt like I should be feeling excited and happy and hopeful, and that I should be feeling grateful that this was a big opportunity and that we were really privileged to be able to make this decision and be able to hop into a little bit bigger house that suits our family’s needs a little bit better.

I was embarrassed and a little bit ashamed of the negative perceived feelings that I had, the feelings of grief and sadness and mourning I was trying to push aside or abandoned or get rid of. I was feeling sad about feeling bad. And this is when Dave came to the rescue with a really simple explanation. You can feel more than one thing at once. This experience doesn’t have to be just happy, just exciting, just wonderful. It can also be sad. It can also be overwhelming. It can also be frustrating and disappointing.

Our experience isn’t just vanilla. And it’s also not just orange sherbet. There may be times in fact, a lot of times, especially surrounding big transitions where you’re feeling that twist. Emotional twist cone experiences can be exacerbated or aggravated by the types of emotions that we, according to our own backgrounds and histories and stories believe are appropriate in specific situations.

I, myself, have usually liked moving. It’s usually been a choice that’s been something happy and exciting. And so, this was a little bit different of a feeling that although it was a choice and it was happy and exciting, it also came very quickly. And it also had a lot of history and memory that perhaps other moves hadn’t had, or that I simply don’t remember.

I’m sure. You know, it’s been bittersweet other times that we’ve moved as well, moving into a new chapter in a new transition of life, whether that’s a house or a job or a state or a family dynamic will probably be accompanied by a lot of different emotions. However, if we have a preconceived idea of what emotions are appropriate or mature or most desirable, we can fall into putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to feel a certain way, rather than allowing the emotions that we feel to be correct.

It’s okay to feel a lot of different emotions at once. It’s okay to recognize those.

I think it’s important to note that there really are not negative and positive emotions. Although we describe them that way, we would describe negative emotions as being anger or stress or overwhelm and positive emotions as being happiness and joy and excitement.

Emotions are the energy in motion in our bodies. They’re the sensations that we feel based on the release of different neurochemicals and hormones, and they’re great signals. They’re great signposts telling us to be aware or to be aware the way that we feel can help us make decisions, can help guide our actions and our priorities.

There’s a lot of good that comes from even what we would call negative emotions. As they’re signposts to things that we might need to pay attention to are in our lives. As I dug into a little bit of study of what it means to feel two different emotions at once, how people described that psychologist and what they recommend as far as feeling our way through it.

Three Steps to Managing the Emotion Twist Cone

Pause and Pay Attention to Your Emotions: Awareness

I wanted to first recognize that giving ourselves the awareness that it’s totally normal, acceptable, emotionally intelligent to recognize our complexity as human beings and that our emotional states are not going to be black and white. That sometimes there’s all different shades of color in there.

That’s okay. That’s normal. It’s wonderful to feel all of the different things that you might be feeling that pause and awareness of what it is that we’re feeling and whether or not we’re trying to put pressure on it is really helpful. I mentioned that I recognized, as I spoke with Dave, that I was feeling bad, and I was feeling bad about feeling bad.

That part I could get rid of the shame and guilt that I felt around having negative emotion I could get rid of. That was something that I could simply recognize and release. And the part of just feeling the sadness and mourning for the sweet home that we had put so much love and care into those feelings were really clean, and they were acceptable and wonderful. And it was okay and positive. I mean, it was a good experience for me to allow those emotions. I didn’t have to add negative emotions on top of what was already feeling a little bit negative. This example that I share is when I had negative emotion and I felt like I should be feeling positively like the acceptable feelings, the socially, you know, demanded feelings were positive emotion.

You may find yourself at some point in a circumstance where you are having what feel like socially acceptable, negative emotions, and you feel some of that. Guilt or shame for feeling positive emotion.

An example of this might be with the loss of a friend or family member, the loss of a job that tragedy of a new diagnosis, that’s hard or any type of a situation were. All of the expectation would be that you feel sad or disappointed or frustrated. And you know, that grieving process is something that feels to you acceptable, and you might feel have, you know, have moments of pleasure or joy or excitement or happiness and feel some shame or guilt for the positive emotion that rather than your twist cone being like mine.

I shared an example where I expected myself to just have positive emotion and the negative felt bad to me. You may find yourself in a situation where you expect yourself to have negative emotion and that positive emotion feels bad or feels unacceptable. I know a lot of people who, who have had periods of grieving or mourning, when it feels hard to experience joy.

It’s almost embarrassing or it feels, it feels, you feel guilty for enjoying something, even though someone else isn’t here to enjoy it any longer, or you’ve lost a relationship or a, uh, a situation, a circumstance that has shifted where you feel like the, the expected acceptable emotion is. Negative or grief or mourning or disappointment.

I think that it’s just interesting to note that this mix of emotions, the bitter and the sweet can go both ways and based on our own experience, our own expectation for ourselves.

And again, I keep coming back to should, and I mentioned in a podcast just a few weeks ago that I really notice that should, that word itself is a huge red flag because that indicates that someone outside of myself is imposing an idea on me that, or even like a past self is imposing this idea on me.

And I like to swap that for the word could, or maybe I want to feel this way and give myself the permission to make those choices independently. I’ll make sure that I link that episode about the word swap of should and could in the show notes for this episode, if you go to live free creative.co/podcast, and look for episode 172, you can find that and dive into a whole episode about that word swap.

It’s so helpful to recognize that anytime that we feel like we should be feeling a certain way. There may be something there, there may be a story or a history or a relationship that feels like it’s imposing this expectation on us and that’s worthy of exploration. So, a pause. Awareness of our emotional complexity as humans is crucial.

Acceptance of The Emotion

And then an acceptance of that emotional experience, allowing us to feel it all and know that it’s okay. That is so helpful. And I’ll tell you. As soon as we finish this conversation and I was allowed to just tell myself it’s okay for me to feel good and bad right now, it’s okay for me to be excited and sad.

It’s okay for me to feel stressed and overwhelmed. In addition to grateful, those things are all welcome here. That awareness and acceptance was exactly what I needed to move through those emotions.

In one of the articles that I read about feeling multiple emotions, the author quoted a poem from Mark Doty that says:

“Not that grief vanishes. Far from it,

but that it begins in time to co-exist with pleasure.

Sorrow sits right beside the rediscovery

of what is to be cherished in experience.

Just when you think you’re done.”

I appreciated that. Explanation of this idea of grief, not vanishing and sadness, not disappearing, but that it can co-exist with pleasure and sorrow can coexist with cherished experience that, that duality, that twist cone of emotion is not only acceptable it is expected and meaningful.

So, you feel the sorbet and the vanilla cream, you’ve got those two things going on. You are aware of it. You allow yourself to be okay with it and accept it. How then do you process or express it? I read a great piece by Mental Health America about processing and expressing your emotions.

And I want to give you a few examples of how to allow yourself to move through some of the different feelings that you may have at these periods of transition, or when you feel yourself in an emotional twist cone.

5 Ways To Process Emotion

Express It Artistically

The first one they recommend is to express it. Artistically. I love this idea of dancing it out, journaling, painting, finding some way to get that emotion out of your body and onto the page into the air.

I definitely am an emotional dancer. I love when I. Just feel a little bit of tightness, like a major mood boost at my house is turning on some music in the kitchen to get through dinner time and washing the dishes and getting ready for bedtime. That can kind of be in a high intensity time of evening. We turn on some music and we can all just bust a move and it shakes out some of that extra moving energy. Some of that heightened emotion, not only for myself, but for the kids as well.

Boost Your Mood

Another way to focus on a mood boost is by doing something that, you know, you enjoy spending time cuddling with a soft pet or watching a movie that you enjoy.

I would recommend like a happy, cheerful, funny movie, reorganizing, a closet or a drawer, something that will help you feel some of the positive emotion that comes through accomplishment.

Meet Physical Basic Needs

You want to also make sure that you’re meeting your basic needs. So, this comes through the process of drinking water, taking a shower and getting dressed up.

Taking a nap. If you’re tired eating, if you’re hungry, oftentimes when we’re feeling wrapped up in emotion, we begin to neglect some of these physical functions that help us feel our best, not remembering how physical emotion is that it’s something that’s felt in our body. And as we’re. Hydrated and fed.

I mean, anyone who feels a little bit hangry can attest to how different you feel once your blood sugar has recovered and you, you have some food in your belly, so make sure you’re meeting your basic needs.

Problem Solve

The next one is to problem solve now, depending on what it is that you’re going through this may or may not be a great one for you to tackle. If you feel like the things that you’re going through could be made better by some problem-solving some brainstorming’s of solutions coming up with some ideas. This can be really helpful for me with this move situation.

One of the things that was contributing. Some of my negative emotion, not the sadness and the grief of leaving our house, but sort of the stress of getting ready to move with simply the logistics of a move with kids and pets, trying to figure out when things go, where and how we’re going to move them and who’s going to help? And what are we paying for versus what are we doing ourselves?

A thick brainstorming session with lots of notes and lots of checklists. I mean, that’s like one of my love languages having a lot of checklists with really clear directives of how we’re going to make this happen, that can release some of the negative emotion that’s just stirring around inside.

Create Space To Relax

And then the last one recommended is stress relief through relaxing. Allowing yourself space to pause to rest. Not only rest like sleep, if you’re sleep deprived, of course, do that. Also allowing yourself some space from needing to figure it out, needing to get it done, needing to solve something. This might look like going on a long walk. It might look like reading a book. It might look like having your nails done or taking a bath relaxing in a way that feels like relaxation to you.

This can help you express and process some of the emotions that your body is handling.

Deep sigh.

For those of you who aren’t experiencing an emotional twist cone right now, this information probably feels interesting and encouraging, and maybe not super relevant at this moment.

And I know that some of you listening are experiencing an orange sorbet vanilla twist cone right now that you’re feeling bad and sad and glad all at the same time. And that you’re struggling to figure out which one is right or correct, or how to abandon those that you don’t want and embrace fully the ones that you do.

It’s to those of you experiencing emotional twist cone right now, or about to head into a twister or just leaving one that I want to reiterate that it is normal, natural and wonderful to experience an emotionally complex life because we are emotionally complex beings.

Sometimes salted chocolate tastes better than the milk.

Sometimes the bitter is what helps us appreciate the sweet.

The purpose of our lives isn’t just to live in a state of bliss and happiness all the time, but to experience all of what life has to offer, which sometimes is complex. We can increase our positive emotions through a lot of different things. And we also can accept, acknowledge, and embrace this whole spectrum of emotions that we might feel.

I’ll go through these steps one more time:

First, pause and create some awareness of your emotional complexity of the different feelings that you may be feeling simultaneously.

Second, accept these emotions as part of a whole experience, a whole human experience.

And then third, we can move into expression and processing of the emotion through art, mood boosting activities, making sure you’re meeting your basic physiological needs, problem solving and brainstorming logistics and relaxation or stress relief.

Other Tips From Burnout

As a wrap-up at the end of this episode, I want to mention and do a shout out for the book Burnout, which is by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. It is an incredible book about the overwhelm and stress that a lot of women especially tend to deal with and how to allow ourselves to move through some of those stressors that we may have been carrying for a long time, without necessarily acknowledging it.

They give in one specific chapter of the book, a whole list of important applied ideas of how to move through a stress cycle, complete a stress loop, or get to the end of the tunnel. They’ve kind of referred to emotions as tunnels and closing those stress cycles so that when you feel some of that big emotion that there are specific ways to process through it and to express it and to overcome so you’re passing through it and you don’t get stuck in the middle.

I think it was incredible that I got to almost 40 years of life without recognizing there are specific ways to move through and process through emotion. This is something that seems like we should learn it, like in elementary school, how to feel our feelings in a positive and healthy way.

Physical Connection

Some of the things that they mentioned are physical connection. They specifically mentioned a twenty-second hug, which is like a little bit longer than feels normal. And it’s at that point that you release this whole series of hormones that kind of floods you and allows you to overcome some of the stress cycles.

Exercise

Another one is physical exercise, like activity really work out some of that emotion, not necessarily just. You know, physical benefits of exercise, but for the emotional and psychological benefits of moving stress through your body.

Social Connection

They also talk about connection with other people, calling a friend, talking to someone, talking it out.

Laughing or Crying

Allowing yourself to find ways to laugh, find humor and joy, and allowing yourself to cry. Sometimes we really do just need a good cry.

I will make sure that Burnout is linked in the show notes for you. If you feel that you could use a little bit of added information and assistance in moving through some of these emotional cycles of your own life. I know stress is a huge component of many of our daily existence.

And it’s helpful to have some added information on how to work through that in a really meaningful and applied way.

I want to thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you’ve learned something. And then it’s been helpful for you, whether you’re currently experiencing an emotional twist cone or whether you have one on the horizon or one hits you unexpectedly in the coming months.

I hope that the things that I’ve shared in this episode will help you be aware and accept and process through some of those interruptions rather than piling on shame and guilt to feeling the way that you feel, allowing yourself to be here. To experience all the spectrum and complexity of an emotional experience that we do as humans and to love yourself all along the way.

I want to remind you to enter the Million Download Giveaway! Head to the show notes, to learn more about that. And I hope that you win, make sure that you subscribe the, you leave a rating or a review on iTunes. And that you share livery creative podcast with your friends. I hope you have a fantastic week and I’ll talk to you later.

Same time, same place next week. Bye. Bye.