Understanding Guilt and Shame

Shame and guilt are also incredibly common emotions that tend to be difficult to process and harness due to their implications. Shame and guilt may make us feel like we are at risk of losing acceptance or people. This risk may also lead to beliefs of being unworthy of love. Shame and guilt can be painful to experience, therefore we may let these emotions consume us or we avoid them at all costs. However, shame and guilt hold validity and purpose just like the rest of our emotions. They tell us when we are acting out of line with our own values and when we may need to make some changes with ourselves. The distinction of healthy shame and guilt vs. unproductive shame and guilt is often determined by whether these emotions are coming from within or placed on us by others. The messages of shame and guilt can only be channeled for positive action when these emotions are met with empathy from others or compassion from ourselves.

Anger is likely the emotion with the worst reputation. Many of us try to avoid or reject any notion that we may be an “angry person,” but anger is actually a valid, healthy, and useful emotion in the same way that happiness and sadness is. We might fear anger because we’ve seen the negative effects that come when others lose a grip on their anger. Unresolved or unmanaged anger has had the tendency to lead to violence, aggression, or hurtful words or actions. Hence, the bad reputation. But, when anger is felt, processed, and harnessed it has an incredible power to help us to make meaningful changes in our lives for ours and others’ benefit and can even be a powerful aid in our healing processes. 

When we don’t understand our anger we have the tendency to let it control us, where we accidentally release our anger in excess and end up hurting others or having negative consequences that are hard to come back from. For example, you may be hurt and respond with anger that  ends up hurting a friend or loved one so much that the relationship becomes very difficult to recover. Or, your anger may take over in a way that leads to physical violence or aggression that falls on to the wrong people. On the other hand, not understanding our anger can also lead to repression of anger which results in increased anxiety, depression, or a decreased ability to move on from hurt, loss, and trauma. 

It’s unfortunate that anger has such a bad reputation, because anger can be a good thing! When our body is telling us we are angry we are getting cues that we have been hurt, violated, or we may need to protect ourselves or make changes. When it comes to setting boundaries and expressing needs with others, recognizing our anger is an incredible tool! For example, you may have felt repeatedly disrespected at work and like you were given excessive responsibilities and have been put down in the process too. For example, you constantly feel like your drowning, but you don’t want to rock the boat or come across like you can’t handle the work It may take finally recognizing your anger to get the motivation to speak up and set more boundaries around your workload with management. 

Anger also has potential to have transformative effects in our healing journeys. It’s normal after experiencing trauma or loss to have residual guilt or shame that lingers. Sometimes, this excessive guilt or shame is a response to us internalizing the experience and assuming that full responsibility and blame. This may turn in to anger, but it becomes directed inward. “Ugh! If I would have just not gone there that night, this never would have happened! I’m so stupid!” This sort of self-talk is not productive. Anger towards self increases shame, anxiety, and depression and facilitates for self-limiting beliefs that may impact other areas of your life. Sometimes it takes having to really feel you anger related to a trauma to externalize the event and help remove the shame and debilitating beliefs. For example, “Ugh how could that person do that to me they are deeply unwell to think that harassment was acceptable! And they shamed me afterwards trying to make me believe I asked for it!” In this way, the anger is externalized to see the situation more clearly. Anger doesn’t always have to be acted on if the recipient isn’t a safe person to receive or hear your boundaries or experience but sharing anger with a professional or trusted one can provide you the clarity and relief you desire, as well as creative methods like journaling or art. 

While I’m describing the benefits of anger, it’s important to distinguish between anger and rage. Anger is our body’s response to a specific situation, event, or external stimuli, but rage is the physical response to pent up and unprocessed anger and/ or hypervigilance. When we are experiencing rage, or when our anger is heightened beyond our ability to see a situation rationally then we have to take time to physically release anger or de-escalate or mental status before we act. This is the danger zone where we may let our anger take over and lead us to actions that we may regret or that may cause harm.

It’s also important to distinguish between anger and irritability. A small level of irritability is normal when we are experiencing changes, increased stress, or changes causing us discomfort. However, if you are feeling constantly irritable, then there may be some unresolved anger that hasn’t been addressed. Or, if you are feeling constantly angry, irritable, there may be some other feelings that have been ignored that have manifested because they were ignored and anger felt safer. In this case, ask yourself what may be going on under the anger that is hurting you, bothering you, or causing you discomfort.

Reflexive questions for recognizing, managing, and harnessing our anger. 

Question

Example 

What makes me angry?

Feeling inferior, when people touch my stuff

What does it feel like in my body when I get angry?

My head starts spinning, my chest gets tight, I want to cry and fight at the same time

How do I start responding when I get angry or REALLY angry (signs to de escalate)

Clenching fist, ruminating on perceived threat or insult, snapping at others, shutting down

What helps me relax or calm down if I’m angry?

Exercise and deep breathing

When have I used my anger for good?

Stood up to another kid who was bullying my friend in elementary school

When has my anger been destructive?

Negative self-talk (anger directed inwards), overreacting with my dog and partner (my safe people)

When have I turned my anger inwards unduly? What was  actually going on?

Beating myself up over the breakup. It wasn’t meant to be. It’s time to let go. 

When have I unduly projected my anger outwards? What was actually going on?

When I snapped at my partner last week. They didn’t do anything wrong. I just had a bad day at work.

Strategies for managing rage, irritability, and excessive anger.

• Stress reduction (the more stress we have in our life the more likely we lose control of our anger or it builds excessively

• Journaling- venting, processing, and reflecting

• Physical exercise- reduces stress and channels aggression or fight or flight response

• Deep breathing- calms ourselves down so we can regulate our nervous system to see the situation more clearly

• Step away or allowing for some distance- give yourself some time to cool down to decide how you want to respond to your anger effectively

• Grounding exercise- step outside or try the 5,4,3,2,1 exercise to de escalate 

A great start to learning how to have a balanced approach to understanding your emotions is exploring what they are telling you. For example, sadness may tell you you are being disappointed, hurt or let down. When we are feeling that way we can respond productively by crying, talking to someone, or journaling. Sadness consumes us when we are getting lost in despair by not recognizing or channeling our sadness into something (tears, spoken word, etc).

Decoding Your Emotional Cues:

Sadness

• Message: An event or multiple events have hurt you, brought you sadness, or low mood (you are be adjusting to a loss or change)

• Productive Responses: Cry it out, share with someone you trust, journal

• Unproductive Responses: Isolation, constant negative thinking, “bottling up” until it explodes

Guilt

• Message: You may need to fix a mistake that has hurt or inconvenienced someone

• Productive Responses: Consider where you may have made a mistake and apologize if you’ve made a mistake or hurt someone, ask how you can correct the situation if possible

• Unproductive Responses: Seeking reassurance from others to make guilt go away, ignoring guilt, problem, and mistake, and potentially furthering a conflict 

Anger

• Message: You or a loved one’s physical or emotional boundaries may be threatened or may have already been violated

• Productive Responses: Deep breathing, exercise, boundary setting, action taking to change the situation, talking to therapist or a non-biased external third party

• Unproductive Responses: Lashing out (insulting, violence, throwing things), gossiping, trying to control others

Fear

• Message: You or a loved one may be in physical or emotional danger

• Productive Responses: Assess for evidence of fear, decide what action may protect yourself, seek comfort and safety, recognize when the danger is over or passed

• Unproductive Responses: Ignoring fear, not recognizing your own power and letting fear control you

Disgust

• Message: (Something feels potentially unsafe, unhelpful, or uncomfortable)

• Productive Responses: Explore what is repelling you and remove yourself from stimuli if you’re body is telling you no

• Unproductive Responses: Ignoring the need to set a boundary, or avoiding everything

Loneliness

• Message: You’re seeking connection (Connection is important to you)

• Productive Responses: Reach out to a friend or loved one (phone calls or lunch dates!), explore why you are having a hard time being by yourself, do something you enjoy

• Unproductive Response: Further isolating self, or believing the loneliness means you are unlovable, constantly relying on others to provide you comfort 

Happiness

• Message: You are emotionally secure and experiencing joy and gratitude

• Productive Responses: Share your joy and gratitude, be mindful in the present moment

• Unproductive Responses: Avoiding happiness because it feels vulnerable, forcing yourself to be happy because it seems more acceptable than other emotions that may be present (i.e., anger,sadness)

Shame

• Message: You sense a risk of being ostracized or unloved

• Productive Responses: Explore why you are feeling shame, share with someone 

• Unproductive Response: Internalizing shame and letting it rule your belief system, ignoring shame and creating “walls” to protect yourself

Boredom

• Message: You are experiencing a lack of fulfillment and/ or stimulation

• Productive Responses: Push yourself to do something you enjoy (exercise, art, crafts, cooking, calling a friend), journal

• Unproductive Responses: Reach for a substance to distract or fulfill you, overcrowd your schedule because you are afraid of how you feel when you have free time

Jealousy

• Message: An insecurity you have is being reflected by external stimuli or a possession that you have is being threatened

• Productive Responses: Name your jealousy and explore what insecurity is under it

• Unproductive Responses: Hurt others or yourself to try to make the jealousy go away or to control the risk of losing your possession 

Numb

Message: Your emotions have been ignored or have been so overwhelming that you’re body is finding them too dangerous to interact with

Productive Responses: Soothe nervous system with deep breathing and time to self. Write out and explore emotions that may be under the numbness

Unproductive Responses:

Nervous

Message: MessageYou may be taking a risk

Productive Responses: Assess your supports and strengths to determine if you are ready to take a risk

Unproductive Responses: Immobilizing or holding yourself back to avoid failure or vulnerability 

Stress

Message: You are being physiologically motivated to take action 

Productive Responses: Take breaks to relax and unwind (rest, exercise, meditate, hug your partner, create something) so that stress can be managed and used to harness energy to complete task

Unproductive Responses: Pile on more tasks to make the stress go away and produce more stress until you reach burnout 

Grief

Message: Reminds you of a loss you have endured related to safety and love. Reminds you of the preciousness of life

Productive Responses: Recognize that grief comes in waves and let it remind you of the good in your past

Unproductive Responses: Avoid feeling or remembering the good, avoid new experiences for fear of loss

Emotions Have Gotten A Bad Wrap

Emotions themselves are actually a healthy, productive, biological, and normal part of the human experience!

However, sometimes they just feel like a nuisance.

They usually feel like such a bother because they are communicating and calling on us to attend to something! And sometimes we just feel too busy or too preoccupied to do so. Also, emotions have gotten a bad reputation: an “emotional” person is considered child-like and like they can’t get a grip on reality.

Oftentimes in childhood, as a response to our youthful dysregulated emotions, we are told to “not get upset” as a response to our emotions.

This makes sense, as usually the person saying so is trying to come up with a solution to the dysregulated or over reactive response. A kid screaming and crying at the top of their lungs is a situation that adults are just looking for solutions to.

However, this response lends to not actually  figuring out how to work through the emotions. 

How We Respond To Our Emotions Matter

It’s easy to respond to our emotions in two ways:

1. Ignore them

2. Be consumed by them

One response is by being overly reactive to them and allowing them to consume us.

The more common approach as we enter adulthood is to ignore them, stuff them, or discredit them.

One response feels more active and like you’re actually doing something about it, and one is more passive and falls under the belief that there is nothing you can do about your emotional response.

Both responses are ignoring what the emotions are telling you. 

Because that’s what emotions are there for- to tell you something!

Emotions are our internal messengers and communicators to tell us how to respond to our external and physical world!

When our emotions are stuffed deep down, anxiety, depression, and/ or OCD are usually sitting on top of them. And when our emotions are out of control, anxious, intrusive, or depressive thoughts often follow.

Our mental health and cognitive functioning is strongly dependent on our ability to feel, experience, explore, understand, and cope with our emotions.

How Your Childhood Experiences Shape Your Emotions Responses

Usually the way we handle emotions is affected by the models and societal messages around us growing up.

If your family didn’t talk about emotions, then it’s likely you don’t talk about emotions.

If your family had really big and unhinged emotions that felt scary as a child, then emotions may be avoided so that your world feels more safe.

If you didn’t have a place to share or process your emotions, then you may have learned to just keep them bottled up and stuffed down (because what else were you supposed to do?).

On the other hand, we might express our emotions loudly and openly to get what we want. This could be due to trauma, confusion, or struggles with boundaries. When we don’t know how to handle our emotions, they can become explosive or overwhelming for us and others. In this case, our emotions may feel like "demons," leaving us wondering how to get rid of them.

We've all had those days when the mere thought of getting out of bed feels like an insurmountable challenge. Whether it's due to stress, fatigue, or just a general lack of motivation, we've all been there. The good news is that there are simple and effective ways to shake off that morning slump and start your day on a positive note. In this blog, we'll explore 10 tips to help you feel better and kickstart your day with renewed energy.

Tips for Getting Out Of Bed

1) Morning Visualization and Affirmations

Before getting out of bed, take a moment to visualize a positive and successful day ahead. You can also practice affirmations by repeating positive statements about yourself and your goals. This mental preparation can set a constructive tone for the day and boost your confidence.

2) Leverage Your Breath

While many of you know about using your breath to lower your heart rate by using long, slow exhales, the opposite is true. Try taking several long, full inhales to help energize your body before swinging your feet to the floor. You will find it helps increase your energy!

3) Incorporate Gentle Stretching Or Yoga

Engage your body and mind with gentle stretching or a short yoga routine. These activities can help increase blood flow, improve flexibility, and release tension. You don't need a lengthy workout; just a few minutes of stretching or yoga poses can invigorate your body and make it easier to transition from bed to a more active state.

4) Light Exposure

Exposure to natural light plays a crucial role in regulating our circadian rhythm and promoting wakefulness. Open your curtains or blinds to let in natural light as soon as you wake up. If possible, take a short walk outside to soak in the sunlight. Natural light exposure helps reset your internal clock, signaling to your body that it's time to be awake and alert.

5) Create a Comfortable Sleep Environment

The quality of your sleep environment can significantly impact your ability to get out of bed feeling refreshed. Invest in a comfortable mattress and pillows, and make your bedroom a serene and relaxing space. Keep the room cool, dark, and quiet to create an optimal sleeping environment. This can make waking up in the morning a more pleasant experience.

6) Start With Baby Steps

Start with small goals. That may be to simply stand up, step one foot outside, or grab a class of water before laying down again. Accomplishing goals increases your dopamine, making it easier to accomplish larger goals over time.

7) Create a Morning Playlist

Create a morning playlist filled with your favorite uplifting tunes or listen to motivational podcasts. Music has the power to influence our mood and energy levels, making it an excellent tool to kickstart your day. Whether you prefer calming melodies or upbeat rhythms, find what resonates with you and use it to create a positive morning routine.

8) Plan Something To Look Forward To

Having a purpose or something to look forward to can make getting out of bed more appealing. It could be as simple as planning a delicious breakfast, treating yourself to a coffee, or having a small personal project to work on. Setting positive intentions for the day can provide motivation and make the act of getting out of bed feel more rewarding.

9) Hydrate Your Body

Dehydration can contribute to feelings of sluggishness and fatigue. Start your day by drinking a glass of water to rehydrate your body after a night's sleep. Staying hydrated throughout the day can improve your overall well-being and help you feel more alert. Consider keeping a water bottle by your bedside to make it a habit to drink water as soon as you wake up.

10) Seek Support

If feelings of fatigue or lack of motivation persist, consider seeking support from friends, family, or a mental health professional. Sometimes, these feelings can be indicative of underlying issues such as stress, anxiety, or depression. Talking to someone you trust or seeking professional help can provide valuable insights and guidance on improving your mental well-being.