THE ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE YOUR DAUGHTER

We all do this - one time or another - which actually makes perfect sense.

Because most likely no one ever taught us what to do with our UNCOMFORTABLE emotions.

So over the years even our brain has learned to direct us to try and escape them.

Because escaping DOES work – the cookies help release dopamine.

And they literally pull energy away from where you are feeling the uncomfortable emotion in your nervous system and instead focuses on your digestive tract.

As a result, you do tend to feel your emotional pain way LESS - be it feeling lonely. Anxious. Unmotivated. Or embarrassed.

But of course sooner or later the dopamine wears off.

And then we might be left with TWO issues instead of just the one:

Perhaps our guilt over the cookies

on top of our original emotional pain.

But when your daughter comes to you with perhaps a heartbreak, a disappointment, a fight with a friend…

I bet you take the time to listen.

To hear ALL the thoughts she has.

But when something happens in YOUR OWN life, there might be an URGE to try and escape them, by turning down the volume in your head.

Because where your pain is ACTUALLY coming from –

is not from the world, but rather,

FROM A STORY.

Most likely a very painful one in your head.

Maybe the story about your job.

Or your story about the state of the world.

Or the story of your day or your children’s future.

And your brain reacts to this story by flooding your body with corresponding hormones –

and most likely not the happy, cuddly ones.

But just like you do with your DAUGHTER,

you can just hear yourself out and LISTEN.

And you won’t judge this story.

Or criticize it.

Or try and minimize it.

You will just allow yourself to feel the emotion that this story generates in your body.

And you will remind yourself –

The reason I’m feeling heartbroken right now,

is because of THIS STORY I’m thinking.

And when you are willing to hear yourself out,

you won’t have as big of an URGE to escape it anymore.

Instead, you’ll start understanding WHY you feel the way you do.

And when you examine all the sentences creating it,

you get to step back in control and decide for yourself…

WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WITH THIS STORY?  

Because what you do with this story is actually where your power lies and journey begins…

And once you learn to hold the story - any story - in your own hand,

then you ALWAYS get to choose the end.