HealthyGamerGG - How To Cope With Negative Emotions

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

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And so I think the key thing that I really heard from you is that by spending some time actually like journaling and understanding your feelings, you were then able to communicate things to the chef that allowed them to respond to you in kind of a positive way, helped you kind of feel better. And it sounds like things are actually a little bit better at work to hold on. Let me adjust your audio for a second. Just because you sound a little bit quiet. Can you count to 10 for me? Yes, oh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Perfect. And welcome, what do you go by, my friend?

I go by Mangustin. Mangustin? Yes. Okay. And Mangustin, what's the emotion that you struggle with the most? It's a plethora of emotions, I would say. Okay. It can range from.

anything like anger, sadness, happiness sometimes, I guess. You struggle with happiness? I mean, not that I struggle, but it can be really intense. But that's mostly when I'm having that difficult when I'm having like anger or sadness. because it can be prolonged throughout the day. And, yeah. Interesting. So can you tell me a little bit about, you know,

when you say you kind of struggle with these emotions, what does that mean struggle to you? I mean that if the, like the feeling overwhelms me. Like I can't shake it off. It keeps staying for like to hours. Well, it depends sometimes, but it usually kind of. stays for long.

And what's that been like for you to have emotions that feel? So I'm kind of hearing that it's not a particular emotion, but that emotions feel pretty overwhelming for you at times. Yes, that is correct. And how long has that been going on? Oh, well, I'm not really sure. I would say it's been going on since I was young. Yeah, definitely.

And what's that like to have overwhelming emotions? Well, I think the thing that annoys me the most is like it can influence my judgment a bit too much. Like I can think clearly, let's say, like, I'm just completely overwhelmed sometimes by the feelings. Can you, was there something in particular that you wanted to talk about today? Not something in particular, no. So then can I ask you just a couple of questions about some of the stuff that you've shared so far? Like, you say that your emotions interfere with your judgment. Is it okay if we talk about that?

Yeah, sure. And so when you say they interfere with your judgment, what do you mean? Like, can you give me an example? or tell me a story? Yes, yes, I can. Yes. So like yesterday when I was at work, I was three or four months ago, my boss told me that, you know, I could, I can raise your pay. And then, you know, I waited.

I saw that it doesn't happen. So I was like, okay, maybe I should ask what's going on. And like the head chef I work with, he told me, well, it's because you're not performing well enough. Okay, that's fair. But I would have liked to be told that, no, in advance that, hey, I can't really press your pay because, you know, you're not performing well enough. where it just like if I didn't ask, I just would have, I wouldn't have been told this. And it kind of pissed me off in a way. I also the fact that I wasn't, because I know why I'm not performing well enough.

I'm not performing well enough because I have a hard time focusing just my mind just wonders. it's really kind of frustrating sometimes, I would say. And I guess I was angrier more on the fact that I can't focus, other than the fact that, hey, I didn't get my, you know, my race. Hmm. So, and how did that, did something, I don't, I'm not hearing anything about impaired judgment there. So what, just let, let. Yes, yes. So in my mind, I was like, I could, I was thinking in a way rationally about it, but off of me was like, I was so angry.

Like I just wanted to like yell at somebody or something and it just kept going on in my head for like six hours or something. It was, it took me really long time to calm off. Like the head chef came to me and hey, you know, why what's up with you? And I was like, you know, this is pissing me off. And then, you know, I kind of calm down after. Did you tell him this is pissing me off? Yeah, yeah. Because usually when somebody asks me, you know,

I'm feeling or how I'm doing, I would say like I'm fine, just like the default response. And I struggle really hard to actually be, be honest and say what's actually bothering me. And then maybe because I don't say it, I like, I have a hard time making like a genuine connection with people. Yeah. And what makes it, so what happened when you told the head chef that you were upset about what they were telling you? Well, he kind of told me about his experience. He was really nice. about it. He was like, you know, this happened to me. I wasn't the fastest when I started out.

You know, if you're soft of piracy, you can tell me, you know, you're like friends here, you know, you can consider me, don't consider me like a strict boss or don't consider me like the boss, you know, I'm kind of like your friend here, you know, so take it like that. And I, I understand that. It's just really hard. to be honest when, you know, when something is bothering me. It's like I don't want to upset people or I don't want to bother them with my problems. I think that's the main reason. So that's why I don't express it.

Okay. So let me. So how did you, when the chef was like, hey, I want you to tell me about this kind of stuff were kind of like friends here. How did you feel after that? Definitely. I felt a bit more relief. I was still a bit upset about it, but it was a bit better. It was really hard for me to actually say. If I didn't do the feels thing where I, you know, I open, I write my feelings. I don't think I would have been able to just give him a but not the exact reason why I'm upset.

Okay. So I think that's a lot. Okay. Now, you're saying, so Mangustin, you're saying I felt a bit better. I still felt a bit angry. So I'm trying to understand when you say a bit and it took you a little while to calm down. So I'm going to kind of. ask about that. Because in my mind, if you feel a bit better, you shouldn't still feel a bit angry. If you feel a bit better, you should feel very angry. Right? So you're using the words a bit and a little in a way that sound kind of confusing to me. I mean, maybe, maybe I'm not saying that your feelings are wrong. It's just, are you, do you think you're using the right words there? Or is that kind of an automatic response?

But I can say I felt a lot better after telling him what's bothering me. I did feel quite a bit better. Quite a bit better. Yeah, quite a bit better. But in a way, I was still upset about it, though I don't think it was constantly bothering me in my mind this mind. Okay. And so, and it sounds like you have trouble communicating. your feelings to people because you're afraid of burdening them?

And also, like, I have a hard time communicating them. If there's, like, a group of people, I don't think I can do it. Like, if it's one-on-one, yeah, maybe I can. But if it's, like, a group of people, I can. So were you concerned about burdening the chef this time when you shared your feelings? I don't think so. I was just, it was just hard for me to express them. Okay. That was my obstacle.

So, Mangustin, let me ask you a question. When you feel worried about burdening people, how much of that thinking is, if I can't communicate my emotions, like, I'm going to give them useless information? that it's then going to be like their responsibility to kind of figure it out. And that's not really fair to them. I should be able to communicate better. I'm sorry. What was the question? Yeah, sorry, that was a terrible question.

So sometimes when we feel like burdening people, or sorry, when we feel like I don't want to burden you. But part of that burden is that if I can't communicate clearly, it's hard for other people to like understand and figure out. what I'm trying to say. And that's a burden, right? Is it like a burden for them? Yeah. Like, do you feel like you're burdening, you're, they have to figure out how you're feeling? Yeah, if I look from their perspective, it's quite a confusing. Okay. So do you think that you handled the situation well? Maybe not in the beginning. Maybe I should have been honest about it. not be upset about it for an extended period of time.

Well, what do you think helped you become less upset? Expressing it. Okay. And how does that work? How does that help you feel better? Expressing my emotions and being honest, I guess. I think being. I think being honest around the, you know, the people around me, maybe.

Is that, what was it like to share the way that you felt? Were you afraid of how the chef was going to respond? No, I was more, I was a bit, I found it really difficult to say. Like my mind, in a way, maybe wanted to say, something that may be related, but it's not the exact issue. Okay. And, but you, it sounds like whatever you said was well received, even if you didn't get it 100% right.

Yes. So in this particular case, I think I was completely honest. Okay. And what, and you said something about you, you, you did some activity before you talk to this person? Oh, yeah, I was just working in the kitchen alongside him. But did you, I thought you said something like you, you tried something about journaling your feelings or something? Oh, yeah, yeah. I meant that the things you guys posted a few days ago with writing the fields and, you know, journaling my feelings there. And I thought I should

apply this in my, you know, in my day to day. So I decided that, hey, I should express my feelings in front of him. Okay. So, Mangasthen, is it okay if I just like try to summarize what I heard from you? And I think a couple of takeaway points from people who are listening. And then if you have any, anything you want to add or ask questions, we can do that. Okay. So the first thing is that sometimes we experience a lot of emotion.

and the emotion can feel very, very overwhelming. And especially when emotions feel very overwhelming, they can be very hard to describe or communicate or even understand. And you've seen that when you get overwhelmed by your emotions, that it starts to impair your judgment. And when it impairs your judgment, you start to like maybe make mistakes. And then you kind of don't know how to communicate. you don't really know how to reach out for help. And so it's almost like the emotions bounce around inside you for a very long time. Right? And so for hours, you'll be upset.

And you're afraid. I mean, maybe afraid is the wrong word, but you're hesitant to share these kinds of things with other people because you kind of don't want to burden them. And it's so confusing in here. Like, how are you, like, how is, how can someone even help with that? Does that make sense? Like if you don't really know, like if I come up to you, Mangasthen and I say, hey, I'm upset and you're like, what are you upset about?

I don't know, all kinds of stuff. And then it's like, how are you supposed to help me with that? That's actually my response. Right? And like, you're like, I don't even know how to ask people for help because like how, like, how are they supposed to help with this mess of emotions that even I don't understand? And then if they ask me questions, like, I'm not going to know how to answer. answer them. Like, what upsets you? I don't know, all kinds of crap. Right? So that's really common.

The other thing, but I think this is really important that what you sort of discovered is that vocalizing your emotions, especially, and this is kind of like, I think really you should give yourself a pat on the back, because you're in a situation where you have a superior and you're angry about something that they told you. And usually in that kind of situation, people are even less, they don't want to talk to their superior because I'm not, it's kind of like there's a power dynamic there, right? Where if the superior tells me something, I'm not allowed to be upset at that because they're the boss and I have to listen to them.

But you were able to communicate how you were frustrated and something really cool happened, which is that the chef was like actually supportive of you. And even though you were bringing a negative emotion to this person, they didn't get upset with you for bringing a negative emotion. They heard what you had to say and actually encouraged you to treat them like a friend and told you that, you know, gave you some words of encouragement, which is like pretty awesome. Because I think a lot of times when we have negative emotions, we're very scared to share them, even with our friends. and especially with like in work situations where we don't want to tell the boss that we're angry. And I think the key thing that I'm sort of hearing from you is that you spent some time actually writing out your feelings, which helped you understand them.

And I suspect this is where I'm going to kind of make some assumptions that, you know, when when you kind of feel guilty for talking to people about your emotions and burdening them, I think part of the reason you feel that, ways because people haven't been able to help you in the past. Or they haven't responded well. Is that true? It is true. So can you tell me a story about that?

Like a time where you tried to share something with someone and what happened? Yeah, actually. Now that I remember, I wanted like a few years ago to start drawing. and I was I procrastinate a lot and I just even now maybe back then I don't know where to start and I was kind of like stressed about it because you know I really want to do it but I wasn't sure where to start so I guess I just talked with some people online and I don't remember the exact conversation but somebody like told me to go go see a psychiatrist and at that time was like I'm having this issue but I already have to like seek sick a professional help for

this model of a problem and they felt like I don't know they they seem like they're overwhelmed by me yeah so if they said go see a psychiatrist it makes you feel like this problem is like too big for them to handle, right? Oh, I felt like it wasn't as big of a problem. It just their response felt like it had no empathy or like. Yeah. So I keep going. Yeah, I just have to say like really hit me like a hammer.

So it sounds like in the past, the way that you've communicated. has resulted in people not responding in a positive way. Yeah. Yeah. I have a hard time remembering exact moments, but I still feel like this is a concrete one that did happen. Maybe more happened, but I'm not remembering. Yeah, that's okay.

So I think that this is what I'd kind of say. So I think the key takeaway that when I listen to you is, so the first thing is that emotions can bounce around inside you and be, really overwhelming and affect you for a very long period of time unless you deal with them in some way. So sometimes we deal with them by like unhealthy coping mechanisms like playing video games or using drugs. We can also do healthy things like maybe exercise or meditate or journal or whatever, but a really important thing that we can do is talk to other people about our emotions. And when we talk to them, it can help us feel better.

but the other cool thing is that we can actually improve our relationships, either at work or like friendships or romantic relationships, by vocalizing our feelings. The challenge is that most of us are not taught how to vocalize our feelings, how to understand our feelings. So since we're not taught that, when we try to communicate our feelings to other people, they respond in ways that are kind of hurtful.

And we kind of feel like, you know, this isn't really working. I'm burdening other people. It's not helping at all. And so I think the key thing that I really heard from you is that by spending some time actually like journaling and understanding your feelings, you were then able to communicate things to the chef that allowed them to respond to you in kind of a positive way, helped you kind of feel better. and it sounds like things are actually a little bit better at work. Yes. So I think that's fantastic, dude.

I think that's like literally why we do all this stuff. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. Yeah, I was really happy when I saw that video and like I listened to it twice. Just a thought of expressing my feelings or journaling them was so enticing. Yeah, fantastic, dude. So, you know, what I would recommend to you is, is just keep doing that. So, like, this is what we kind of find is I know it sounds kind of weird, but even problems like procrastination can be due to or influenced by inability to regulate our emotions. So, like, when we're procrastinating, like, we want to do something, but we're not really able to do it. And sometimes, like, what we use to procrastinate. So let's say I procrastinate by watching YouTube or Twitch.

And when I procrastinate what that actually does, when I watch YouTube or Twitch, what it actually does is destroys my motivation, but soothes my emotions. Because when you watch, like, stuff on the internet and, like, look at memes and stuff, you kind of get some dopamine. You kind of, like, stop, you forget about all the problems in your life and stuff like that. But the problem is it destroys your motivation. So in order to cope with our negative emotions, we sacrifice our motivation. And what that looks like is procrastination.

And so I'd strongly encourage you to keep on understanding your emotions. I don't think it's a bad idea for you to get a clinical evaluation, by the way. Because some of the stuff that, you know, there's a new subtype of ADHD that people are thinking about. It's not official yet, but some people have hypothesized that there's an emotion. emotional disregulation subtype of ADHD. Now, I have no idea whether you have ADHD or not. You know, it's not really my job to do a diagnostic evaluation on you, but you mentioned that you have difficulty with focus and that you feel a lot of really intense emotions.

And sometimes people with ADHD can experience both of those things. So it's not a bad idea to get checked out for something like that. Okay. How does it feel if I say something like that? That's all right. Yeah. I think that everything else, I'm not, like I said, I can't say if you have ADHD or not, but I think everything else still applies.

And that's really the stuff that I feel confident about, which is that the more you understand your emotions, the more your communication will improve. The more your communication improves, the more your relationships will improve. And you even said that sometimes it's hard to connect with other people because you can't show them or vocalize your emotions. So what they kind of get is like almost like a robotic or blurry version of Mangustin. Right? Like they don't get to see the real view. It's all blurry because you don't know how to communicate like what you're feeling and stuff.

And then it's hard to form connection. So I think if you just keep doing what you're doing, like I'm optimistic for you. Thank you. Any comments or questions before we write? wrap up? I was wondering, like, it would be that my

difficulty of focusing on something would be related to not expressing my feelings as they build up a lot because it's really easy to like lay back, you know, to read some memes

and forget about troubles, but when you've got to focus on something, with your mind to be there in the present. Like those problems can come up back to you. Yeah. What do you think? Do you think your focus has to do with a lot of emotion on the inside? Difficulty with focus has a lot to do with emotions on the inside?

Yeah, definitely. Okay. So if you're the answer to your question, if you think it's definitely, I completely agree. I think you're looking for. for confirmation, I'm happy to provide it. I think it's really important to remember that if we just think about it, right, when we're angry, it's very hard to focus on things that we're not angry about. Or like, anger causes hyperfocus, but we lose control of it.

So there's even evidence that shows that when we have, do you know what adrenaline is? Yeah. So when we normally have, if you look at our field of vision, which is what we can see, we can kind of see 180 degrees around us. So like even if you have,

if you wave your arms by the sides of your head, you can kind of see them moving with your eyes. But when we have adrenaline going through our body, we can't see stuff on the side. All we can see is a 30 degree window

in front of us. So we become hyper-focused in one direction when we have adrenaline. When we feel angry, we tend to release adrenaline. And the same thing happens with our thoughts. Our thoughts become very, very obsessive on one area when we feel angry and we can't think about other things. That's the experience of anger.

And so if you have difficulty focusing, emotions have a lot to do with that. And usually a tranquil mind can focus the best. So I think I completely agree with what you. you're saying, which is emotions can absolutely interfere with focus. And that's also one of the reasons why we see in this new potential subtype of ADHD, an impairment of focus that is coupled with emotional dysregulation. I want to say that the, I hope I'm saying it correctly, the Shridantra, the focusing exercise, the one with the lotus. I did it for like a few weeks and I could like help the improvement in my folks. I was more calm. Great.

Or more, yeah. That's why we teach it. Mengus then it sounds like you're doing a lot of stuff right, dude. You just keep walking your journey, man. Thank you. I will. Take care, my friend. If you found this video helpful, check out Dr. Kay's guide. We've spent hundreds of hours writing and filming to help people understand their mind so that they can build the lives that they want. So check out the link in the description below.