Episode 248 Minisode: When You Feel Like You Did Something Wrong
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So I got back from a family trip recently and nothing dramatic happened, but I had this feeling that something was off. I was tired, irritable and scattered. And of course my first instinct was to just push through it, get back on track, clean up my food, reset my goals, write a to-do list. And after I did all that, I realized that the problem couldn’t be solved with productivity. I felt like I had a rock in my shoe.
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except it was like in my energy. And so I finally took my damn shoe off and looked in and figured out that what was going on is I felt like I had done something wrong. So in this episode, I’m going to walk you through exactly how I worked through that feeling step by step, thought by thought, feeling by feeling. This episode is not about bypassing or bullying yourself out of a bad mood. It’s about being present and curious.
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in your mood. So if you’ve ever had a vibe shift that you just couldn’t explain, or you felt like you were spiraling over something small and stupid, this episode’s for you.
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My name is Colleen and I’m a mindful drinking coach helping high achieving professional women permanently reduce their alcohol consumption by 80%. Join me each week for evidence-based holistic strategies to regulate your nervous system, balance your dopamine, and activate the growth mindset that makes you so powerful in other areas of your life so you can stop worrying about losing control and trust yourself again.
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Get happy, not sober. It’s not about the alcohol.
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I wanna share an emotional blip that I’ve gone through in the last couple of days to walk you through my thinking processes and the tools that I use to manage my own mind and regulate my nervous system so that you can mimic the process yourself. feel like this is actually one of my superpowers as a coach. This makes me good at what I do.
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is that I am able to observe my own processes, apply tools that I either have heard or that I’ve learned and have already taught, but I can see myself going through the thinking processes. I can experience the shifts in my body, and I can then report back where I made the turns and what it felt like and what the goal is.
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One of the biggest obstacles that you will face in this program, what are you here to learn? What is the skill that you have to acquire and to master? And that is to change how you respond to your own emotions. The relationship that we have had with our emotions that has made us successful, the strategies that we have employed to...
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Conquer life to adult to raise our families and have careers and manage relationships the belief that we have been operating under is that any emotion that doesn’t feel good needs to be fixed or hidden and The biggest misconception that we have is that if we feel our feelings They’re going to hijack our lives and turn us into sad Sally’s throwing pity parties
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or freaking raging assholes. Like if we allow ourselves to be sad or angry, that that’s somehow going to affect our behavior. And the opposite is true. When you suppress your emotions, when you hide them, ignore them, you push them into your subconscious, which is where they take on lives of their own. Because you push them out of conscious awareness, because you think,
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that you’re not supposed to feel anxious or angry or sad or scared or insecure or uncertain. We’ve practiced putting up a veneer, a fake it till you make it and a suck it up butter cup attitude that we just keep going and think that we can outrun the emotions that we don’t want to feel. And that’s the exact strategy that creates alcohol use disorder and other forms of self-sabotage because
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Ignoring your emotions doesn’t make them go away. And one of the ways we try to outrun or outmaneuver our emotions is to just be perfect or to improve our behavior. Try harder, be more disciplined, access greater levels of willpower. And this is exactly why I don’t encourage you to stop drinking when you come into this program, among other things, trying to change your behavior. Because avoiding
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your shame, avoiding your fear of failure, avoiding the reasons that you’re drinking by simply not drinking, reinforces the idea that you can fix your feelings and that you deserve to feel bad when you feel bad. And I want to explain how I have come to completely believe on a knowing cellular level that your negative emotions are actually your superpower instead of running away from them.
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You wanna dive because there’s a message. They are showing you where your own mindset is working against you. They are exposing the programming in your subconscious that you adopted from childhood, from traumatic events, from watching other people go through traumatic events. They are learning, they are lessons that you have learned from the past, emotions by definition.
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are from the past. They are how your body encodes information so that you don’t have to think about everything and make 80,000 decisions a day. Your emotions inform you of what you already think you know. They inform you of what you believe about how the world works and who you are and who you are not, what you deserve and what you do not deserve. And so when I say that your emotions are your superpower,
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I don’t mean the thought, the belief is your superpower. It’s the sensation in your body that is alerting you to the fact that your mindset is limiting you. It’s hurting you. It’s lying to you, which is why when you realize you’re feeling something that is not expansive and heart opening and open-minded and curious and
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moving you forward to achieve and get what you want and chase your ambitions and connect with other people. When you are feeling something that is not that, then it is the invitation. You want to stop and drop and deal with that as quickly as possible because you have a choice. You can either allow your emotions to dictate your thoughts.
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And now you’re worrying and overthinking and analyzing and wondering what the hell is wrong with you and what the hell is wrong with everybody else and why life isn’t fair. You can allow this feeling, these emotions that have come up from your subconscious to control your mind and therefore be a victim of small, unintelligent, backwards, limiting thinking. Or you can use your thoughts to manage your emotions. And so the first thought that you have to have is this emotion is not a problem.
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And that’s a huge obstacle because most of you have come to fear your anxiety. You’ve come to fear your trauma response, your funk, your depression, your mood swings. And so you exert all this energy trying to avoid or fix or change or hide the feeling instead of just using a little bit of that energy to go in and expose what the hell it is that’s coming up for you.
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that your body is inviting you to purge, to let go of, to unpack. You’re running around trying to figure out, is this hormonal? Is this my medication? Did I drink too much? Oh my God, this is alcohol. I must be in withdrawals. Or you start blaming life and stress and the holidays and the shit you have to deal with at work or the physical pain that you’re going through.
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or the relationship that you’re in, like, I don’t think this is working, or why don’t they understand me, or the financial constraints, I don’t have enough money, or even a lack of sleep. You start trying to figure out why you feel the way you feel, and you think that it’s caused by something out there, something that you already did, something that you didn’t do, something that someone else did.
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And you exert all this energy and brain power, your precious resource of mental energy, to try to fix the way you feel instead of being grateful that whatever it is that’s going on, whether it be a hangover or hormones or anything else, this is amplifying the subconscious belief that is lying to you. It’s just amplifying it. It’s making it easier to hear.
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It’s bringing it, forcing it into your conscious awareness so that you can deal with it. And what you have to realize is that the thinking that your experience of whatever is the problem, that’s what has to be reprogrammed. The thinking that I can’t handle this, something has gone wrong, this is a problem, it shouldn’t be this way. These are the mindsets that you’re being invited
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to change, to shift, to up level, to outgrow. So I was on a wonderful relaxing vacation in St. Croix. I took a week, traveled Christmas day, came home New Year’s day. I got to scuba dive. I also worked a lot. Like I think I’m gonna need more work-ations, you know? So I’d scuba dive in the morning, do some work in the afternoon. We were busy, but not too busy. It was a wonderful trip. And also it was big.
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I was busy. My daughter was there. My friend Heather was there. There was a lot of talking and going and doing things. And there wasn’t a lot of time where I had alone and quiet to process my own thoughts because when I was alone and processing, I was working and I’ve got to work on that. I need more time and space just to be quiet in my head every day than I give myself on most days. And so
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By the time I got home after a big travel day, I was, like I’ve often said to some of you, a little emotionally constipated. I hadn’t emotionally pooped in a few days. And that’s not a bad thing, right? We all like to have a good bowel movement. There was just things that had started to stack up that instead of dealing with them on the surface and making sense of them and correcting for them, I just kind of pushed them down.
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And there were three things that I identified yesterday when I finally sat the fuck down and dealt with it. There were three things that were bothering me. Number one, I drank alcohol every single day on vacation. And while I did not regret one single sip, never got drunk, didn’t feel bad, in my mind, I was like, was that a problem? Why did you do that? And yesterday when I was home and dealing with this emotional funk, which I’m telling you about,
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I was wondering, I in withdrawals? That’s really what it was. I had about two glasses of wine every single night for least seven days in a row. And so yesterday when I was in a funk, the wrong question I was asking myself is, is this alcohol and did I drink too much on my break? Okay, so that’s the first thing. The second thing that I was able to identify as having bothering me, there was a rock in my shoe, was that my ex-husband was texting me a lot, really sweet,
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nice things, helping me get my scuba gear together, telling me where to look for things or don’t forget this or that. And kind of love bombing me a little bit with pictures of the past and just nothing had gone wrong, but I was feeling guilty. I was feeling guilty. I kind of knew I should have never married him. And so I was feeling bad for marrying him and also feeling bad for divorcing him. I mean, you can’t really win that one. And the third thing that I was
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bothered by that I brought into consciousness that was operating in my subconscious was that I need to get like a thousand things done today because even though I did work on vacation, I did not get enough done and I am behind and I need to not focus on doing my laundry or saying hi to my dog or my kids. I need to get my ass to work because it is not okay for me to relax. And so yesterday I finally realized because I was coaching one of you,
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who was struggling with post-Christmas holiday hangover, literally and emotionally. And I was noticing that, okay, just allow yourself to feel the anxiety, like nothing has gone wrong. Stop trying to figure out how you could have avoided this feeling way, feeling, and just ask what it is that you need to learn. And this is why we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over with alcohol, because we’re not learning the lesson.
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of the hangover, what it is that we’re meant to learn. The only thing we’re learning is that we need to avoid this in the future and that we should never make this mistake again. And until you learn from your mistakes, you’re gonna keep repeating them. And so I was coaching someone else through that and then got the insight to myself of, I’m trying to work my way and avoid my way out of whatever’s going on. And so I just stopped. I...
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You know, I still had a couple calls or whatever, but I’m like, okay, I’m not doing anything today except what I have to do. And I’m to be quiet with myself. And I went in my room and I did five minutes of journaling. Like I asked my subconscious, what’s really going on here? And I made a list and there were a few things on my list, like really basic things, not deep, dark things. The beliefs that came up as to why I was feeling this way. There was three of them. This is too good to be true.
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Like I got the divorce and I’m okay. that, uh, and my business is doing well. Uh, and I paid for my own vacation. Like that’s never been a thing. This is too good to be true. That was the first thing. The second thing was I’m going to mess this up. Like I can’t possibly be capable of running my own life without a man. Right. And then the third thing was I’ve done something wrong and the, I’ve done something wrong. Belief really hit me like the three cherries on the machine.
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That applied to me feeling guilty about drinking every day. That felt aligned with I shouldn’t have gotten married, I shouldn’t have gotten divorced. Yeah, I did something wrong. And then the third thing, obviously, I’m doing something wrong by taking time for myself. I shouldn’t have taken that week because I’m behind, right? I’ve done something wrong, though. Those are the words that my body was inviting me to look at and decide.
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You want to keep that belief? Is that working for you? Is that going to serve you? And whether the alcohol or withdrawal or lack of sleep or the love bombing or all the things on my to-do list, regardless of what those were or were not, those situations were amplifying the belief that in my body, I remembered feeling as a little girl, I’ve done something wrong.
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Those were the words that matched that feeling. And so I just picked that one. This is how simple it can be. You don’t have to solve the whole Rubik’s Cube. You can just do a side. And the side I chose to look at yesterday was the belief that I’ve done something wrong, which means I’m bad. I felt like a bad little girl. That was the feeling in my subconscious. It was very childlike. And
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It wasn’t really intense. wasn’t ruining my day. I just didn’t want to keep operating with that rock in my shoe. Nor did I want to try to work my way or figure my way out of the belief that I’ve done something wrong. Like this shit stops here. And this is why your emotions are your superpower. And when you stop and pay attention, you get to weed out your subconscious bullshit. I brought this up and I looked straight at it and I
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Comforted myself. I put my hand on my heart and I said, oh babe You’re feeling like you did something wrong Let me just feel that with you. I’m not gonna abandon you. I’m not gonna avoid you You’re feeling like you did something wrong and I’m gonna honor that then I asked myself What is some form of the opposite of that? What do I want to believe? What do I choose to believe because you have to realize?
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that at some point, every belief is a decision. The belief that I’ve done something wrong was a decision that I probably made as a four-year-old, and I’ve made 1,000 times ever since. And it’s just subconscious. I no longer question. A belief is just a thought you no longer question because you believe it’s true. It’s like the wallpaper. It just is what it is. And if you don’t want those types of beliefs to control your behavior, then you have to decide what else you believe. And so I spent
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five minutes, you this isn’t really deep and dark processing. I just said, what is some form of the opposite that is true? And I said, I’m doing a lot of things right. And it’s not actually possible for me to do anything wrong, like bad. It’s possible for me to make mistakes and learn from them. But like the idea that I could even do something wrong is that that’s a word that I’m striking from.
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my list of options. Nothing has gone wrong. Things just are what they are and I get to choose how I respond to them. Nothing is ever wrong. And I’m not gonna be held hostage by that emotional charge of believing that something is wrong or that I am wrong, okay? So once I processed the old belief and the chosen decision I was gonna make about my new belief, then all I had to do was move a little slower through my day
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to allow every time I noticed that background alarm going off in my body, that anxiety, I brought it into consciousness. I again confirmed, oh, this is that belief. You have done something wrong. And then remembering the new decision, nothing has gone wrong because that’s not possible. And I’m doing an amazing, beautiful job. And I’m doing so many good things. And then giving myself
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a couple pieces of evidence just like, hey, you only had like two glasses of wine every night and you enjoyed them. You never overdid it. You never had a hangover. And as far as your ex husband, what a beautiful friendship you’ve created. And I’m so proud of you for walking out of that marriage in kindness to both him and you. And what a lovely 12 year period and all the pictures and the memories that you got like nothing has gone wrong. That was beautiful. And it’s awesome.
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And then as far as this bullshit that it’s not OK for you to relax, the opposite belief of that is it’s not really OK for you to be stressed. Because yesterday, I didn’t get any of the huge projects that I was mapping out on the plane. Like as soon as I land, I’m going to do all this. Like, no, I was dealing with anxiety. When I have anxiety, I’m not creative. I’m not effective. I’m not productive. I’m not efficient. Because I’m in a state.
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that my mind isn’t working because my emotions are controlling my thoughts. And so it doesn’t matter what I need to get done. My first thing I need to get done is to use my mind to control my emotions and regulate my nervous system instead of letting the tail wag the dog. And so that’s what I did yesterday. I stopped running from the emotions that had built up over the last couple of weeks through the holidays. I identified the limiting belief
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that was emotionally charged and zapping my joy and blocking my flow and making me feel slow and funky. I identified the problem. I’d made a decision to choose a new belief. And then I fed that belief with evidence. I used my mind to manage my emotions. So your takeaway is next time you’ve noticed that you’re in a funk, you’re not feeling
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awesome. Stop and deal with it. This is your portal to clearing your subconscious baggage and choosing the mindset that will allow you to do whatever the fuck you want and live in abundance and freedom and not have to worry or fear your own emotions. Like just imagine what would be possible for you if you were no longer afraid.
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of your own goddamn feelings and in fact welcomed them as an invitation to clean house in your subconscious and step in to your birthright of unimaginable, unfuckwithable power. All right, thanks for listening. And if you’re a high achieving coachable woman who is ready to commit to manifesting your best life,
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and you’re gonna need to reduce your alcohol consumption by about 80 % so that alcohol goes back to being a pleasure instead of a soul sucking problem, get in the show notes and click the link and schedule a discovery call with me or my team.