Why Unfelt Feelings Become a Prison for Founders

All right, welcome to Heart of Entrepreneurship, where my longtime BFF and coach Dave Kashen and I talk about all the things related to love, personal growth, spirituality, vis-à-vis in the world, as in the life of an entrepreneur. Um, so last week we talked about emotions. We tried to do sort of emotions for dummies, you know, our version of it. And today we're going to continue a version of that conversation. We're going to talk about something very related to emotions, which is resisting them, and kind of go deep on that because I think there's a lot for— I've learned about myself in that process and continue to, but I think it's also a big part of what shapes us and our decisions and how we run businesses and all those things. But before we do that, Dave, do you want to just recap last week maybe for someone who's hearing this for the first time?

Sure. I think we started with you asking, what are emotions? And I cited a phrase that I heard from Diana Chapman from Conscious Leadership, which was to think of emotion as energy in motion. And I think I like that definition because it's sort of recognizes that it's a, it's a pretty physical experience. It's like energy. It's actually like energy moving through your body. And for so many entrepreneurs and business people in general, we just kind of walk around mostly focused on our heads. So we talked a bit about how tuning into your emotions is about tuning into your body, feeling that energy moving through your body and starting to recognize, okay, which emotion is that? And we talked about some of the core emotions: joy, excitement, anger, sadness, fear, shame, and guilt. And how each of the emotions sort of is kind of a different energy, brings different wisdom and intelligence, and how so many of us have learned to— first of all, that emotions are messy and not useful in business and bad. And the need to unlearn that. And because we actually are human beings and we don't stop being human when we go to work, it's important to understand the role of emotions, to learn to recognize them, and then ultimately to accept them as they are because they are. Like so many other things, you know, we'll probably talk about throughout this podcast, The difference between being kind of at our best and in flow and in presence and not is much of the time is simply whether we accept and allow what is or resist it. But emotions are a particular flavor of that, which a lot of us learn in early years, like this certain emotion is bad or it's not safe or it's not okay to feel this, you know, whether that's anger on the one extreme or excitement on the other, right? A lot of us, you know, when we get loud as kids, our parents are like, "No, no, no, calm down. That's too much." And we learn, "Oh, I don't want to be too much. I don't want to be too excited." Or, you know, like I shared in my case, you know, there wasn't much anger expressed. And so, I just learned, "Oh, okay, anger is like a bad thing. It's something that less civilized people do." So, it's really useful to recognize which of the emotions you tend to repress, deny, because 'Cause sometimes we get so practiced in repressing and denying that we're not even actively doing it anymore. It's not like, "Oh, that's anger, I don't wanna feel that." It's, you know, our defenses are so well-formed that we don't even recognize it's happening. So there's a whole process of learning to become sensitive again, which is funny for me. You know, I'm a particularly, I think, sensitive human, Maybe why I do what I do. And I think I learned early on both through some messages around being a, you know, a boy and like, you know, oh, boys don't cry, boy, you know, not, not even like explicit, but just sort of implicit, you know, messages from around. I don't think I heard that from my parents, but there's a, you know, there's a society. Yeah, societal gender biases. And then I think it was just painful. Like there was a lot, you know, divorced. There was a bunch of stuff that felt at least painful and overwhelming to feel. So I think I just learned to kind of tamp it down and shut it down. And I've had to go through a real process of unblocking feelings and learning to feel them again. Helped me get more clear about what I want and what's happening.

Yeah. And you were saying anger is, you know, sadness has been one for me that's, that's I've pushed away for most of my life. Um, we talked a little bit about this, but can you recap, like, what are the dangers of not being in touch with your emotions for entrepreneurs, and what are the benefits of being in touch with them?

Yeah, yeah, I love that because it's like, okay, well, what does this mean for founders, right? Why is this relevant? And I will just— I had a client recently be like, oh my God, like, I can't believe I was ever trying to build a company without these tools. Like, it can be that transformational. So what are the benefits? Again, because we're human and we have emotions, if we deny and repress them, you know, there's this notion what you resist persists. We can talk more about that. So one of the advantages of recognizing and feeling is you don't end up in these moods and these like perpetual, you know, almost every founder I know is stressed, right? And overwhelmed. And a lot of that is actually because they're resisting fear. They don't want to actually feel the fear. So a few things happen when you resist an emotion. Let's just talk about fear. One is we go into our minds almost as a way to escape feeling the feeling, and then we ruminate or we spin or we overanalyze, right? Again, lots and lots of clients, you know, show up and they're like, I'm overthinking everything, or I want to make decisions faster but I feel stuck. I'm just constantly spinning on decisions and I can't access my intuition or I don't trust it. And really what's in the way of that is not feeling feelings. We're actually emotional decision makers. We may have talked about this, I'll just cite it quickly. There was some experiment or research basically into people who had brain injuries, could no longer feel their feelings. And it took them hours and hours to decide like which color pen to use because we actually make decisions emotionally and then we rationalize them, right? So we don't have access to our emotions. It just, it takes so much longer to make decisions. Um, we, yeah, we get stuck in our heads. Um, also emotions are themselves a source of intelligence. So like, you know, example of, um you know, a team that was making an acquisition that looked really, really good on paper. Everyone, it just made logical sense. And somebody spoke up in a meeting, was like, I just want to say, you know, they had a culture that allowed this and welcomed it. Like, I just, I noticed that constriction in my stomach. I noticed a little bit of fear every time we talk about this acquisition. And someone else was like, actually, me too. Um, and so like, okay, hold on, let's slow down a little bit. And they dug, you know, deeper and found fraud. Through the acquisition. So, there's a real like— Knowing. Yeah. Knowing. It's like another source of intelligence. And honestly, that really got me because for a long time, I was like, "Happiness, good. Sadness, bad." You know? Like, "Let me just maximize happiness." And then, when I learned that emotions were a source of intelligence, I really value intelligence. I was like, "Oh, I don't want to miss out on one source of them." We talked a bit about the different kind of flavors of that, like sadness is showing what wants to be let go of. So like if a team doesn't feel sadness or if a CEO or founder doesn't feel sadness, they'll likely keep too many projects going or keep too many people on the team. They won't let go. You know, anger is boundary energy. It's helping you get clear about what you want and what's okay with you and your values. So there's a real, you know, with each emotion, you know, fears telling you, okay, there's something to learn, something to pay attention to here. Um, you know, and joy, you know, it's like there's something that wants to be celebrated, right? And that, you know, again, I find, uh, you know, excitement, something wants to be created. I find most teams, you know, over-index on the quote-unquote— and it's important that we put in quotes because this is part of the issue— you know, negative stuff. And, um, like actually block appreciation and anger are more common.

Yeah, totally. And the other thing, one other thing we just talked about and then we can move forward is, you know, not only are founders human, but everybody they're leading is human also. And the presenting issue— and this was a very, you know, the wisdom for me has been very valuable because similar to you, I value intelligence. I'm like, oh, what's this? Oh, wow. Oh my God, I didn't see this thing. And I have unlocks, as you know, all the time from things that are coming from feelings now. But then with my team, someone walks in and they're like, ah, you know, the, this process is broken and I'm, you know, and, and then you, if you can actually be present enough to feel what someone's feeling or understanding, you go, wait, you're saying this, but you really just seem angry about this right now. And I, like, I say that all the time where I just name what I think they're feeling. Yeah. And it's, it's changed my leadership completely. Not only obviously people appreciate being seen in that way, but, But then they go, well, yeah, I am angry because I'm the only one who's doing the work here. Oh, I see. I see. I get it now. So this has nothing to do with the spreadsheet thing you're talking about and everything to do with, um, and, and I think the flip of it's now, I didn't notice it when I was younger and I was early founder, but now when I don't do that, if I'm not present and I started talking about something going back and forth and someone's like, you're like, wait, why aren't we getting anywhere in this? And it's like, oh, because there's a bunch of feelings here that aren't being brought to the surface.

Yeah, our minds tend to overcomplicate almost everything. So like simplicity on the other side of complexity is almost always— there's just some feeling that's not being felt, right? And once it's felt, the issue is easily resolved. So if you're spinning and taking a long time individually, or as like you said, with your team, um, I've been fond recently of saying an emotion is worth a thousand words. I love that, you know, spin off that phrase. And then, um, uh, coach I really respect, Tara from Art of Accomplishment, uh, has this quote that unfelt feelings are the glue that keep unwanted patterns in place. And I think that's another real— I'm finding it more and more even lately as I, as I lean more into helping clients recognize what's the feeling they're not feeling, like lifelong patterns, you know, oh, I'm conflict avoidant, or even patterns that seem like their beliefs, right? Noah, sure.

I feel like I'm a nice guy.

Oh, I'm a nice guy. Or, but like a big one, you know, I have so many founders who, and I think there's a human at a deep level, feel like an imposter or I'm not good enough, right? And they're like, you know, like, oh, could you let go of that belief? And they're like, well, I can't, like, I can't, you know, it's interesting, like, why can't you let go of that belief? You know, can you see that you're good enough? Can you? And often when they start to recognize, well, I'm scared to let it go because it's been driving me, okay, that's a useful insight, but until they actually feel the fear, it doesn't go. Right.

Say it one more time. Unfelt feelings. I'm going to write it down.

Unfelt feelings are the glue that keep unwanted patterns in place.

Mm.

I love it.

So let's, let's talk about, you know, this is going to be kind of about resistance and, you know, I guess I'll start with the way I think about it, which is like I have Mila, my, my beautiful daughter who's 18 months old. And none of the two big kids did this, by the way. We have two older kids. But D— Mila loves my wife, D, and to the point where— and she's kind of at the height of this, this sort of separation thing. If I walk in the room and I'm her dad and the older two kids, you know, they weren't— they weren't necessarily happier. Like, they were totally fine with me. We'd hand the kids back and forth, no big deal. But Mila, if you hand Mila to me, she starts— she gets upset, she starts crying. If he hands her to you, if he hands her to me, or I walk in the room and she knows that he's leaving, maybe, and it's time for me to put her to bed or whatever it is, right? And, you know, I've been doing this stuff a long time and, you know, she cried. And I'll say, you're really sad, you're leaving mom. She'll cry. It lasts 25 seconds. It's a little scary and painful for everybody, you know, immediately, even if my parents or somebody, oh, she's crying. No, no, no, don't make her cry. Don't make her cry. You'll see this. And we'll come back to that. But then she's totally fine. She's like, I want to read this book. And so I always think of this as kids, the energy comes, they express it, and it's done. It's over.

And they'll go from total temper tantrum, crying, angry, to laughing and playing within 40 seconds.

Yeah, exactly. And so I always start there going, oh, okay, well, they like, Wow. So, they move through these things. Most adults and even older kids now, they don't. So, I guess what is resistance? And let's start with, I don't know why it happens and—

Yeah, I think we somewhere between Mila's age and probably 8 years old and certainly our age, quote unquote learn that certain, certain feelings are not welcome, are not safe, are not, um, good to have, right? So we're alluding to this a bit, right? Oh, don't— oh, you're too— you're, you know, calm down, right? Oh, okay. If I get too excited, it's basically like, what gives me positive attention from mom and dad, and what gives me negative attention from mom and dad or caretakers, right? That's probably the core of it, right? It's like, oh, when I When I cry, they seem annoyed, right?

Because it's annoying when the little, you know, and childhood trauma or childhood, not trauma, but childhood patterns or whatever. They're almost memed at this point as a joke. Like, yes, but, but I think it is important to call out that like whoever your caretakers are, probably not because they're bad people. In some cases, maybe they, yeah, whatever. But like, but they had their own issues with certain feelings from their own, like their parents.

Yeah. And whatever.

Right. But like, it's So now, you know, I see this all the time. It's like now a kid cries, a boy, let's say a boy cries. And it's, I mean, it certainly wasn't uncommon when we were kids. And even now I like, oh, don't cry, you're tough, right?

Stop crying.

With the best, by the way, with the best intentions from the parent, they want their kid to feel better, resilient, right? Or like I've seen a lot of parents in the same scenario of, you know, Dee and I with Mila, Dad will hand the girl right back to the mom and go, "She's crying. I don't want her to cry. Go back to mom. Go back. Hey, you know, I'm gonna— you put her to bed." Like, I mean, I've seen that entire process happen where—

In that case, she might learn, "Oh, sadness is a tool I can use to get what I want." And people do that, right, in relationship where instead of just communicating what they really want, oh, they get sad and that, you know, that creates the—

But I think it's important to call out this resistance. Like, it really comes in childhood and it comes, you know, not blaming anyone's parents and even your like, but it comes as a sort of a natural, I don't know, byproduct of being a human probably where somebody else is like, yeah, dude, something is it. And it's, it's everyone's household is different and everyone's, you know, method is different. And, and that's where it sort of—

in a household like I did, where there was not much conflict and not much anger. I mean, my parents got divorced. I never heard them fight once, you know.

Oh, wow.

Prior to that, right? And all of a sudden, you know, so like, that's one version is like, oh, that just wasn't, there wasn't conflict explicit. There wasn't anger expressed. So how would I learn, you know, to express? So a lot, you know, one version of it is we just sort of inherit it. You know, from our parents. Like, I don't, you know, my mom still to this day, if she, if I'm like, she's like, how are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm kind of feeling sad today. She's like, what's wrong?

You're right, right?

Oh, what? No, but, but things are so good, but you have such a wonderful— like, she's trying to manage my sadness ultimately because she doesn't want to feel what she has to feel when I feel sad, right? And, um, so I think that, you know, we come by it honestly, you know, and that—

and I think the other thing is, I think, I mean, you know this, but I think it's worth calling out for, like for most people, because of that, it's so unconscious. Nobody's aware. It's not like someone sits there and like, I think the average founder listening to this sadness today or would say, oh yeah, I tend to resist anger. I tend to like, I think at least when I started this work, I think most people, it's like, no, I don't, I don't, I'm not a sad person. Like, I don't get sad. What are you talking about? Or like, you probably like, I'm not an angry person. Like, that's just not who I am. And I think that's where most people start in this journey. And I think it's just important to call it out because it doesn't— if you said to somebody randomly, you sent— you— I think you resist, they'd be like, what the hell are you talking about? Yeah, what do you mean I resist something?

So if you're, if you're intrigued and embarking on this journey, you know, one place to look is look at life and how you react to other people when they're having feelings. Um, like, uh, another coach, Joe Hudson, recently said, if you want to know who was not allowed to cry Look at who reacts when babies cry on an airplane, right? There's some people who are just like, oh God, you know, they're visibly annoyed, you know, because they— it's like, oh, if I don't let myself feel that feeling, I get annoyed when other people feel the feeling. So that's one place to look, is just what annoys you, what feelings annoy you when other people feel them. That's a good sign that you probably don't allow yourself to feel it. And you're resisting it in some way. Um, and then, yeah, it, you know, if you reflect honestly, you can probably see a pattern of, okay, yeah, I let myself feel a certain level of joy, you know, some sadness, maybe if somebody dies or something like, obviously, you know, a really sad movie, but there's not much anger in my life.

Or, um, or just the things you— I think you say you're not. I mean, I think that's a very easy Or that annoys you in other people, or if you're a parent and your kids, what annoys you? Like, my kid's so, so angry all the time, or like, I'm not an angry person, or I don't— I think any of those sort of— because I think most founders are intelligent enough to— and they'll say things like that. I don't— yeah, I don't tend to get sad. It just doesn't really happen. Like, I think I would have said that. I still kind of feel like I say, hey, I'm a happy guy. Yeah.

I'm a happy guy.

And, and yeah, and I think the, um, so anyway, okay, so that's how people kind of— it shows up, that's how it manifests, presumably, if everyone kind of developed it.

Like two flavors of projection we could talk about as a way to, again, sort of self-diagnose, for lack of a better word, right? You know, one is the first one we said, if someone else does it and you get annoyed. The other is if someone else does it and you judge it, or even if you judge it in yourself, like, oh, I keep getting angry, what's wrong with me?

Right.

I have a bad temper. I shouldn't, I shouldn't get angry. Or, God, I'm getting like, I'm getting sad. Why am I so weak? What, you know, so if you judge it, you're probably, you know, not probably.

Yeah. And I think the way it's shown up for me and others, I oftentimes you say like, people shouldn't be angry, right? If you ask someone like, what's the thing that you think, oh yeah, people shouldn't be so, and that's so what, so when you say, when we say resistance, what are the flavors of the ways people, so let's assume you develop in childhood, assume it's not conscious either. Like, what are the ways that people resist?

Well, yeah, we can maybe break it down to sort of conscious and unconscious, that, you know, and, um, let's start with unconscious. Yeah, yeah. I mean, essentially it's like repression and denial. Like, literally, you know, it's so repressed that you don't know it's there, although it probably leaks out now and then when you're, you know, didn't get a good night's sleep, or you're really upset about something, you're really we could say below the line, right, in a state of threat, it probably leaks out. But yeah, it's basically just repressed. And actually, like, if you think about it, it takes sort of energy and like physical bracing to stop an emotion that's coming through. So we end up getting kind of calcified in our bodies. Like, our heart will feel a little bit more like heavier, closed, if we're constantly resisting sadness. But yeah, it's essentially repression and denial unconsciously. Like, I don't even know I'm feeling it. And then consciously, I think the most common pattern is the escape into the head. It's just like anytime I or somebody else even like has a bit of this feeling, I will go into my mind and try to figure out something, right? Oh, let me figure out how to solve this problem. Instead of just be with the feeling. I think that's probably the most common. Uh, distractions would be the other one, right? I'll go, you know, have a glass of wine, have a beer, uh, right, you know, smoke a joint, um, play games on my mobile phone, exercise. Yeah, scroll X or Twitter, keep my calendar really busy, you know.

Not that I, not that I do that.

Yeah, I have a friend who keeps his calendar really Yeah, I love that you just said that. There's this quote that just popped to mind, like, most of man's struggles come from his inability to sit quietly alone in a room.

Yeah.

Or woman struggles, her ability. And I think the reason we tend to have such a hard time being still is because there's some feelings we've been avoiding feeling that once we get still, it starts to arise. So, I mean, if you think about founders who are some of the busiest people I know, you know, probably in the world, like, it's interesting to wonder how much of their busyness is just avoiding some feeling they don't want to feel.

Yeah. Well, I think for me, like, the real case study I've had in the last 2 weeks, as you know, is like, I like shifted, you know, I'm, I'm the chairman and founder of all these companies in the studio. I'm not the CEO. And I was, I was kind of in the first half of the year, I was acting like a fractional president, you know, I was effectively in the companies doing a bunch of stuff. And I said, hey guys, this isn't, you know, I want to on a shift. And of course, I was nervous about that. And then everyone's like, great, good job, Jess. Like, nobody cared. I mean, they cared, but they were all supportive, right? And then I'm like, this week, I'm like, and last one, like, my calendar has been pretty empty. And, and like, some anxiety showed up and some sadness is showing, like, they're showing up together. And I'm like, whoa, this is like, this is new. This is— and I can almost feel what I've been running from for so long. And even the other funny thing was, you know, I was telling this to somebody this week, like the lies we tell ourselves. Like when I was at Ambush and I was running the business as the CEO, it was really easy to say like, I'm the CEO, this is my first company, it's all my livelihood. I must stay busy in order for it to be successful, to make money, to like feed my— like, but now the setup I have is like there's people running all the businesses and it's not true. Like it's just objectively false that I have to stay busy for these things to do well. And I can. The, but the feeling is, is just as present as it was at Ambush, which is if I'm not, I'm like not worthwhile if I'm not busy, or I'm like these things come up and, and like, oh, what if I, if I don't keep myself busy, there's, there's a problem.

That's it. I love that example. I'm not worthwhile if I'm not busy. That's the belief pattern. And you know, frankly, for many years I would've, I would've mostly focused on Well, how is it, you know, can you see how that's not true, how that's not true for someone else? Really try to dismantle the belief, which is still useful to do. Like, what evidence do you have that you're— that you are worthwhile even without being busy, you know?

Right.

And since this, this, you know, episode is about emotions, what I'm recognizing is if you don't feel the— it's probably shame that is kind of holding that belief in place, um, and stop resisting it and like fully allow yourself to feel it, it's— it probably won't go away. You won't shift that pattern. And it's amazing how quickly it almost feels miraculous if you actually, actually, probably for the first time in most people's lives, because who wants to feel shame? We spend most of our lives pushing it away, resisting it. Fully allow yourself to feel the shame Without believing the story, by the way, that's the common pattern is like we don't feel the feeling but we believe the story or the belief. You want to swap it so you see through the belief or, you know, stop believing it and at the same time like fully feel literally like the physical sensations of it. Like, oh, the shame is often like this hunched over, like small, want to hide, you know, escape. Feeling, you know, for me as I tune into it, it's like, uh, it's like hard to breathe, like my throat closes up, my chest and stomach constrict. But if I can allow all that and allow myself to feel it, the shame tends to move through and that pattern can shift. Yeah.

And how do you coach? So you obviously, you know, you work with founders across the spectrum of self-awareness and and even types, like you work with Fortune 500, like, you know, you work with so many different people. How do you get people to start even being aware of the resistance and noticing? And then how do you, how do you help coach them to work through it?

I mean, let's see. So the classic, like, emotional intelligence sort of work is first around identifying and recognizing a feeling that's happening, which if we don't recognize it, we tend to skip over it and essentially resist it or actively resist it. So part of it is just like we— I think we talked in the last episode about like taking the elevator down from your head to your heart or to your body. Just starting to pay attention to like what's happening in here because you have a body and it has sensations and feelings. And then If you start to do that, you will notice that you do resist most feelings. I'll just assert that. From my experience, most people resist most of their feelings, even joy and excitement, sometimes even more joy and excitement. Right. So it might be just a useful place to start. Let's just assume any feeling you have, you're at least partially resisting fully feeling, because that's just what we tend to do, or tend to to learn.

Um, but I, and I think we said this last time, but I just want to say it because I think it's relevant, is the, the pipe, if you will, of feelings is like one pipe.

Yeah.

And so if you resist sadness, you probably also resist joy because it's like the pipe will grow. I, I, my mental model is like your pipe is feeling is your resistance pipe is one pipe regardless of the feeling coming through.

Yeah. Cause it is even, I mean, to some degree, even the distinct feelings that we described are just conceptual. Like, there's some kind of energy that's trying to move through your body, and if you, if you block it, you block it. So I think that's an important point. You don't— we don't get to pick and choose, it seems, really. Like, we can pretend to, but like, you're not going to feel your full aliveness and joy if you don't feel your full rage and terror. Um, and so, and I can generally feel it now in my body, like there's some kind of bracing against, again, because the energy is wanting to move and it will just naturally move like you said in your 18-month-old. So there's some kind of way that we brace against it. And honestly, a lot of like chronic physical issues are really, I think, just chronic bracing against feeling. You know, the last line of defense is our jaw, right? It's like, don't say that, right? Don't speak it, don't cry, don't— or don't cry out, right? Don't Right. And so, you know, sometimes like people like will feel this like, you know, grinding teeth or jaw pain, but there is a real bracing against.

And then, yeah, but when you first start working with someone, it's, it's, I guess it's getting them to notice just an emotion first, I assume, before they can even notice the resistance.

There's a, like, I find it useful to look at the physical sensations because it is a physical experience. It's like, what's happening in your body? Sometimes people can access that more easily than even the feeling. Like, oh, I notice constriction in my chest or in my belly or in my throat or like a tightening in my neck and shoulders. And we may have talked about this, but Conscious Leadership has a kind of a map that I find useful of like, oh, neck and shoulders, likely that's anger. Right, right. You know, oh, stomach constriction, likely that's fear, right? Pressure behind the eyes, you know, constriction in chest, likely that's sadness, right?

Um, so step one is, I guess it sounds like, is— well, it's actually, yeah, it's like noticing your body. I mean, I would— I was gonna say maybe there's a prereq step, and I'm even thinking about our journey together of like just slowing someone down enough to actually check in. And like, that's, that's like the prereq step.

Yeah, yeah, we used to do these like we call the unarguable check-ins, which was like, um, thought, feeling, sensation.

Yeah, right.

And you know, the first third of that is what most people do most of the time, right? So if you're just constantly in your head focusing on your thoughts, you're going to ignore and resist feelings. Um, so I like that, just, just first check in. Okay, yes, I have this thought. What's happening in my body? What am I feeling? And see if you can name it. Oh, I think there's some—

yeah, like, could you quiet down for one minute and just slow down and try to take a few breaths and feel into your body or feel into something? Then you notice something. Yes, shoulders are tight.

But let's— so it's not so, uh, abstract or conceptual, let's just invite listeners, do that, do that right now. All right, bring your attention down from your head and just notice what's actually occurring in your body. You know, if it helps, you could scan your head, your throat, your neck and shoulders, your chest, your stomach, and just see what are you actually noticing. Jesse, what are you noticing?

I feel like a little tightness in my chest. I have like a little ball there. My shoulders feel a little pulled on.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so given the map, there's likely some sadness and some anger. And notice if you're like fully welcoming them in or if there's any resistance, if you're bracing against, pushing away.

How do I know? Like, so if I slow down, then I feel some things in my body. Yeah, I know when I'm resisting.

One thing that can help is just to like exaggerate the contrast. So just go ahead and resist, like, like, you know, go away, I don't want to feel you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just notice what actually occurs.

My body gets tight.

Yeah, we have to— we have to get tight to stop feeling, right? We have to constrict against them. And, you know, ironically, they'll likely intensify when you do that. And then try the opposite. Welcome, you know, like, like a guest in your home that you're truly excited to welcome in. Welcome sadness. Welcome constriction, that, that ball sensation in your chest. Welcome pulling sensation in your shoulders.

Yep.

And one thing you may notice is that the actual experience of it shifts. That— this kind of blew my mind when I heard this from Joe Hudson, that like the experience of an emotion plus resistance is actually a fundamentally different experience than the emotion without resistance. It's just that we tend to resist the same emotions all the time. Because we resist them, they feel painful. Because they feel painful, we resist them. So we're stuck in a loop, not realizing that, like so many things, that we're the one creating it. And so I love that experiment because I find when I actually— and there's a caveat here, which is I can't, I can't welcome the feeling in order to get rid of it, right? A lot of clients try that, and man, have I— you know, I've tried that so many times over the years, like Oh God, you know, and I, I used to get depressed, you know, for many years. So when sadness arises, it scares me. I'm like, oh God, am I sinking back into depression? Am I gonna, you know, have my aliveness? And so, you know, for a long time when I learned this, I'm like, okay, welcome sadness, right? You know, welcome away, right?

Yeah.

Um, versus, you know, he said, like Joe will say, like, could you actually look forward to being sad? 'Cause you look forward to being terrified.

Right.

Yeah, which, you know, one thing I find funny is like how many people go see really scary movies.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? Or sad movies, you know? And it's like some part of us wants to feel that, but other, you know, often we're just like, no, you know, I don't want that right now. It's distracting.

What about, so the welcoming, It's interesting. I think it's, it's harder to kind of hold, like hold onto. I think the CLG stuff, like the conscious leadership stuff around healthily expressing your, your emotions like that, that was, that like worked for me well, especially early on. I like noticed I was angry and then for whatever reason, my car, there's no one else around in my car and I'm like, oh, I can like slam this. I can scream at the top of my lungs. And even that I think is really difficult for people. It's like people feel awkward doing it, but like it tends to be pretty valuable.

Yeah, that's a good— so, so there's kind of the, well, the inner welcoming where you just, you know, take a posture of welcome, uh, even like love. Could you love the feelings? And then, you know, one way I think about like if that sort of— if there's a lot of repressed feelings, that may not quite be sufficient. And so the, you know, Conscious Leadership talks about the importance of like, can you match the inner energy with outer energy and outer expression, typically in the form of sound and/or movement, right? I mean, there's a reason people ultimately fight, right, or yell when they're angry. Like, the unhealthy reactive version of it, it does come out, right? Or throw staples across a room, or, you know, it's like there's a sound and movement that the energy tends to kind of want to be expressed as. But we tend to think our options are, I can be— let's take anger, which is probably the most common example. I can either be violent and reactive and uncivilized and cause pain and damage, or I can just hold it in. And to your point, a third option is go express it in a healthy, safe way.

Right.

Like I have, and then this is Anna Chapman's idea from Conscious Leadership. I got the idea from, I now have a wiffle ball bat in my bedroom and we're in our different house here. And so I have one here too. So in each of my bedrooms I have a wiffle ball bat and now and then I'll just go and while screaming, because movement and sound, I'll be like, ah, and I'll just bash my pillow. You know, it's safe. I'm not hurting the pillow. I'm not hurting myself. I'm not hurting anyone. I'll tend to, you know, tell the family like, guys, I'm going to scream for a little bit, or I'll do it when no one's home. Or like you said, people do it in their car. And I'm amazed, even just a few minutes. First of all, most people their entire lives have never spent 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes expressing a feeling of anger.

Yeah.

Or fear. Like, I had a client recently who was going through something really intense and scary. And I was like, okay, let's stop talking about it and let's just shake, right? Like zebras do after like they've, you know, they're done fleeing the lion. Like literally we're just shaking hips and our hands and it's amazing, right? Like, well, it's like off-gassing the fear, you know, or sadness. Just like go all the way into it, you know, let yourself feel it, you know, even like if you need to crumple up in into a little fetal position on the floor, right? These are like super uncomfortable, weird, you know, things that most humans don't do. It's not in our society. It's not normal. Again, your 18-month-old will do it, right? Yeah, she might just crumple to the floor in sadness. Yeah, and boom, and move, and, and, or wail and temper tantrums, and then it moves. There's a wisdom that she's accessing. It's intuitive. Like, I have this anger, I need to move it, I'm gonna have a temper tantrum and bang my arms and legs on the floor and scream. So then, you know, in some way it's like, can we get back to our, you know, being little kids and the natural wisdom, the primal, the primal instincts, primal instinct.

And even, yeah, I mean, with my son, I try to, I try to show him, or like, I'll just let him punch my hands. And it's amazing how fast it brings him down and how much, if he's getting resistance, if he's getting pushback, that does the opposite, obviously. Or even like one I've started to do, if I could see it coming, or if even like he's being mean to his sister, I'll just be like, hey, just go take a lap around our driveway. Yeah, just run, run a couple times and just let that— and whatever that energy is, like, let it, you know.

Running tends to move fear more than anger. Like, anger, it's generally helpful, some kind of more like, uh, like bound, no, stop, you know, like that kind of energy. But yes, and exercise is a tricky one because people can either use it to sort of feel and express or to distract and avoid. I often have used exercise to distract and avoid myself. Um, and you know, it's probably the best distract—

you know, if you're going to distract yourself, at least you're real fit while you're doing it.

Yeah, exactly.

There's other bad— I found it like weightlifting for me has Well, that—

you can— the motion of that is closer.

Yeah, I like feel— I'll feel stuff come out, or I've had, I've had emotional experiences that'll like pop out of nowhere in the middle of a weightlifting thing.

I will say too, if people like, I don't even know where to start, um, anger tends to be a good place to start because it tends to be like the outer shell. Often anger is protecting us, and sometimes it's protecting sadness or, you know, something more vulnerable. 'cause anger in a way is the least vulnerable to feel. Interestingly, like anger is more societally accepted than like total excitement, right? Like imagine, you know, someone's just like screaming with glee and delight. You're like, what is wrong with that person, right? It's kind of sad reality.

People think they're manic or whatever, like, but it's a funny, remember that Friends? I don't know if you watched Friends. Did you watch Friends?

Oh yeah.

Alec Baldwin played that one role where he was like Phoebe's boyfriend, or he was just like, The lights on the highway, like it was a traffic jam and he's like, just the lights were beautiful. And like, you know, he's talking about car lights cause he was in a traffic jam and he's like, and he's just going with it. He's like, this is the most wondrous moment. I just want to like, and it's like literally they—

cliché of the enlightened person who sees—

he wasn't even enlightened. It was just so happy. And, and, you know, and like they, nobody could handle it.

Right.

Right. Pure. Actually, there's a funny bunch of interesting friends on that thing. There's Freddie Prince was a guest. One where he was this like sensitive nanny and it made Ross very uncomfortable. And because it was— but then they started to dig into it and it was like, because Ross, he's sensitive but he wasn't allowed to be sensitive, you know, like himself. Yeah, just a funny—

interesting. There, there's a sort of theme that's— I noticed keeps coming to mind, um, that we haven't really addressed around talking about feelings and expressing them like at work. Because a lot of A lot of this stuff is super useful and you could do, if you're a founder or anyone listening, in private, right? Feel your feelings, process. I would say most work cultures have a very narrow band of what feelings are acceptable to show and express. There's also gender bias here, from my experience. I think that's an interesting discussion as well. It's like, what's the value of welcoming feelings at work? And I think a lot of leaders are scared that it becomes chaotic or distracting or like, no, we need to be serious, we need to focus and we need to perform. And from my experience, cultures that start to welcome feelings, they actually resolve things to your point earlier, much more quickly. People feel more fully seen and alive. They make decisions faster. And, you know, the whole like disagree and commit, you know, like people get really frustrated when that doesn't happen. It's usually because people haven't fully been able to express their feelings around, right? Yeah, so they're kind of stuck holding on to this.

Well, it's interesting. I think the thing that tends to create without leadership, first of all, that acknowledges it. The feelings are always there, whether you say them or not. And I say that to all my leaders. And the second you say that to someone, they kind of go, oh yeah, you're totally right. Like, you're not controlling how they're actually feeling, whether they share it or not. It's there.

We can pretend they're not.

We can all pretend that it's not there.

There's no elephant in this room. What are you talking about? It's all just logical and rational.

And so that's one thing I always say. But then the other thing that I think is really valuable in this orientation is, to this whole episode's point, the thing that I think that creates the drama in the workplace and all the messiness that people are trying to avoid is the resistance to all of it. Is people trying to avoid the like, well, no, don't cry, or this person cried, and that's not, you know, versus if you actually just go like, I've done it many times as a leader and it takes, leader has to kind of do it, I think of like, hey guys, we're gonna like, we're gonna like go off on this client in this room for 20 minutes and we're gonna like be mad about this and then we're gonna move through, you know, and everyone's kind of like, okay, great. I think so. When it's not created, that space, it's still there. It lingers, it bleeds out, um, and then out in unhealthy ways, causes workplace trauma, and everyone's resisting it and trying to manage it. And, and that's— I think it's all the management around the emotions, not the emotions themselves, right? But the sort of management of them that creates the issues.

Yeah, I think most of us know that like conflict is going to happen including at work, right? It's a group of human beings trying to accomplish things together. They're gonna have disagreements. They're gonna have different values, styles. So if we pretend there's no conflict or try to sweep it away, it's gonna leak out in different ways. And then trying to resolve conflict without allowing feelings, it's kind of an insane act 'cause it's the feelings that are really creating it. —Right. —So, to your point earlier, yeah, allowing the feelings, allowing them to be expressed. If you really listen to someone that you're in conflict with and like, "I'm really angry about this thing that you did and I feel sad," and you truly listen and see them, that is what actually resolves it versus the logical sort of resolution. —Getting an answer, yeah.

And everyone's been on the other side of receiving a logical answer and still feeling bad about it. And everyone's been on the other side of like, I didn't get an answer, we didn't actually resolution, but I feel so much better about this. And I think that's, that's a common thing. And I would say as a leader, again, I've led one company and built lots of these companies. The second you make it okay, and the easy way to make it okay is you just say it. I like, oh, I've noticed I'm feeling— that's what I mean. Yeah, you model it. You just say, I'm feeling a little scared today. I notice I'm feeling a little nervous about this, or, man, I'm feeling frustrated by this. And again, frustration, interestingly for men, I think is much more common in the workplace to say it and it's accepted versus I feel sad, man, I'm disappointed by this.

You just reminded me, I heard this phrase, I can't remember who from that really stuck with me that stress is the white-collar word for fear. I love that because so many founders, it's okay to be stressed out. Yeah, it's almost like a badge of honor. I'm so busy and so stressed. Oh, I must be doing it right. You're just scared. Yeah. And even just recognizing that, like, what do you mean you're, you're scared? Like, ah. And it's amazing how many times when clients show up, you know, with this, they're really stressed. I'm like, oh, I hear that you're scared. Ah, just like recognizing, allowing themselves to be scared without having to fix it, right? Because they think, I'm scared, this is a problem. And they're spending so much energy. Your point earlier around being sort of de facto president of all these different companies, keeping yourself busy, we organize our entire lives to avoid feeling certain feelings. Right. To resist. Which is nutty if you— when you see that, you're like, "Oh my God, how much of my life have I organized just to not feel sad or scared or angry?" or excited or joyful or shame. So it's like a superpower. It's like totally liberating when you can feel and welcome all the feelings. Suddenly you can just make choices based on what you want, right? You get— you feel much more clear. And, you know, I think I might have said this in the last episode, but it bears repeating. It's kind of wild when you really recognize it's just a bunch of physical sensations you don't want to experience. Right. Is that most people's lives are limited by which physical sensations they're willing to be with. Yeah, it's crazy. And I like that, Jim, you used it, you alluded to it a few times as a metaphor. It's like we recognize that if we want to get stronger, we have to lift kind of an uncomfortable amount of weight and definitely feel a burn.

Feel the burn.

Yeah, and then that makes us stronger So I like thinking, you know, a lot of founders like that metaphor of like, okay, you're in the emotion gym, so like, go be— go get a little more scared, you know? Maybe you need to have this conversation that scares you. Okay. Oh, I'm, I'm exercising my ability, my capacity to be with fear so that it grows and I can be with more and more fear, which makes me more and more powerful. And fear is just one example. Yeah.

I think that's a great place to end. Get, get in the emotional gym. Yeah. I feel like if Andrew were here, he would say we got to ask people who ever listen to these two episodes, like, send us a message. Was this helpful? Interesting? Challenge us to like, where does it not make sense or not resonate? Because I think I— this is a really good topic. Again, I've been on both sides of it and it's like I remember being on one side of being like, this is all nonsense and bullshit. And now I'm like a true believer and it's like a funny that transition. I think experientially is the— is obviously the best way to do it. Yeah. Um, but I think it takes a little convincing for—

at first. To double down on the metaphor, like, I think expanding your capacity to be with more and more intense feelings is one of the most important and least valued or understood vectors of growing as a leader and entrepreneur. Like, the whole— if you think of your startup as your, your emotion gym, like You know, how much can you lean into, okay, welcome fear, let me go into scary situations, let me go into, you know, sadness and like really imagine the startup feeling, feeling, let me imagine my startup failing and feel the heartbreak and shame, and I'm just expanding my capacity to be with those feelings, and will make you a stronger and better leader.

All right, thanks Dave Kashen. Yeah, it was fun. Till next time. All right, bye everyone.