Ep 167 - Eating, Yelling, and Other Stress-Based Impulses
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You know when you did that thing and then you were SO ANNOYED that you did it?
It wasn't just about your self control (and it's certainly not that you're "bad").
You had a really strong urge to do a thing, and fighting it didn't work.
Today I'm going to share with you something way more effective than fighting your urges, whether it's to eat something that isn't good for you, snap at your husband, say that bit of lashon hara, or go on a Target spending spree.
WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER:
What happens when we get overwhelmed and stressed?
Why I picked this topic
An alternative to feeling you need to offload emotions
The benefits of the practice
FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE:
Join How to Glow: if you're ready to take this work further, visit https://kaylalevin.com/coaching and join the program to get live coaching and work directly with me on mastering your brain and improving your life.
<00:00:02> Kayla Levin: hey people out there. So if you heard last week, we're gonna be talking about when we do stuff we don't wanna do cuz we're upset.
That's probably what should be the title of this. And I wanted to say like eating, yelling, and other bad impulses. But then I'm like, people hate the word bad and then they're gonna like psychoanalyze me and I don't wanna go there. So I said stress-based, but really is bad impulse, meaning it's the stuff we don't wanna be doing.
That's what I mean. Am I supposed to, Are we supposed to call ourselves bad? Obviously not. This is a mindset podcast. What are you even thinking? I don't even people, the people I'm talking to don't even listen to this podcast. I don't have to worry about it. Okay, so this is an awesome topic. This is a topic we're gonna be doing in November inside of How to Glow, and I wanna make sure you guys actually understand what that means because you're like, How To Glow.
That's the podcast, but it's also my online program and community. And I want you to know what that is. So basically each month we have a topic as a group, we do it together. Some people take a break <00:01:00> for a month. By the way, you should know, you don't have to do every single topic that we do, but it's really helpful because you want, like, we all want that feeling of ongoing growth, ongoing development.
You don't just wanna be the same person next year that you were this year. So having this monthly topic kind of just like takes you through in a really beautiful way. And I basically have broken down my main coaching tools, and we do a deep dive into it each month to really, really master the skill and it can approach different areas of life.
Because I really, really firmly believe the best thing you can do for your marriage is to up level your entire life. Not just to like hyper focus on your marriage and then you have no social life and your time management is like out the window and you hate your job and you're terrible with your children.
So how do we work on marriage? Kind of a sneaky trick is that we do all of it. It's general life coaching and we come back to marriage consistently of course, because I, that is. Super, super fundamental key part of our life as Jewish women. So it is a life coaching program <00:02:00> for married Jewish women. And we also have a live coaching call every week of the weeks that we're not doing that topic call, cuz there's coaching in there too where people come on and they get coached on anything because life coaching can cover any topic.
We love talking about parenting, we love talking about goals and priorities. We love talking about time management and I think what is really like one of my absolute favorite parts of the program is that we have a Slack community. Women are working together, they're sharing their own thought work, they're sharing their own inspiration, they're supporting each other, right?
They're giving just practical tips sometimes. And so it's a very positive environment because no one there is like, Oh yeah, you know what? It's just your husband is a jerk. Like, we don't do that, right? Cause we understand mindset and so it helps everyone stay accountable. Sometimes they create accountability partnerships, and just like really making it a part of your regular life.
And I'll just say one more thing. I mean, there's tons in there. There's also my online courses, but there's also a anonymous question form, which is super important for so <00:03:00> many people where they're just getting an ongoing q and a. With me, where you send in your question, I'm in there minimum twice a week, but sometimes I'm in there every day.
Answering your questions, and then you can send a follow up question. So if it's something that's super personal that you're not comfortable bringing into one of our group calls, that's fine. You can get so much coaching through writing, and in fact, it has a totally different tone, and in some ways it's even more effective.
So it's an amazing program. Like I could, like, I don't, I can't imagine who shouldn't be in that program, right? If you're a woman, you're married, you're Jewish. I don't understand why that wouldn't. Better for you to be inside. So I wanna just like really strongly invite and urge you to, at the very least consider it.
It's a monthly program, so you sign up and then it charges you each month. Right now it's 39. It's still founder pricing that is going to change. Um, it's only $39 a month. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous <00:04:00> how affordable this coaching is that I'm offering right now. You, there's no contract, like you don't have to sign up for a whole year.
So you should definitely be getting in there. And let's talk now about what we're gonna be doing in November. So you see some of this cool stuff that we're gonna be doing.
What happens when we get overwhelmed and stressed?
<00:04:15> Kayla Levin: So what happens when we get super overwhelmed and stressed? And sometimes that feels like anger, but anger is actually a secondary emotion, I think always.
Maybe you could make an argument for me that 1% of the time it's not. Usually we get angry because we're so afraid or overwhelmed or stressed out, that we need something that feels a little bit more in control, so we switch to anger. But when we're feeling these really strong emotions, what are the things that we do?
Sometimes we just eat and it's a different kind of eating cuz eating is a good thing to do. But there's a different kind of eating we do and we're doing it cuz we're feeling overwhelmed, right? We yell at people, maybe our husband, maybe ourself, , maybe our children. Some people shop. <00:05:00> Some people just retreat.
They just put up all the emotional barriers and blockades and they run to their room or whatever. Sometimes there's even, sometimes I think crying. There's kind of like this like type of crying that we do when we're like overwhelmed and stressed, which is like trying to get something out of people. It's not like a normal crying, like I'm just sad.
Right? It's like all sorts of different interesting things that we do when we're totally overwhelmed, stressed out, angry. So we're just gonna bulk all of these together, right? That's what we're discussing right now because every emotion leads to certain behaviors. But I wanna really dive in and get curious about what happens. About what's going on for us when we're having these really strong emotions, and then we have these really strong actions, right?
What happens is that these emotions have gotten so big and they feel so real, like they feel like they're taking over our body, that what we try to do is we wanna offload that emotion.
We're trying to get the emotion out of our system. Okay, so maybe I can offload it on my kid. Like my kid is completely <00:06:00> overwhelming me. I don't know how to handle this. I don't know how to handle the mess. I don't know how to handle all the noise. I'm sensory overload. It's building up in my system. And if I just yell at them, it's like maybe this emotion that's building up inside of me will just offload onto them, or it'll just change everything.
Like they'll just stop what they're doing and then I don't have to feel this emotion that is so big in my system right now. Maybe it's that I, you know, feel like all of this overwhelming stress and panic or whatever's coming up for me, and I just think if I eat, it'll just like clamp it down and make it go away.
It's like I'm trying to physically manage this feeling. Because the feeling has started to feel so real and so overwhelming. So like it's going to take over. Right? And when I think it's gonna take over, I let it take over and I start just trying to like dispel this feeling out into the world, the urges that we have this, these kinds of urges.
That are caused by these really strong emotions. <00:07:00> They're at the core of most of the behaviors that we're trying to get rid of in our life, right? If you have an unhealthy eating pattern, it's coming from these urges that feel so uncontrollable. If you can't follow your schedule, it's coming from these urges.
If you can't stop yelling at your kids, it's coming from these urges. These urges to do that thing, to buy that thing, to yell at that kid to eat that food, right? To criticize your husband, these urges that just come up in us and we feel like we're not in control. And I want you to know there is always, always, always, 1000% of the time, a moment where you make a decision to act on the urge.
Your brain wants you to think otherwise, your brain wants you to think you got overwhelmed and it just happened. You just couldn't stop yourself. But just start not with blame, not with guilt, not with shame, but just start with curiosity of knowing that there's always the moment of, and now I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna yell at that kid, I'm gonna <00:08:00> whatever.
Like it might, and it might be so simple, might be so subtle, but there is always a decision to act on the urge. It usually follows the thought, I just can't control this, or This is too big.
Why I picked this topic
<00:08:13> Kayla Levin: I really love working on all of these things as one, meaning I, I kind of was debating if we should just do like body, image and health, right?
Because so many of us, I also personally like wanted to work on this because I just feel yucky coming outta the holidays and I feel like my body just really wants some more love and that means less eating based on urges, less eating because of emotions and just really only eating based on what would nurture my body, However, That's not the topic.
It's just not, and you guys are an advanced enough group, like you are a smart enough group to be able to do it this way. So as much as it'd be cool to be like, Hey, we're gonna do weight loss this month, and then like a hundred of you would sign up, I'm not gonna do it that way because that's not my style.
I wanna focus on urges and overwhelming emotions because when you learn it, you're <00:09:00> gonna choose one area to work. You're gonna either choose to work on it with yelling at your kids or with criticizing your husband, or with shopping or with eating, like whatever is your thing, you're gonna choose one area.
Cause if you try to do everything, you're not gonna get the tool down, but you're gonna choose one area and you're gonna learn what to do. When that strong urge or emotion comes up, it's really the, the emotion causes the urge, right? That strong emotion creates the urge to do the thing and. You know how to deal with that.
If you know what to do with that, you can then apply that to every other area, right? I'd so much rather give you a general skill set that you can use everywhere than give you like, you know, 10 pounds off . Right? So, but I also wanna say, because a lot of people will be talking about, Exercise, body health, whatever, is that one thing.
I actually learned this from Lauren O' Hayan and she is the person who runs the Restore Your Core program. She was on the podcast, she's amazing. She really modeled this for me and so I just wanna give her credit, which is, there is <00:10:00> no one's allowed to judge your goals. So if you just wanna lose weight, cuz you wanna look better.
That is your prerogative. I'm tired of hearing people say like, You should only wanna lose weight because you wanna be healthy. Everyone gets to choose. It's their body. right now. If you've been socialized, I think the only thing that matters is weight. Then maybe it's healthy for you to have that extra perspective that maybe like really check in with yourself and we will be doing that in the beginning of the month.
What do you really need? Right? I know for myself, strength and like strong, good nutrition and stable blood sugars, these are the things that mean the most to me, right? Because that's what has the biggest payoff. But everyone gets to choose their own thing and there is no shame. You get to choose what your goal is.
An alternative to feeling you need to offload emotions
<00:10:44> Kayla Levin: So what we're gonna have to learn, what we're gonna be working on that whole month. And also what I wanna offer you here in today's podcast, you've got a good start, is you need an alternative to that feeling that you need to offload the emotion. Okay. Like we just need more tools than our belts <00:11:00> because if the only thing you know to do is to yell, of course you kept yelling.
Of course you haven't figured something else out. Self-control is not, should never be our first line of defense. Anything you're trying to do from self-control, that's your primary tool. You're setting yourself up for a lot of struggle. If not failure. Self-control is really important and it should absolutely be something that we work on and it's absolutely part of our arsenal.
We can put some much more powerful tools way ahead. So the tool I wanna offer you today is instead of acting out the emotion it is to process the emotion. Okay, so let's say that your kids are screaming and yelling and fighting and you feel very overwhelmed by all the noise and someone's tugging on you and just like, you know, maybe hit their sister or whatever, and you are feeling so overwhelmed and it's turning into anger and you just wanna turn around and scream at them.
So you stop when you feel the anger, right? You notice the urges to scream. You wanna notice the <00:12:00> emotion just before that urge. Okay? And the way I like to imagine it is that the anger is gonna wash through me. Like, and it might just feel like a completely, like a huge wave. It might go all the way up to the tip of my head.
It's gonna wash through my system. But you know what happens is the wave goes, it comes up, it rises, and it goes. And what we try to do is we try to tamp it down before it has its full emotional expression in our bodies. And that stress is what makes us actually end up lashing out. So when I say the emotion is washing over you, what do I mean?
I don't mean that you just let everyone see your crazy anchor , because when you're allowing the emotion inside, it actually doesn't, It doesn't look like anything. It doesn't show in crying or yelling. It's a surrender. It's an emotional and physical surrender to the sensation, to the feeling. The key word here <00:13:00> is feel the feeling that is going through your system.
So I allow myself, say, I'm feeling angry now, what does anger feel like? I allow myself to just tune in to the physical sensation of that anger, and it's a surrender. It's not fighting it off. It's not trying to get rid of it. And it's so counterintuitive because the reason you're fighting it off is you think that that's how you keep from yelling at your kids.
But the fighting it off is the thing that creates the tension that causes you to yell. When you surrender to the emotion of anger, I'm just feeling so angry right now. I remember doing this once with my kids. It took 15 seconds, most probably less, and I felt my body actually get hotter, and then it just went.
It just went away. Because it was like, it's almost like it reminds me of like a toddler that's like pulling on your skirt and they're like, Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. And you're like on the phone and you're trying to do a million things. You're trying to figure out what's for dinner. And Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.
And you finally just like <00:14:00> turn around and you're like, What? What do you need? And then they're like, Oh, hi. And then they like run away. All they wanted you to know was that they were there. This is your emotions. Your emotions are like a little toddler. And when we're like, Go away, go away, go away. They're like, Nope, I'm gonna knock harder.
I'm gonna pull harder. But when we go, Oh, okay. Anger. Hello. I see you. I'm just surrendering. I'm just letting you be in my system. Oh, hi. Just wanted to know you didn't know I'm here. See you later. Runs off to go play. Okay. Doesn't mean another thing might not make you angry, but that thing that made you angry initial.
You didn't need to stay. You don't need to be battling it. You don't need to be sweating it out. You don't need to be gritting your teeth just need to surrender to the physical sensation and then there will be nothing to act out cuz the emotion will come and go. It's amazing to me how simple. It is, it's amazing to me how much less energy it requires, how effortless it is when we just allow this to happen.
The benefits of the practice
<00:14:57> Kayla Levin: And it's a practice. It's not something that you just are <00:15:00> gonna listen to one episode and immediately start to implement, but it's something that all of you are totally capable of doing. So I wanna strongly urge you to come and join us and do this work because I think that if we have more people who have this skill, We're gonna have stronger communities, we're gonna have stronger families.
We're gonna for sure have stronger marriages, and you all are gonna stop beating up on yourselves for all the times you yelled at your kids, or you ate the thing or you snapped at your husband. So it's just really better all around. So I would love to have you join us to do this work, and I wanna just really offer you that this is very, very doable.
This is something that every one of you can implement. Other than that, I'll see you back here next week. Okay, my friends. Bye-bye.