Kathleen Shannon 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Being Boss Minisode number two.
Kathleen Shannon 0:12
Kathleen here. In this week's episode of Being Boss, we were talking all about being boss while also being mom. And this is episode number eight if you want to search the archives and listen to that, but in this episode, Emily and I noticed that there are lots of parallels between raising a kiddo and building a business. And one of the not so dreamy patterns, I notice when it comes to both being a mom and being a boss, is the overwhelming feeling of guilt, the feeling that you could be doing more, or the feeling that you aren't doing enough. It seems to come with the territory whenever you're doing the things that really matter to you. So today, I want to spend a few minutes talking about guilt, or any negative emotion and how to deal with it. So first, let's talk about emotions. I think it's common to label and categorize our emotions as good or bad. So happy and calm and peaceful is often labeled good. Sad or anxious is bad. So first off, I think what we should try doing is to stop labeling and categorizing our emotions as good and bad. Instead, think of your emotions as neutral messengers, bits of information that are trying to tell you something. So for me, and maybe the same goes for you. And guilt is a really tricky emotion because it pretends to be useful. But really, it just winds as winds up making us feel worse. And it's kind of like a frenemy giving you a backhanded compliment. So guilt often tells me that I need to be working harder and smarter. Guilt might tell me that I need to be a little more present and productive. That I know that whenever I feel guilty, I usually find myself becoming lazy and unproductive. So what to do when we feel guilt or any negative emotion, here's what I recommend trying. So one is acknowledge the feeling, recognize what you're feeling, because awareness alone is a really powerful tool whenever it comes to both managing your emotions and not being overwhelmed by them. So if you're feeling off, sit with it, fully feel it, try setting a timer for 90 seconds and just really allow yourself to feel the emotion that you're experiencing. You might even do a body scan and feel where in your body, the negative emotion is residing. And I know that that sounds woowoo. But oftentimes, our negative emotions might live in our stomach, or you might feel a tightness in your chest or in your throat. A lot of people might feel it in their shoulders, especially if there's tension there. So do a body scan and feel in your body where those emotions are living. And then later I in this minisode, I will tell you how to get that emotion out of your body. But second, I want you to ask yourself, what is the information that this emotion is trying to tell me? So if you're feeling guilty, what is the guilt telling you? is it telling you that you should be working? is it telling you that you should be present? What I want you to try and do is recognize the thought around the emotion that you're experiencing. So you can start to do some work to replace that thought with something more productive. Now, the way that I replaced thoughts is usually by asking myself something as simple as Is it true? So ask yourself, Is it true? Maybe your guilt is telling you that you're not good enough? Is that true? If you truly can't escape this feeling, so if you ask yourself, Is it true that I'm not good enough? You might be like, yeah, I'm not good enough. Well, you can escape this feeling by loosening Well, it's hard to escape the feeling, but you can loosen your grip around it. Sometimes I like to think of my negative emotions as like a tennis ball that I'm holding in my hand and I'm holding as tight as I can. And I just want to loosen my grip around that thoughts around that tennis ball by acknowledging when the opposite is true. So for example, let's say I'm feeling guilty, because I feel like I don't spend enough time working. I'll ask myself, Well, when do I work really hard. I'll give myself three concrete examples of what And I work hard.
Kathleen Shannon 5:02
Because whenever you can give yourself concrete examples, your brain starts to really believe you and you start to loosen your grip around that negative thought. So once I recognize my hard work, I replace the original guilty thought that I don't work hard enough with something more productive. So for example, I will replace I'm not working hard enough with I'm doing the best I can to help creatives live what they love. When it went, what are some examples of that? Well, recording this podcast right now is one, and writing a blog post might be another and then some of the one on one client work that I do that I work really hard on. That's another example. And these thoughts and the more productive thoughts, they motivate me far more to get to work than the negative thought. And then last, if you have a hard time letting go of the negative emotion, or the negative thoughts attached to it, simply change your behavior and change what you were physically doing to generate new emotions. So I mentioned in an earlier episode of being boss, that happiness is a byproduct of doing the things that generate energy. So generate some energy that might be by journaling, or working out or going for a walk. Earlier, I talked about emotions living in your body, while moving your body is a great way to work those out of your body, do some yoga, do some simple stretching. And I recently read Amy Poehler's book, Yes, Please, if you haven't checked it out, you must. It's so good. And in the intro, she talks about how hard it was for her to write that book, that she most of the time was not feeling inspired ash and she would just have to literally go through the motions of writing, she would hunker down, open her laptop and start typing, because that's what bosses do. They don't let their feelings and their emotions determine whether or not they work. Okay, so finally, what I want to say is that even the most successful creative entrepreneurs feel bad from time to time. But what makes them rise above is that they aren't sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves or indulging in their emotions, including guilt. They're transforming their emotions by changing their mind. And they're changing their behavior by getting to it and doing the work. doing the work that you love, it typically generates good productive feelings. So thank you for giving me a little bit of your time today. And I hope that this minisode will give you a little bit of help whenever it comes to managing negative emotions, including guilt. If you haven't already, please be sure to check out our full episodes at lovebeingboss.com, on iTunes and SoundCloud. And you guys have been leaving us amazing reviews on iTunes. And it really does make a difference. So thank you so much for that. I also wanted to mention that we now have a Being Boss Facebook group where hundreds of creative entrepreneurs are joining in on the conversation. So you can find the link to our Facebook group on our site. Or you can just search being boss in Facebook. Do the work be boss and we'll see you next week.
