Abbi Rodriguez
Hey Enneagram Friend! This is Abbi Rodriguez, your certified and IEA accredited Enneagram Teacher and Coach. In this space, I'll give you a sneak peek into real live coaching sessions and teach you how to apply the wisdom of the Enneagram into your life for personal growth. The invitation each episode is to take on a posture of curiosity - curiosity about yourself and others - so that you can shift from merely surviving to fully thriving in your everyday life. Visit my website at www.abbirodriguez.com and listen in to this episode to learn more.
In this teaching episode, I want to share with you some thoughts about processing your emotions. This idea of feeling your feelings or experiencing your emotions comes up a lot in the coaching episodes that you're hearing. My hope is that's coming up in other spaces you're experiencing too. But sometimes even when we're on board with that invitation, we have this awareness that we need to experience our emotions, we're not really sure how to do that. Especially as our Type structure comes online, some of those aspects get filtered out for us. So I want to share with you some practices for naming your feelings and experiencing your emotions.
When you are in this space where an emotion is coming up for you, maybe you are feeling dis-regulated, maybe there's this buzzing sensation you're experiencing, maybe you know that you're upset because you're crying and that's the key indicator for you that something's going on. When that emotion comes up, I want to invite you to pause and first notice that you're having that feeling. When we are going and going in the hustle and bustle, when we are parenting and our kids or we're in the middle of our work day, we’re in these spaces that are not really conducive for us to pause and really acknowledge what's going on for us. So whether it's in the moment, or it's later when you're in a space that has more support and more comfort for you to be able to pause and notice the feeling, what's the feeling that's going on right now, what’s the feeling that's been lingering all day - give yourself some space to name it to slow down enough to name it rather than just pushing it out of mine. The name you might have is that it just feels uncomfortable or it feels bad. That's okay, it doesn't have to be a clear language for that emotion, but just naming and noticing what you're feeling.
Next, take a deep breath and pause and really notice the felt sense of your experience. So as you take a deep breath with some grounding practices of feeling your feet on the floor, and your seat in the chair, and really breathing deep down into your diaphragm, that deep belly breath, noticing what sensations are in your body. What physical felt sensations can you feel? Is there a rigidity in your shoulders? Or maybe in your jaw line? Is there kind of this tightness or heaviness on your chest? Does it feel like there's this clenched feeling in your throat, like the emotion can't get past that throat space? Is there kind of a buzzing feeling? In this past coaching episode with our Type Six, we talked about this idea of of it feeling “jangly.” So what is your felt sense? What do you notice in your body? And as you sink into that, can you allow that sensation just to be? Can you allow the emotion that's tied to that physical sensation, just to be without trying to change it or fix it without holding your breath and trying to fight back the tears? Can you just breathe through that sensation and allow it? Allow it to be. And as you allow it to be, can you be curious about it? Not this judgmental, condemning, “you shouldn't feel this way, you don't have the right to feel this way, why are you so emotional?” None of these judging thoughts, but a gentle curiosity of why is it there? What is it showing me? Is it communicating to me that something has been lost, or there's a grief, a sadness there? That my feelings are hurt because a boundary was overstepped that maybe it wasn't where I needed that boundary to be? What's the emotion that's coming up? You know, sometimes emotions are such a foreign language to us that we also need to take time to get more language around what emotions are even an option for us. One of the tools that I use in my Growth and Self-Care series is an emotion chart - if you just Google that, there's lots of them that that will come up. But even just having some more language for emotions so that it doesn't just fall into these big categories like sadness, fear, happiness. Sometimes those feel too big, but it breaks it down into these smaller things like confusion, despair, nervousness. There's some of these things that feel more relevant to our experience. And so giving yourself some space to actually have more language for that. And then to name that emotion that's coming up for you.
And as you're curious about that emotion, being curious, with that gentle inquiry of why is it there? And be compassionate with yourself. We also talk about this and that Type Six Coaching episode - this idea of how can we offer ourselves the kindness that we would offer a friend if we were sitting next to them as they were going through this experience? As they are experiencing this stress? Or this grief, this hopelessness, this overwhelm this sadness? Can we offer that same compassion that we would offer to a friend to ourselves? Can we be kind to ourselves, rather than telling ourselves just to be tougher, or to just keep going or to not be so whiny about things or whatever, whatever that criticism that judgment, that critique that comes up for you? Can we instead be kind and just acknowledge, yeah, I'm hurt and I'm allowed to be hurt because I'm a human and that's a normal emotion. I'm really stressed and I'm allowed to feel overwhelmed because that's a normal human emotion. Can we be kind to ourselves as we notice these things?
So that might sound all well and good, as I kind of walk through the steps of processing emotion, but sometimes, we still need a little bit more support to do that in the moment. Sometimes that support comes in friends helping you in that process, it doesn't have to be as step-by-step as what I just listed. Sometimes that support also can happen with a practitioner. One of the things that I often do in one-on-one coaching is guiding people through these steps. But another resource that I want to offer for you is a guided meditation that I've referred to multiple times in different coaching episodes. It’s called the Welcoming Prayer and it's a guided meditation that you can access for free on InsightTimer, but also while we're in this space having this conversation, I want to share it in this episode too. The basic structure of it was originally created by a woman named Mary Mrozowksi, but people most commonly know it by the ministry of Father Thomas Keating and his contemplative ministry with centering prayer. The prayer helps us to process our emotions by addressing them where they're stored, they're stored in the body. And so in welcoming prayer, we consent to God's presence, we consent to the action in the presence of God in our emotional reaction in our life experiences. And so if you're not sure how to process your emotions or those steps feel too hard to do on your own, this guided meditation is a really great place to start because it walks you step-by-step through this process. So if you're walking around the house right now as you're listening to this podcast or doing errands, I want to invite you just to sit down for a moment - to pause. The meditation is only eight minutes. Offer yourself the kindness of eight minutes to be present. If you're driving, you can still do this meditation just with your eyes open. Ignore my invitation to shut your eyes. That’s okay, even while you're driving, to go through the steps to be present in the moment, to breathe deeply and offer yourself this kindness of just eight minutes to be present. And to experience the emotions that are happening either right now in the moment, or as you recall something that's been heavy on your heart, that’s been weighing you down in this season. Okay, Enneagram friends - this is the guided Welcoming Prayer meditation.
I want to invite you to close your eyes or have a soft gaze in front of you, if that feels more comfortable. And as you close your eyes, to take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Settle it to the chair you're sitting in, feel your feet on the floor with the earth support supporting you. Feel your seat in the chair. Elongate your spine, but allow your shoulders to settle. Continue to breathe deeply. As you settle into that space, I want to invite you to consider something that's heavy on your heart. Something that feels overwhelming. Maybe it's a conversation that didn't go well. Maybe it's a relationship that just feels stressful. Maybe it's a circumstance that feels so challenging. Maybe there's a loss, you're experiencing grief. I want to invite you to picture what's heavy in your mind, whether it's the person or the conversation. To be there - to get a sense of that overwhelm, that heaviness to sink into it and continue to breathe deeply as you do. With that heaviness in mind, I want to invite you to consider what emotion is coming up for you - to sense into your body as you breathe deeply, and sink into the present moment. What does that heaviness - that circumstance - feel like in your felt sense? Maybe there are knots in your stomach. Maybe there's a heaviness on your chest. Maybe there's a buzzing sensation at the end of your fingertips. Maybe there's a tightness in your throat, or rigidity in your jaw line. What does it feel like in the felt sensation - the felt sense of your body. As you consider the felt sense, observe it non-judgmentally with a gentle inquiry. What emotion is there? Maybe there's some sadness? Maybe there's a feeling of betrayal? Feeling a loss, fear, anger, or frustration? Whatever emotion comes up for you in this heaviness, allow it to be there with you - just sink into it. I want to invite you to imagine your breath going into places in your felt sensation that feel uncomfortable - offering that life-force, offering some comfort & support. Not trying to change or fix it, but allowing it to be - allowing the sadness to be - the fear to be - the anger to be. Continue to breathe deeply as you sit with that emotion and allowing it to be. When you're ready, I want to invite you to consider God's presence, to consent to the presence of God in this emotion with you. Again, not to fix it or change it, but to allow God to be a part of this experience with you. To join you in the anger, to join you in the sadness, to join you in the fear. Allowing God to be present there. Sometimes in this experience, there's a lightness, there's a release or a shifting sensation. And if that happens, allow yourself to feel that lightness - feel that release. If it still feels uncomfortable, that's okay - allow space. Allow God to be present with you and allow God to hold you. Continuing to breathe deeply - sinking into that present moment with God's presence. When you're ready, I want to invite you to release that emotion. Release the need to control or change or shift that emotion. Release the need for affirmation or validation to cover over that emotion. Release the need for a sense of certainty, safety or survival around that emotion. Release the need to try to control it in any way. But instead of letting it go and release it to God. We are allowing the emotion to be and then when you're ready, with God's presence supporting you, allow it to go.
Hey Enneagram friend, I'm so thankful for your curiosity and listening to this Enneagram coaching session. Although participants can learn a lot in just a brief coaching session like this, the transformational work really comes in a weekly coaching engagement with their certified enneagram practitioner. If you feel stuck, discouraged or overwhelmed by an aspect of your Type, or maybe just a situation that you're trying to navigate, schedule a free discovery call with me at www.abbirodriguez.com/coaching and see how coaching can help support you in your everyday life.