[Part 3] Healthy Adulting 101

Kid Logic: “Emotions are bad.”

Welcome back to the Primal Question Newsletter.

My name is Mike Foster. If you’re new around here, I’m an Executive Coach who works with all sorts of world changers, from Navy SEALs to reality stars to nonprofit founders to executives of billion-dollar companies.

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Last week, we talked about Healthy Adulting as it relates to your mind—how to get out of your overactive head and tap into the wisdom in your second brain (your gut).

Today, we’re diving into the next domain: your heart.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional.”

At this point, it’s like batting a thousand.

It’s 100% odds.

Without fail, every single client who starts to cry in a coaching session with me immediately reaches for a tissue and says some version of the same thing: “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get emotional. I’ll get it together.”

Every single time.

Where did we learn to apologize for our hearts? Where did we learn that it’s not okay to cry? There’s something in the water, something in our culture that says showing emotion is weakness.

• Men are taught: “Don’t cry. Toughen up. Be a man.”

• Women are taught: “You’re too emotional. You’re being dramatic. Calm down.”

Everyone learns a different version of the same message…

Kid Logic: “Emotions are bad.”

Kid Logic says emotions make us look weak and get in our way.

We’ve got stuff to do. Places to be. Problems to solve. The mind says, “Keep moving, stay productive, get things done.” And emotions? They slow us down. They make us pause. So we judge ourselves for having them.

Kid Logic tells us it’s better to suppress an emotion than to process it.

It’s no wonder we’re so emotionally illiterate as a society.

We’ve never been taught how to process emotions in a healthy way. We’ve only been taught to hide them, bury them, apologize for them. We become world-class suppressors. Maybe we tell ourselves we’ll deal with them later—after the deadline, after the kids are in bed, after the crisis is over, but later never comes.

That’s a big problem because suppressed emotions don’t just disappear.

There’s tons of research on this, and Susan David from Harvard covers it in her book “Emotional Agility.”

The more you suppress an emotion, the stronger that emotion gets. This isn’t opinion. This is neuroscience. When you push down anger, you’re not making it go away. You’re feeding it. You’re giving it power. You’re creating a pressure cooker that will eventually explode.

Just because you’ve decided not to feel them doesn’t mean they’re not there in your body, growing.

Adult Wisdom: “All emotions are our friends.”

Healthy Adults know that all emotions are there to help them.

Every emotion is like a check engine light designed to get you to take action. It’s not necessarily signaling that something is wrong. It’s like when your oil light comes on, it’s just saying, “Hey, there’s something to look into here. Pay attention to this soon, or it could lead to problems later.”

The problem is, most of us put duct tape over the check engine light.

We can’t see the warning anymore, so the problem is gone, right?

Wrong. Eventually, that subtle warning grows into a sudden emergency. If you don’t pay attention to and process your emotions, I promise you. Someday, life will force you to pay attention.

Healthy Adults don’t wait for worst-case scenarios to wake them up.

They know that taking time to process emotions now will serve them in the long run, like getting regular oil changes will keep your car in tip-top shape.

Did you know emotions only last 90 seconds?

That’s right, the chemical lifespan of an emotion is less than 2 minutes.

This comes from Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain scientist who documented it in “My Stroke of Insight.” When you have an emotional reaction to something, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in your body. The chemicals flood your system, and it takes less than 90 seconds for them to completely flush out.

But emotions feel way longer than that. Why?

Dr. Taylor explains that, after that initial 90 seconds, any remaining emotional response is just you choosing to stay in that emotional loop. Your mind takes over. It starts re-stimulating the emotional circuitry with thoughts and stories. The emotion did its job in 90 seconds. Everything after that is your mind keeping you stuck.

That’s why Healthy Adults take the time to process their emotions and move toward action.

How to Process Your Emotions

1. Notice it.

When an emotion shows up, just notice. Don’t judge it. Don’t push it down. Don’t apologize for it. Simply acknowledge: “Oh, I’m feeling something.” If you can’t process it right this second, write it down and schedule a time on your calendar to process it later.

2. Name it.

When I ask clients what they’re feeling, they often start describing situations: “Well, my boss said this and then the project got delayed and...”

No. I’m not asking for the story. I’m asking you to name the emotion. What are you feeling? One word. Are you frustrated? Sad? Angry? Peaceful? Most people are so disconnected from their emotional vocabulary that they default to stories instead of feelings. Healthy Adults practice naming their feelings and grow in this skill over time.

3. Locate it.

Next, where do you feel that emotion in your body? Your chest? Your stomach? Your throat? Your shoulders? Your head? Put your hand there if it helps you connect to the emotion.

4. Learn from it.

I believe every emotion is there because it’s asking you to take action.

Sit with the emotion. Ask: What is this emotion trying to tell me? Stay in it until you have clarity on the action it wants you to take. Don’t bounce out just because you’re uncomfortable. Let the emotion teach you what it came to teach. Then, take the action it’s inviting you to take.

Your emotions aren’t your enemy.

Stop apologizing for feeling things. Stop suppressing what needs to be felt. Stop treating emotions like inconveniences. Every emotion is a messenger trying to help you.

Feel it fully for 90 seconds. Get the message. Take the action.

That’s healthy adulting.

Your emotions are trying to help you. Let them.

Warmly,

Mike Foster

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