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Do you ever find yourself saying, I’m stressed to anyone who will listen?

Me too.

Often we just want to be seen. Or maybe for you it’s not stress, but worry. Sometimes it feels good just to share what we’re carrying with someone else, especially if they can relate.

But sometimes I feel worse after sharing – not because the other person wasn’t sympathetic, but often because they were. Maybe we just spent 30 minutes talking about all the things that are bad, or could be bad, and I feel more worried than I did before.

So what’s a person to do? If we don’t share, we become isolated. If we do share, sometimes we feel worse.

One answer is to expand our emotional palette.

Most of the rooms of my house are more than one color. The bedroom is two shades of green. The dining room is two shades of blue. The living room is mostly a shade of warm yellow, with one orange wall.

What if there weren’t shades of colors? What if we only had one shade of blue, one shade of yellow, one shade of green?

I don’t want a chartreuse bedroom. Or a kelly green bedroom.

Emotional shades are important too and let us know ourselves better. But often we default to the big emotions: Fear, Anger, Love, Happiness, Sadness.

We say, I’m so worried. Or I’m so stressed. Or I hate that. Or I’m so mad.

And it’s fine, but it puts our nervous system on high alert. In effect, we're telling our nervous system, Stay vigilant.

But maybe we’re not terrified. Maybe we feel nervous, or have trepidation. Maybe we’re anxious, but it might be truer that we’re tentative, unsure, or concerned.

Just as paint colors look different in the light, emotional states feel different in our body.

When I say, I’m scared, I feel on alert. When I say, I’m worried, I feel stuck, with my engine revving but not going anywhere. When I say I feel concerned, it feels lighter and I can breathe a bit better. When I say, I’m unsure, I have more curiosity.

Here are two ways to expand your emotional palette:

1. Try not to default to the biggest emotions. Words like stress, worry, anxiety, burnout have become a shorthand for many us (including me!). We reach for them because they're big, loud, and easily understood. But because they put our nervous system on full alert, we want to use them when we really need to. Other times, we might want to say, I feel tired, I feel apathetic, I feel rushed. An emotions wheel can be a great help for expanding our emotional palette. The point isn’t that it’s wrong to use big emotional language, but asking ourselves to find other language encourages us to be more curious about our own experience, and calms our nervous system. We’re not tricking ourselves into feeling something we’re not – we’re giving better voice to where we actually are.
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2. One effect of Big Emotions is that they hide the other emotions on the palette from us. When I’m feeling very stressed, the feeling of capable may be hidden from me. It’s like stress (or anger, worry, sadness) is yelling in its Big Voice and drowning out the quieter emotions, which may also be available to me. Next to worry, I might also have determined. Next to anger might also be compassion. Just reminding myself that I am a complex person who can feel multiple things at once helps me to see what else is there.

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​Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling? (and allow yourself more than one word to answer!) Try to identify what it feels like in your body.
• What other feelings might also be available to me? (Another way to ask this is, What other feelings might be of help to me right now?) Once you see them, you can ask how to strengthen them.

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​This week, notice if you’re scaring your nervous system more than necessary. If you are, see if you can take the heat down by taking the time to describe your emotional state more fully. And then consider if there might be an emotion you can add to your palette – not to ignore the painful emotion, but to add to it. ❤️

I'm addressing my own feelings of stress and invite you to join me! Nuancing my emotional vocabulary is one tool I'm using, but listen to the full episode to hear about the experiments I'm trying:

​Ep #137: Experiment Your Way to Less Stress & Overwhelm​

Do you want less stress & overwhelm? Me too! In this episode, I share a strategy for lowering stress and overwhelm -- not meditation, baths, or exercise, but maybe all of them or something else entirely. Rather than providing a single "right" answer, we're going to experiment together to see what helps. Just the thought "I'm working on this" lowered my stress level and the feelings of dread I was having about returning work after vacation. By running small, personal experiments like adjusting my routine, sketching, and practicing self-compassion, I aim to discover what works best for me to reduce stress and I hope you'll join me with experiments of your own. Take a listen and let me know what you're experimenting with!

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And since it's been a minute since I've emailed, here are my recent podcasts. The last few will really set you up for a 2025 with more self-compassion and a better self-story.

Ep #136: Relentless Love

Ep #135: Rewriting Your Life Story​

Ep #134: Hold Hope for Yourself & Create the Future You Want ​

Ep #133: Make the Holidays Easier ​

Ep #132: The Year List ​

Ep #131: Design Your Personal Mantra​

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With lots of love & full belief in you,

Rachel

P.S. I’m having a lot of feelings about Monday’s inauguration and the future of our country. I let myself feel them and also make sure to see other emotions that are available to me. Next to my fear and worry, I’m making room for connection, care, and determination. To that end, I’m sending out a special Monday edition of the podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you get notified every time a new episode comes out. Just go to wherever you listen to podcasts and hit "Subscribe."

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