Coach Yourself or Take Action? The 'And' Approach to Emotional Reactions

Understanding the Dilemma

• 🤯 Many people struggle with intense negative emotions after a partner, boss, or parent says something upsetting, leading to a dilemma: should they coach themselves or take action?
• 🧠 This internal conflict often stems from the belief that our thoughts create our feelings, leading to the assumption that we should always manage our emotions internally.

The Flawed 'Either/Or' Framing

• ⚠️ A common misconception is that there's an opposition between coaching yourself and communicating your feelings or taking action.
• 🎭 This framing can lead to the subconscious belief that coaching yourself means accepting a situation and not speaking up, or that certain situations are too 'bad' to coach yourself through.
• 🚫 The idea that you must choose between coaching yourself to 'not care' or changing the circumstance is a mistaken premise.

The 'And' Approach: Coaching First, Then Deciding

• ✅ The recommended approach is to always coach yourself first when experiencing a strong emotional reaction, and then decide if you want to say or do something.
• 💡 Coaching yourself helps you understand your brain, detach from unhelpful stories, and gain a broader perspective with a regulated nervous system.
• 🎯 The goal of coaching is not to eliminate emotions or force yourself to accept things, but to foster curiosity, awareness, and skillful navigation of your human experience.

Reframing Self-Coaching

• 🔍 Coaching yourself is about understanding why you feel a certain way, not about pre-determining the outcome or forcing yourself to feel differently.
• ⚖️ Approaching a situation with curiosity, like a neutral judge, allows for a more integrated and aligned response, whether that involves communicating needs, changing circumstances, or simply understanding your own reaction.
• 🚀 The decision to act or speak comes after self-coaching, enabling a more thoughtful and regulated response, rather than reacting from an activated state.