05 – Riding the Emotion Express: Navigating the Wild Horse Within

0:04Shailia StephensHi and welcome back to a new episode of Time for You, where we're nurturing presence, love, and wisdom, and well-being together. My name is Shaliah Stephens, and I am coming to you today from near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. And this is Leah. She'll tell you where she is and introduce herself.

0:27Lea WernliHi, so nice to be here. I'm in Zurich, Switzerland today.

0:34Shailia StephensAnd it's snowing outside here. Lea, did you guys ever get any snow?

0:39Lea WernliYes, a lot. Okay, it's melting away again, but I loved it. I love snow.

0:46Shailia StephensI, I thought it would come down to you. We said so in the last episode.

0:52Lea WernliThat's true.

0:53Shailia StephensYeah, so we are Winter Wonderland. So guys, we're gonna be speaking today about, um, noticing where you are.

1:03Lea WernliHmm.

1:04Shailia StephensAnd I was telling Leah that, um, the topics for the next episodes came to me in a dream, and I like literally jumped up and wrote them down. And once I had them on paper, I was like, what? That's the most simplest of things. That sounds like crazy, but So how it's coming to me to start with that is I'd like to talk about, and I'm going to specifically use the word emotions.

1:33Lea WernliMm-hmm.

1:35Shailia StephensSo it's, it's a part of our human experience to feel emotions. My goodness. We feel emotions all day long. Um, we feel emotions even when we're sleeping.

2:01Lea WernliHmm.

2:02Shailia StephensThat dream that I had came with a really specific feeling. Um, and even the, even the emotions during the dreams the dream were changing as, as the scenery was unfolding, as my, my brain circuitry was firing and, you know, sensing the story unfolding.

2:27Lea WernliMm-hmm.

2:29Shailia StephensAnd even in my dream, there were moments of frustration, uh, emotions, emotions of uncertainty, um, Then something solved itself. And there was a sense of clarity. Isn't that amazing? Even in our sleep, we, we feel what we feel in, in the form of emotions. And now you could, you could extend it to other sensations in your body and how those emotions show up in, in your chest or in your neck or your shoulders or your legs, you know, everywhere.

3:10Lea WernliYeah.

3:11Shailia StephensSome of our clients say, it's in my stomach, it's in my head, you know, but just we feel things. And Leah and I talked about this for years and all the time. That's being human.

3:28Lea WernliMm-hmm.

3:29Shailia StephensIt's this crazy wild ride on planet Earth. Going through all the qualities of emotions that are in existence, from sometimes deep despair and pain to euphoria and everything in between. And isn't that amazing?

4:01Lea WernliHmm.

4:01Shailia StephensThat Absolute rainbow-colored spectrum of human emotions. And yeah, there's nothing to be afraid of, no matter what emotions you're experiencing. And where I wanted to go today, Leah, and we'll see what unfolds, is— There's a difference between just experiencing that human life and all that it brings with it and getting lost in the emotion.

4:56Lea WernliMhm.

4:57Shailia StephensIn a way That— yeah, it's like what's coming to me is like, if you— the picture in my mind is you, you somehow got put on a wild horse and it just ran away. It just galloped away with you, and you were just on that horse for the ride. And that does happen.

5:22Lea WernliYes.

5:23Shailia StephensWith our emotions. That's okay too. But it's just good when we're in the human experience to just be able to notice where we are. And the story that's coming to me, and I hope I can talk about it without being too emotional right now, because, you know, I was telling Leah, I didn't really want to talk about it today, but it's coming to me. My dearest, most beloved baby dog is in the hospital right now, and I, I'm feeling all of the human emotions. I have a great deal of empathy and compassion for the situation that my baby dog is in, being alone in a clinic where it doesn't know anybody.

6:18Lea WernliMm-hmm.

6:20Shailia Stephensit's experiencing a massive amount of pain and spasms in its body. And I, I, when I think of it, that it makes me feel ill. I, I, I, I feel literally ill in my stomach. I, I feel physical pain just thinking about that. And I have moments of feeling hope. And, um, I think about the doctors and their capable hands, and I feel gratitude. He's literally in the best clinic in all of Germany. And I found even people fly from all over Europe to come to their— the clinic.

7:06And it just happens to be nearby, like one of the best clinics in all of Europe. They've got a ear, nose, throat doctor there, a neurologist. Like, I looked on the board, there were about 20 disciplines in this one clinic. And sometimes I feel like gratitude that he's there. And if any, you know, if anything, he's got all these people around him. And in some moments, I go into deep sadness and missing him.

7:34Lea WernliMm-hmm.

7:34Shailia StephensRight? And every kind of emotion. And I And I'm looking at all of it. I'm feeling all of it.

7:44Lea WernliMm-hmm.

7:45Shailia StephensAnd I know this is okay. This is perfectly normal and fine. This is, this is a human experience. This is a hard situation that brings us into these different spaces of emotion. But I still stay awake and I notice where I am right now. Because some moments I notice I'm about to get on that wild horse.

8:12Lea WernliMm-hmm.

8:14Shailia StephensI'm, I'm going to, to fear, and I'm making up stories about what could unfold, future scenarios. And if I let myself get on that horse, it's going to take me riding off into God knows where.

8:31Lea WernliMm-hmm.

8:33Shailia StephensYou see? So I don't know, Leah, that's where I started, and maybe you can pick up from there and talk about like the noticing and what, what it means and why it matters.

8:46Lea WernliYeah. Yeah, thank you for sharing, Shelia, and we are with him and send him all the love. We have together right now. Yeah, as you know, the wild horse did, um, take me to wild places in my life. And what was really interesting before I stumbled across the 3 principles, I I already had tools and techniques and cool stuff that also helped. And for those who do not know me, I, I had a secret life for quite a bit. I, um, when I was overwhelmed and couldn't cope with the emotions, um, I had coping mechanism that made it a lot worse, and it was drinking and/or spending more than I had or eating.

10:11And the drinking actually was the worst. It was not the daily, it was like a— quarter drinker. I think there is a term for that. And I ended up in places and situations that were really, really bad. Mind, luckily, or God, probably for some people, was always there with me. But there were some dark places. And still I came out alive. That's quite amazing in retrospective. So even there, even in this really heavy things that happened because I was drinking, because I couldn't cope with the intense emotions.

11:13Mind was there, intuition was there. I knew how to get out of it or see, I saw the next step somehow. Yeah, I'm very grateful for that. And it's not the case for everyone. I know that. What, why I'm bringing the intuition into it is Because before, I didn't know where to listen, and I was confused. So all these little nuggets or these love letters, as we called them, this awareness, I had them, but I couldn't interpret them somehow.

12:09Shailia StephensMm-hmm.

12:09Lea WernliAnd that was the big change, that through this understanding, I started to see, ah, I feel whatever Energy thinking principle comes through me, and underneath there are things that point me back toward health. So even the, the emotion itself is already wisdom. And to start to see that really was a game changer. So being agitated, do you say that?

13:12Shailia StephensYes.

13:14Lea WernliLike stressed, overwhelmed, having anxiety, Is wisdom pointing me back to presence? Is intuition? Is this incredible system? And it doesn't mean that I don't have to feel this feeling. Of course, Shelia feels everything. And that's okay. And that's beautiful and rich. and sad because it's all of it. But when this component of closeness and heaviness and—

14:03Shailia StephensHopelessness.

14:05Lea WernliHopelessness, fear comes into the game, then there it is, the pointer to wake up to the presence. To wake up to, oh, I'm able to just feel and I don't have to do anything. And that's where a lot of people get into trouble, not because of the emotions, the feelings, the pointers, but because we are trained, we are We, we, we think that we have to change something to feel better, that we have to do something to feel, uh, um, hope again, that we— and that's not true. It's in the seeing, in the feeling, in the awareness of the emotion that We are already coming back to this inner knowing and wisdom. And from there, we feel if there is a next step.

15:23Shailia StephensMm-hmm.

15:23Lea WernliAnd what deepens over time is this dance between being in life with all the emotions and feeling them And this feeling for the wisdom in it, it's kind of both.

15:51Shailia StephensOh, yes.

15:53Lea WernliAnd, and, and there is exercise in it. I know that's not a big word in, in this kind of conversation, but There is an aha moment, an insight, and then we see it clearly. And still there is a, oh, I'm there. Okay. Coming back. Okay. Feeling deep wisdom. Okay. And over time, it becomes more of a A dance that we deeply know, and, and we are attuned to the rhythm of it more and more.

16:46Shailia StephensMm-hmm.

16:47Lea WernliAnd at the beginning, it's kind of train your ears for this music, your feet for this dance, and that's okay. It's beautiful to learn. Yeah, I don't know, did you hear something in that?

17:10Shailia StephensYeah, I heard truth in that, um, and I can only say yes, yes, and yes to all of that. Yeah, I just want to maybe just to help clarify. Sometimes things can be a little, little help with examples. It's like, I loved, I loved when you said when those emotions get strong. you know, that's not telling us there's something that needs to be done to make that emotion go away. You know, one of the things I used to do when I felt those strong emotions is I thought, well, I'm going to think about this a lot.

18:09Lea WernliMm-hmm.

18:10Shailia StephensYou know, I might sit down and think about my dog's situation. remember everything the doctor told me, everything I ever read about this topic. I might go online, get some more information, more things to think about, right? Like, sometimes we think the doing is to think about something intensely and try to solve it in our mind.

18:39Lea WernliHmm.

18:40Shailia StephensThat'll make us feel better. Like, because we feel Somehow that thinking gives us a certain degree of control in our interpretation. Sometimes we can't stand the emotion. I mean, honestly, today and yesterday and the day before, I was in so much emotional, mental pain. I would have done anything. If you'd have said, I have a magic wand, I'll wave it and take that pain away from you, I would have said, wave it.

19:11Lea WernliMm-hmm.

19:14Shailia StephensAnd some people, when they're in that pain, that painful emotion, they want to do something like, you know, drink their pain away.

19:24Lea WernliPain away.

19:25Shailia StephensYeah, numb, numb the pain with alcohol, with drugs, with food, with sex, with sport, with, with working. Like, everyone's got their kind of ways that they They cope. They think they can make pain go away, right? Some people go into over-discussing with friends, like reaching out to 15 different people and having hour-long conversations to distract themselves from the pain. So I just wanted to give those examples, Leah.

20:05Lea WernliYeah.

20:06Shailia StephensIt looks so different for everybody, but I love what you said is like, actually, there's nothing to do. It's wisdom helping you to see where you are right now in this moment, where your attention is, on which energy within you.

20:27Lea WernliYeah. And actually, I would love to talk maybe next time about that for the last 6 years, um, there was a lot to learn for me in life. Because the whole big emotions and, quote, addictive behavior did fall away. I started to learn to feel all the feelings.

21:16Shailia StephensMm-hmm.

21:16Lea WernliI started to become a real grown-up. And there were quite a few things to learn in real life, and that was not always that comfortable.

21:35Shailia StephensHmm.

21:37Lea WernliAnd maybe there is something to see in that topic, because yes, there is nothing to do with the emotion, and I started to see, oh, there is a lot to learn about being an adult, a real one.

21:56Shailia StephensThat sounds very juicy.

22:00Lea WernliThat's interesting.

22:02Shailia StephensSo I think we do that. Yeah, listen to the next episode. Yeah, no, because I, I really think we should talk about that on the next episode, and we will, Lea, because that is something I've been feeling the last couple of days, really. So interesting that you used almost exactly the same words that have been in my mind. Something about this experience that's happening right now with my dog. It's not just my dog. My father-in-law has cancer. He's starting chemo. It's all kinds of stuff at once. And I'm starting to come to becoming an adult. Becoming an adult.

22:42Lea WernliI know.

22:43Shailia StephensIt sounds crazy because I'm 49 going on 50 soon.

22:46Lea WernliI know.

22:47Shailia StephensYeah.

22:52Lea WernliLet's talk about this.

22:53Shailia StephensLet's talk about this. You want to close this out, Leah? Yeah.

22:57Lea WernliYeah. For now, our emotions are the guidance and we are designed perfectly. We always feel where we are in our head or in life. And Um, if it opens up something for you, just a tiny little glimpse, follow that nugget.

23:30Shailia StephensYeah.

23:30Lea WernliThanks.

23:31Shailia StephensThanks, guys. Like and subscribe to the podcast. Yes. And we'll see you on the next episode for getting to be an adult in, in your midlife. I'm curious for that conversation. See you then. Bye.

23:46Lea WernliBye.