How To Stop Feeling So Frustrated All The Time - Jonny Miller

The conversation between Johnny Miller and the host delves into the complexities of emotional regulation and the societal conditioning that often leads to emotional numbness. They discuss their own journeys of reconnecting with their emotions, highlighting the cultural and personal barriers they faced, particularly the stoic British upbringing. Miller shares insights on practices like breathwork, interception, and self-regulation to enhance emotional fluidity and address underlying emotional issues. They emphasize the importance of creating a safe internal environment to fully experience and process emotions, thereby fostering personal growth and intentional living.

• Growing up in England with a stoic "Keep Calm and Carry On" mentality often leads to emotional numbness.
• The societal expectation, especially for men, to appear competent and not show emotions publicly.

"I grew up what I realized now was like numb from the neck down."

• This highlights the disconnection from emotional awareness and the focus on intellectual engagement.

"We both went to Newcastle Durham; it's not cool to express emotions in public."

• Reflects societal norms that discourage emotional expression, particularly in competitive environments like nightlife.

• Difficulty in recognizing and categorizing emotions due to limited emotional vocabulary.
• Campaigns like "It's Okay to Talk" may fall short because they don't address the root issue of emotional identification.

"I got really disappointed with the 'It's Okay to Talk' campaign... They don't know what they're feeling."

• Critiques the effectiveness of such campaigns in genuinely helping men understand and express their emotions.

"I had a small number of buckets of emotions that I kind of default to."

• Indicates the oversimplification of complex emotional experiences into a few recognizable categories.

• Global issues like political changes and climate change affect internal emotional states.
• The importance of acknowledging these external impacts and learning to work with emotions rather than resisting them.

"The entire world just feels like it's up in the air... so much of that is impacting the way that we feel internally."

• Emphasizes the connection between external events and internal emotional experiences.

"Allow yourself to absorb that, work out how to work with emotions, and how to regulate your nervous system."

• Suggests the need for emotional regulation and integration rather than suppression.

• Anger is often misunderstood and misused, either repressed or expressed aggressively.
• Importance of understanding and properly channeling anger to prevent it from becoming passive aggression or outright aggression.

"When people are aggressive or using anger to manipulate, we see that as bad."

• Discusses the negative perception of anger and its potential misuse.

"If it gets kinked one way, it gets repressed... the other way, it's aggressive."

• Explains the two extremes of emotional mismanagement and their consequences.

• Emotional numbness often stems from a lack of safety in expressing emotions during childhood.
• Bullying and societal discouragement of emotional expression contribute to this numbness.

"I was bullied as a kid... friends were like that's not okay."

• Personal anecdote illustrating how early experiences shape emotional expression.

"It comes down to feeling safe in our bodies and having permission to feel."

• Highlights the need for a safe environment to foster emotional awareness and expression.

• Intellectual awareness of emotions is a starting point but must be followed by actual emotional experience.
• Talk therapy helps in recognizing emotions, but true emotional regulation requires feeling the emotions.

"If it stays on that level of intellectual kind of... I think I'm angry but you're not actually feeling the thing."

• Critiques the limitation of intellectual understanding without emotional experience.

"The life cycle of an emotion is usually anywhere between 10 to 20 seconds."

• Emphasizes the transient nature of emotions if they are fully experienced.

• Breathwork can help in dropping down from intellectualization to body awareness.
• Recognizing and feeling bodily sensations is crucial for emotional regulation.

"It's really just a case of like dropping down into the body and like what is here."

• Encourages shifting focus from intellectual thoughts to bodily sensations.

"I've been on a big push over the last few months to try and talk about this."

• Indicates a proactive effort to promote body awareness and emotional regulation.

• High agency involves being intentional and overcoming reactive tendencies.
• Emotional regulation is key to maintaining high agency and intentionality.

"High agency is almost synonymous with being intentional."

• Defines high agency as the ability to act intentionally despite emotional challenges.

"Practices for literally expanding your capacity to be with intensity."

• Suggests that building emotional resilience is essential for high agency.

• Identifying early signs of emotional reactivity and using self-regulation techniques.
• Practices like breathwork, grounding, and affirmations can help in managing emotional intensity.

"Noticing there's this tightness in my chest... last time that happened I ended up breathing into a bag."

• Example of recognizing early signs of anxiety and taking steps to manage it.

"Self-regulation and emotional fluidity come on top of interception as you progress."

• Emphasizes the importance of developing interception before other emotional regulation techniques.

• Using willpower and self-regulation to suppress emotions can lead to emotional debt and burnout.
• It's important to address emotions directly rather than continually suppressing them.

"In the long term, it adds allostatic load into the system which I call emotional debt."

• Warns against the long-term consequences of emotional suppression.

"Your body will give you maybe it's like a tickling with a feather... sometime it's event going to be a dump truck."

• Describes the escalating signals from the body when emotions are continually suppressed.

• Interception: Improving awareness of internal bodily sensations.
• Self-Regulation: Techniques to manage emotional intensity.
• Emotional Fluidity: Allowing emotions to flow and be fully experienced.

"Interception can be done in any moment... having a practice for building interception."

• Encourages continuous practice of interception for better emotional awareness.

"Self-regulation techniques like sympathetic sigh, grounding, and affirmations."

• Lists practical self-regulation techniques for managing emotions.

"Allow whatever this emotion that I'm resisting to just flow through me."

• Advocates for emotional fluidity as a way to process and release emotions.

• Designing environments to minimize unnecessary stress and support emotional well-being.
• The interaction between environment and emotional health is bidirectional.

"We design our environments and our environments design us in return."

• Highlights the importance of creating supportive environments for emotional regulation.

"Removing unnecessary ambient stresses from your environment."

• Suggests practical steps to create a less stressful and more supportive environment.

These comprehensive notes cover the key ideas and topics discussed in the transcript, providing a detailed overview of the conversation's core messages.

• APE stands for Awareness, Posture, Emotion.
• Awareness: Checking if awareness is expanded or contracted.
• Posture: Assessing the physical state of the body.
• Emotion: Identifying sensations, mood, tone, and any physical discomforts like hunger or sleepiness.
• Practiced during activities like weightlifting to tune into muscle components and breath.

"I used to have a morning practice that was like your meditation but it was really just like a check-in it was like me asking like how's the weather right now and I had this acronym APE which stood for awareness, posture, emotion."

• The practice involves a daily check-in to understand the current state of being.

• Hyperarousal can lead people to avoid interoception due to overwhelming internal sensations.
• Effective to downshift the system first before tuning in.
• Breathwork practices can help in noticing differences in emotional states before and after.

"Usually when someone's activated, if they are in hyperarousal then chances are they won't want to intercept because there will be so much going on inside the body."

• Hyperarousal makes interoception difficult, and distraction strategies are often used.

• Positive reinforcement helps make practices like breathwork habitual.
• Noticing the difference before and after practices reinforces their effectiveness.

"The positive reinforcement of actually feeling better and checking in and going wow, I did that thing and it worked."

• Feeling the benefits of practices encourages continued use.

• Emphasizes self-experimentation with practices to understand personal responses.
• Approach with a hypothesis, notice the effects, and reflect on the outcomes.
• Encourages a mindset of "courageous curiosity."

"Be an N of one, be a scientist of your own experience, and for all of these practices, whether it's interoception, breathwork, or somatic approaches to feeling emotion."

• Self-experimentation helps in finding effective personal practices.

• "Take it to the mat": Using triggers as opportunities for deeper self-exploration.
• "I am willing": Embracing and feeling intense emotions like grief.

"Take it to the mat is like really finding some degree of gratitude... it's almost always like a signpost to something inside."

• Triggers can be opportunities for deeper emotional work.

• Personal story of loss and the intentional journey to process grief.
• Emphasizes the importance of allowing grief to move through to avoid becoming emotionally hardened.
• Utilized various methods like Vipassana, plant medicine, and breathwork.

"I was engaged to an amazing woman called SF SP... she had an anxiety attack and she ended up coming home and taking her own life."

• The journey through grief involved multiple practices and intentional emotional processing.

• Swimming in cold water and free diving as metaphors for emotional processing.
• Learning to soften resistance to intense sensations and emotions.

"Swimming in Brighton in the ocean in the freezing cold water... if you can just like slowly soften that resistance and let it in, it's like not so bad."

• Physical practices can serve as metaphors for emotional processes.

• Techniques to increase embodied sense of safety and parasympathetic downshift.
• Bottom-up approaches like humming, sighing, and specific breathing techniques.
• Emphasizes the calming effects of these practices.

"Self-regulation is like how can you increase an embodied sense of safety and a parasympathetic downshift in the moment."

• Self-regulation involves practices that calm the nervous system.

• 4-4-8 breathing: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds.
• Alternate nostril breathing: Enhances calming effects.
• Breathing into the belly against resistance for additional calming effects.

"4-4-8 breathing... the exhale is twice as long as the inhale... activates your parasympathetic nervous system."

• Specific breathing techniques have measurable effects on the nervous system.

• Humming releases nitric oxide, which has a calming effect.
• Techniques like B breath amplify the effects of humming.

"Humming is insanely effective. It releases nitric oxide, which has this really instantaneous calming effect."

• Simple practices like humming can significantly regulate emotions.

• Two-phase approach: First, find presence and safety; second, process the experience.
• Somatic surfing: Dropping into the body to track and welcome sensations.
• Bringing resources to activated parts to facilitate emotional processing.

"First phase is getting to a point where I feel somewhat present again in my body and able to be with whatever the situation is."

• Integration involves creating safety and then processing the experience through body awareness.

• Mammalian Stress Response: The shaking and trembling observed in mammals (e.g., an Impala after escaping a lion) are ways to complete the stress cycle.
• Human Stress Response: Humans have forgotten this natural way of dealing with stress, leading to accumulated stress or "allostatic load."
• Allostatic Load: A term referring to the wear and tear on the body due to accumulated stress, which prevents energy from being used for other purposes.
• Regulating the System: Involves immediate response, integration of the experience, and allowing the feeling of feelings.

"It just starts shaking for like maybe three or four minutes and then it just gets up and runs away."

• This shaking is the mammalian way of completing the stress cycle.

"Accumulated stress creates allostatic load in the system."

• Allostatic load refers to the energy used to hold stress in place, preventing it from being used elsewhere.

• Welcoming Full Spectrum of Emotions: Most people are comfortable with a limited range of emotions and avoid others.
• Breath Work for Emotional Fluidity: Using breath work to work through different emotions one at a time.
• Permission to Feel Anger: Recognizing and allowing oneself to feel anger without feeling bad about it.

"It's basically welcoming the full spectrum of our experience."

• Emotional fluidity involves being open to all emotions, not just the comfortable ones.

"My teacher said he said the words 'You are loved in your anger,' and I just bawled my eyes out."

• Hearing that it's okay to feel anger was a turning point in accepting and processing that emotion.

• Being Kind vs. Being Nice: Kindness involves setting healthy boundaries and being honest, even if it might initially hurt. Niceness often involves people-pleasing.
• Consequences of Niceness: Leads to loss of trust and boundaries, and feeling overwhelmed.

"Being kind is often being able to set a healthy boundary."

• Kindness involves honest communication and setting boundaries, which builds trust over time.

"I would say yes to everything and everyone and just be overwhelmed naturally."

• Being overly nice leads to burnout and loss of self-respect.

• Creating Safe Environments: Feeling safe is crucial for emotional expression and processing.
• Role of Therapists: Therapists create a safe space for clients to express and process emotions.
• Safety in Relationships: Safe relationships allow for the expression and processing of emotions, leading to transformation.

"A good therapist will create a container where everything is welcome."

• Therapists provide a safe space, encouraging emotional expression and healing.

"Relearning that safety is what increases our capacity to be with more intensity over time."

• Building a sense of safety allows for greater emotional resilience and capacity.

• Facilitated Breath Repatterning: A style of breath work that corresponds to different emotional patterns.
• Importance of Downshift Time: After a breath work session, allowing time for rest is crucial for neural rewiring.
• Avoiding Disassociation: Staying present during breath work is essential for effective emotional processing.

"All of our emotions have corresponding breathing patterns."

• Different emotions are linked to specific breathing patterns, which can be addressed through breath work.

"The challenge is to breathe in such a way where you're still within your window of tolerance."

• Effective breath work requires staying present and not disassociating.

• Finding Breath Work Practitioners: Facilitated breath work is not very common but can be found under terms like "conscious connected breathing."
• Mental Process During Breath Work: The focus is on staying with the breath and getting curious about arising emotions without attaching stories to them.

"Conscious connected breathing or CCB is a more common approach."

• CCB is a form of breath work that respects the nervous system and avoids disassociation.

"You really are just breathing, and often these huge emotional processes would go through with zero story."

• The focus is on the breath, allowing emotions to process without attaching cognitive narratives.

• Mindfulness as a Prophylactic: Mindfulness can sometimes be used as a way to avoid feeling emotions.
• Short-Term vs. Long-Term Solutions: Mindfulness and self-regulation are useful but can be short-term solutions if not addressing the root causes of emotions.
• Type A Relaxation Problem: Overachievers might use relaxation techniques as another way to "win," which can limit their effectiveness.

"Mindfulness can be used to effectively disassociate or self-regulate away the emotions."

• While helpful, mindfulness can sometimes serve as a way to avoid deeper emotional processing.

"At some point, you will have to open that Pandora's box of stuff that you haven't been wanting to look at."

• Eventually, deeper emotional issues need to be addressed for long-term healing.

• Changing the Fuel Source: Moving from using toxic, short-term fuels like anger and resentment to more sustainable, long-term sources of motivation.
• Life as a Long-Distance Journey: Viewing life as a long-term journey requiring steady, sustainable emotional resilience.
• Balancing Activation and Relaxation: Finding a balance between high-energy activation and deep relaxation for overall well-being.

"Changing the fuel source from toxic fuels to more sustainable ones."

• Sustainable emotional resilience involves using healthier sources of motivation over time.

"Life is very much like Ross Edgley swimming for 55 hours, not running a 26-mile marathon."

• Long-term emotional resilience requires steady, sustainable strategies rather than short bursts of high energy.

"At some point, you have to let that drop away too."

• Even relaxation techniques need to be approached with the right mindset for true effectiveness.

• The relationship between the body and the inner voice is bidirectional.
• The speaker experienced a significant reduction in negative self-talk over the past few years.
• Releasing somatic tension and engaging in emotional processes contributed to this reduction.
• Inner critic often acts against one's interests, being harsh and unobjective.

"I had a very active inner critic in teenage years and most of my 20s. In the last three or four years, that has really gone quiet."

• The speaker attributes the quieting of the inner critic to releasing somatic tension and engaging in emotional processes.

"For me, certainly, my mind is working against me so much of the time. It's not my friend; it's not being supportive."

• The speaker's inner critic is harsh and unobjective, often working against their interests.

• The drive for success often comes at the cost of personal happiness.
• The inner critic can be counterproductive, impacting progress towards goals negatively.
• There is a belief that success can be achieved in a balanced, equanimous way.

"If the road towards your worldly success is paved with personal misery, what was the point all along?"

• Questioning the value of success if it leads to personal misery.

"I'm also not sure that you need that cutting inner voice to become successful."

• The speaker believes success can be achieved without a harsh inner critic.

• Anxiety is seen as a constriction against underlying emotions.
• Increasing the emotional aperture can transform anxiety into positive emotions like joy.
• Chronically anxious individuals might be suppressing other emotions.

"Anxiety isn't really an emotion in and of itself; it's actually a constriction or a tensing against another underlying emotion."

• Anxiety is viewed as a physical and emotional constriction rather than a standalone emotion.

"If they just loosened that a little bit, it would literally turn into joy."

• Loosening the grip of anxiety can transform it into joy.

• Society often limits the range of acceptable emotions, leaning more towards the negative.
• Extreme emotions, whether positive or negative, are often suppressed.
• Allowing oneself to feel a full range of emotions is crucial for a fulfilling life.

"It's interesting to think what emotion is your anxiety causing you to not feel or what emotion is masquerading as anxiety."

• Anxiety can mask other underlying emotions.

"There is a range of experiences internally that are available to me, and I decided to not shut those things off."

• Emphasizing the importance of experiencing a full range of emotions.

• The resistance to feeling emotions is often more painful than the emotions themselves.
• Allowing emotions to move through oneself can lead to a more connected and fulfilling life.
• Shutting off emotions diminishes the human experience.

"It was the resistance to feeling my sadness or my anger that was painful and uncomfortable."

• Resistance to emotions is more painful than the emotions themselves.

"My life would be meaningfully diminished if I was to shut that away and not allow that to move through me."

• Shutting off emotions diminishes the quality of life.

• Viewing human biology as an instrument that can be tuned.
• Conditioning and culture can get the human instrument out of tune.
• Tuning up the instrument allows for a richer, more diverse emotional experience.

"If we're going around life playing in the wrong key, things aren't going to go well."

• Being out of tune with one's emotions leads to a less fulfilling life.

"We want an orchestra of experience, allowing all of those notes and colors to move through."

• Emphasizing the importance of experiencing a full range of emotions.

• The self-improvement industry often starts from the premise that something needs fixing.
• This approach can limit the range of possible outcomes.
• A better approach is self-unfoldment, starting from the premise that one is already okay.

"The self-improvement paradigm is flawed in that it starts from the premise that something in you needs fixing."

• Critique of the self-improvement industry's foundational premise.

"What if everything right now was okay? What if you were safe and then applied curiosity and presence to whatever's there?"

• Suggesting a more compassionate and accepting approach to self-improvement.

• Practices like Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) and somatic-based therapy are recommended.
• Increasing interception and down-regulation are foundational practices.
• Engaging in practices that genuinely excite and interest oneself is crucial.

"NSDR is a really wonderful foundation. It increases interception and down-regulation."

• Recommending NSDR for foundational self-exploration.

"What are you genuinely excited about? Not going out of a place of 'I need fixing.'"

• Encouraging exploration based on genuine interest rather than a need to fix oneself.

• Therapy helps by offloading emotional capacity onto a trained, confidential person.
• Borrowing nervous system capacity from a therapist allows one to hold the intensity of emotions.
• Online courses can provide foundational protocols for self-exploration.

"Therapists are giving you additional nervous system capacity so that your system can hold the intensity of something."

• Therapy helps by providing additional emotional capacity.

"There is a limit to how deep you can go in an online environment, but foundational protocols can still be shared."

• Online courses can provide foundational self-exploration practices.

• Reflecting on how one is complicit in creating unwanted conditions is crucial.
• Embracing and accepting responsibility for one's role in creating these conditions is the journey.
• Turning around and naming one's shadow is part of the process.

"In what ways are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?"

• Reflecting on one's role in creating unwanted conditions.

"Turning around and accepting responsibility for the ways in which you are complicit is the whole journey."

• Emphasizing the importance of embracing and accepting one's role in creating unwanted conditions.

• Emphasizing the importance of feeling a full range of emotions.
• Viewing human biology as an instrument to be tuned for a richer experience.
• Critiquing the self-improvement industry's flawed premises and suggesting self-unfoldment.
• Recommending practical steps and resources for self-exploration and emotional growth.

"You have this massive spectrum of emotions that you can tap into that literally add color to your existence."

• Encouraging the exploration of a full range of emotions.

"The goal is to have an orchestra of experience, allowing all of those notes and colors to move through."

• Emphasizing the importance of experiencing a rich, diverse emotional life.