Ep. 46 Are Your Emotions Potty Trained? Naming!

Inner Challenge Podcast with MJ Murray Vachon LCSW

Stop Trying to Feel Better and Get Better at Feeling? This pithy statement, credited to Whitney Johnson, sums up this episode. Did you know the average feeling moves through us in 90 seconds? EXCEPT, most of us disrupt this natural process by avoiding, minimizing, maximizing or soothing our emotional reactions because at about the 30 second mark feelings kinda SUCK. So, instead of tending and befriending our feelings we blame or unclaim them and do something to lessen their intensity. You know-- blame someone, eat chips, smoke a joint or two or three or binge on Netflix. In this two parter, MJ will share with you the simple method her and 50 middle school students came up with to Name, Tame and Aim our emotions. They called it potty training their emotions which helped them not to crap all over the place! In this episode, MJ and a regular listener do Step #1:Naming our Feelings. Potty training our emotions takes a bit of knowledge and bravery and a willingness to slow down and be curious when our body gives us the signal that a feeling needs to be peed out! It is impossible to have healthy self-awareness without a process to regulate and understand what information our emotions are giving us-this is a foundational to Mental Wellness! Check out the show notes where MJ shares her one pagers to help you visualize this Mental Wellness Tool!!!!!!
https://mjmurrayvachon.com/podcast-6/
https://mjmurrayvachon.com/podcast-7/

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Happy 2024! Welcome to the second half of Season 3 where we continue to discuss how to up your Mental Wellness Skills. If you are tired of feeling like crap tune in and tune up!
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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 45,000 hours of therapy sessions. After 7 years of clinical work (1993) MJ realized that her clients knew very little about Mental Wellness which led her to create Inner Challenge. Inner Challenge brings practical understanding and skills rooted in neuroscience as well as MJ’s clinical and educational wisdom to help people cultivate mental wellness. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.
About Inner Challenge:
Inner Challenge was created in 1995 as a summer camp for girls, and spent 20 years being tested and refined in junior high classrooms, businesses, and community organizations. In 2017-2018 Inner Challenge was a class for freshman football players at the University of Notre Dame. In May 2022 the Inner Challenge Podcast debuted continuing the initial aspiration to bring Mental Wellness knowledge and skills to all! #stopfeelinglikecrap!

To connect with MJ Murray Vachon LCSW, learn more about the Inner Challenge or inquire about being a guest on the podcast visit mjmurrayvachon.com.