Frost or Face: Managing Your Tough Emotions | EP 007

Send us a text

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Kim Korte tackles the concept of toxic positivity, using the metaphor of frosting on a turd to illustrate the pitfalls of covering negative emotions with superficial positivity. Kim shares personal anecdotes and practical advice on how to process and transform these stinky emotions into something more beneficial for emotional growth. Listeners will learn how to refine their emotional palate and approach their feelings with a more mindful and realistic perspective.

Key Points:

 1.   Introduction to Toxic Positivity: Kim introduces the concept of toxic positivity, explaining it as the act of covering up negative emotions with superficial sweet feelings.

2.   Personal Insight: Kim shares a personal story about trying to avoid processing negative emotions after a painful experience with her ex-husband, highlighting the importance of acknowledging and working through these feelings.

3.   Metaphor of Frosting on a Turd: Kim uses the metaphor of frosting on a turd to explain how covering up negative emotions doesn’t solve the underlying issues and can lead to emotional constipation.

4.   Transforming Emotions: Kim discusses the importance of introspection and taking responsibility for one’s role in negative situations, turning emotional turds into more palatable experiences.

5.   Recognizing True Emotions: Emphasizing the need to closely examine our emotions and situations, Kim encourages listeners to distinguish between genuine negative emotions and misinterpreted feelings.

6.   Changing Expectations: Kim explains how our expectations, shaped by past experiences and beliefs, influence our emotional responses and how we can adjust these expectations for better emotional outcomes.

7.   Healthy Positivity: Kim acknowledges that while it’s sometimes okay to add a bit of frosting to a situation, it’s crucial to do so after fully processing the emotions involved.

8.   Conclusion and Call to Action: Kim invites listeners to share their thoughts, leave messages on her website, and suggest topics for future episodes. She also encourages sharing the podcast with others.

 Quotes:

•  “Should we be frosting these stinky, nasty emotions with some sweet feeling? To frost or not to frost, that is the question.”

•  “Turning the turd into frosting means doing the introspection and work needed to understand your role in a situation and learning from it.”

•  “We think our emotions are always right, but they’re just predictions by the brain based on past experiences and beliefs.”

Timeline:

00:00 Introduction to Gratitude and Emotions

01:22 Understanding Toxic Positivity

02:07 Personal Experience and Emotional Processing

02:52 Turning Negative Emotions into Positive Outcomes

04:51 Examining and Reinterpreting Emotions

06:27 Changing Expectations and Emotional Recipes

09:50 Final Thoughts and Viewer Interaction

Follow Kim for insights, emotional recipes, and a whole lot of curiosity served with a whole lot of heart.

Connect with me or buy my book: https://linktr.ee/thekimkorte

Thank you so much for listening to my show!

Episode Transcript

Kim (00:00):
The other day, I was talking to this gentleman and we

(00:03):
got on the topic of gratitude.
And he said to me, gratitude islike poop on a turd.
I was kind of taken back becauseI had heard of lipstick on a
pig.
but not poop on a turd.
It also was a little intriguingto me because what am I about?

(00:25):
Emotions.
And he's talking about food andturds like it's food.
So it got me to thinking, isthat the right thing to do?
Should we be frosting thesestinky, nasty emotions that
really are unappetizing withfrosting or some sweet feeling?

(00:45):
To frost or not to frost?
That is the question when itcomes to our stinky emotions.
This is Flavors of Emotions,expanding your emotional palate
for a tastier life.
My name is Kim Korte.
Together, we explore how to makesense of our feelings through

(01:08):
the lens of a chef,understanding flavors in a
recipe.
I am here to help you refineyour emotional palate to
differentiate the emotions thatshape your world.
What we're talking about istoxic positivity.
You may have heard that termbefore, but that's when we try

(01:30):
and be positive or have thosesweet, savory emotions.
And I'm going to say in thiscase, a sweet emotion to cover
up the ones that are reallystinky.
And I think that we've all beenhanded emotional piles of, poop
in our lives.
And if you haven't, Bless you.

(01:50):
And I hope it never happens, butwhen it does, do we try and
cover it up with sweet feelings?
Is it wrong to do that?
Well, I'm going to say yes andno, and here's the yes part.
So the yes part is if we havethese bad experiences.

(02:14):
that we either push down or puta nice frosting on, the body
still wants to have youexperience it, you know, to
acknowledge it.
And I can tell you this becauseIn my own experience, I've tried
to put frosting on badsituations, even with my ex

(02:35):
husband who hurt me terribly.
I was really, really determinedto not hate him.
And for a long time, it kept mefrom processing a lot of
emotions that I needed to, tofeel, and eventually they did
come out.
When I am offering as analternative to putting the

(02:57):
frosting on the turd is turningthe turd into frosting.
And what I mean by that is dosomething like what I did, do
some introspection, do some,some work on yourself to say,
Hey, what was my role in thiswhole situation?
Cause trust me, while, I didn'tdo the cheating and I didn't,

(03:18):
you know, do the things that hedid, I still played a role in
that whole situation because atthe end of the day, I picked him
as my partner.
And I also ignored warningsigns.
And I've talked about theproblems with willful blindness
in other episodes of my podcast.

(03:39):
And I will continue to talkabout willful blindness every
opportunity I can, because thatis not even putting frosting on
the turd that's saying there'sno turd at all.
And that's even worse in myopinion.
So taking the turd that you'regiven the emotional, just pile

(04:01):
of crap and turning it intosomething that's more palatable.
That's something that you canuse in the future.
If you can look at yourresponsibility in the whole
situation, because trust me, Ihad responsibility in my

(04:23):
divorce, it's going to help youin the future to avoid these
piles.
So instead of just stepping inthem, so to speak, cause you
know, we got to use thismetaphor as many ways as we can,
or having emotional constipationby not even acknowledging the
excrement before you, we can dosomething if we're proactive

(04:45):
with that situation and keepourselves from stepping in it in
the future.
But before all that, before anyof that happens, I think it's a
good idea to question, is thisreally a turd in the first
place?
You may encounter a situationwhere it's looking like a turd.

(05:08):
It's got the shape.
It has the color.
But upon closer examination,it's not.
It's actually like a piece ofdark chocolate.
Emotionally, you know, we're alltalking about emotions here.
So let's make sure we're ontrack that this is not literal
turds and literal chocolate.
But my point is, is that we getour emotions wrong.

(05:31):
And if we can take a moment ortwo and give closer examination
to the situation.
It might not be what we areexpecting it to be.
And the fact is, if you have ahistory of having, you know,
stinky experiences, andespecially by particular persons

(05:57):
or types of people, or, you knowwhat I'm saying, certain
situations, you've historicallysaid, Oh, this always is going
to turn out this way.
It's probably going to turn outthat way.
So if you take a closer look atit, you might go, Oh, that's not
what it is.
And so my feelings aren'tshitty.

(06:17):
This isn't a turd.
And the digestion process ofthat emotion is vastly
different.
That's the goal.
That's the goal of my book.
That's the goal of my podcast,that we are more consciously
examining situations as theyarise, the emotions that we

(06:38):
feel, especially the ones thatare on the bigger side and
seemingly stinky, to look atthem closer.
We think our emotions are alwaysright, and they're not.
They're a prediction by thebrain, and our brain will

(07:01):
predict more or less what weexpect.
So it's about changing yourexpectations, developing more
curiosity, and looking atsituations as they arise for
what they are.
More so than what they appear tobe.
It doesn't take long.

(07:22):
It's not a long process for youto take in more of a situation
and I always like to sayespecially negative situations.
It's like putting a blinder onand you are limiting your field
of vision literally andemotionally, I'm saying this
because your brain is focusingon what you prioritize, what

(07:45):
your past experiences are.
So when you can be conscious andengage consciously, more
curiosity, even if you'recautiously looking around cause
you're a little bit nervousabout the whole thing, you can
still change that emotionbecause you are able to

(08:05):
recognize it for what it reallyis and not what you expect it to
be.
Expectations have a lot to dowith how we feel and what are
our expectations based on?
Our beliefs, how we were raisedexperiences in life, what we've

(08:28):
learned, all of these thingsmake up what I call the emotion
recipes that we cook up secondby second.
Next time a stinky situationcomes your way, check to make
sure, is it a turd or is itsomething else?
After that process, whateverthat emotion is, however long it

(08:54):
takes you, it could be quick.
It could take you a little bit.
Digest it.
If you don't digest youremotions, it's that emotional
constipation I talked about.
It's It, it just sits in you andis waiting for you to, to pass
it for lack of a better term.

(09:17):
Frosting it should be what comesafterwards, meaning we can take
the situation and turn it intofrosting, do something good,
make a change in our own lives,take responsibility for our part
in that situation.
It's one of the worst thingspeople want to hear, but it's

(09:39):
really what gives us the mostbenefit from any feeling that we
get.
It changes how we experiencelife in the future.
Otherwise, We just keepexperiencing what we expect.
And lastly, I do think it's okaysometimes to put a little bit of

(10:01):
frosting on a situation.
As long as you acknowledge, noteverything has to be turned into
frosting.
Sometimes frosting's okay.
It it's saying, Hey, thesituation is an ideal.
But it could be worse and I, youknow, I, I could be living in a

(10:22):
war torn country right now andI'm not.
And so it's helping me to seeand focus on the good that I
have in life, not just the bad.
Tell me what you think.
Do you think that what I said isthe way to go, or do you have

(10:44):
another thought?
I would love to hear back fromyou.
If you go toFlavorsofEmotions.com, there's
an area for you to leave me amessage.
And you can also say, Hey, I'dlove for you to talk about this
topic.
I want to talk about what youwant to hear.
So any interaction I get fromyou makes me joyful.

(11:09):
Well, this has been fun.
Hasn't it?
Talking about turds.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, please like and
share and tell other peopleabout my podcast.
If not, I appreciate it that youmade it this far.

(11:29):
Take care.
And we will talk to you nexttime on Flavors of Emotions.