April 30, 2025 • 22 mins
Ever feel like you're stuck in a fog—disconnected, unmotivated, and just… dull? You're not alone. In this episode, we explore emotional inertia—that heavy, stuck feeling that makes it hard to shake off negativity and truly engage with life. We’ll break down how our brains get trapped in these patterns, why rumination keeps us cycling through the same emotions, and why some of us struggle to feel joy at all. Most importantly, we’ll share simple, science-backed strategies to help you reconnect with your emotions, boost resilience, and start feeling alive again.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Sources and Notes:
- Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
- Understanding Minor Depression And Low Resilience [Joy Lab ep. 204]
- Refilling Your Tank and Growing Your Inner Strength [Joy Lab ep. 203]
- Bylsma L. M. (2021). Emotion context insensitivity in depression: Toward an integrated and contextualized approach. Psychophysiology, 58(2), e13715. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13715
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at helpline@nami.org. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:25):
Hello, I'm Henry Emmonsand welcome to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
So we are talking aboutresilience this month.
It is our Element of Joy here at thepodcast and the program, and we've been
talking about stuff that can depleteour resilience in a lot of ways.
We got into rumination in episode 205.
(00:50):
Uh, we talked about busynesslast episode, or time poverty,
and today we're talking about
emotional inertia, whichis kind of a weird term.
So let me explain.
Emotional inertia describes how wemight get into a state where our
emotions stay the same over time,regardless of what's happening.
(01:15):
So if someone has high emotional inertia,their emotions don't change easily.
They can feel stuck in these emotions.
And it's hard to adapt, right?
To move into a different emotion.
On the flip side, low emotional inertiameans emotions shift more easily.
(01:36):
So they're more responsive to not just,not just what's happening around us,
actually, I think this is important,but what we try to regulate them, we can
move through them and not get stuck quiteso easily with low emotional inertia.
So we wanna be on that lower end.
High emotional inertia is associatedwith depression, lower wellbeing,
(02:00):
and also subclinical depression.
We talked about that a few episodes ago.
I'll link to that in the show notes.
So there are a few really important thingsto kind of pick apart here to help us.
First, it may seem like emotionalinertia is just like an Eeyore kind of
state, like we just completely bland.
(02:22):
Uh, but it's not necessarilyabout the kind of state
we're in, depressed or happy.
It's that we're stuck there.
I think that's the key.
The emotion keeps cycling evenwhen the environment is queuing
us to respond differently.
Um, that's the inertia.
It really suggests that this emotionis like just powered by itself
(02:46):
and there's no force to stop it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kinda like a, a weatherfront that refuses to move.
Out of the area
and it, Yeah.
think this is a very interestingconcept and I, I wonder if it ties
in with the idea idea of homeostasis,which comes more out of the, out of
(03:10):
physiology rather than psychology.
But, but basically itmeans something similar,
I think, that, that once a steady state isreached, it tends to stay right as it is.
So unless something kind of dramaticor a lot of energy comes in to
change the way that things are, itwill just stay the way that it is.
(03:35):
So, it's always a little bit hard toget one's mind around this, because
whether we consider the state to begood or bad, it's still hard to change.
So
you might be in a, you know, sort ofa unhealthy or negative homeostasis
but it's, it's hard to move out of it.
(03:57):
It's kind of still stuck there.
Mm
So,
I think this happens in almostall of nature organisms.
You know, it plays out in a lotof ways within the human body.
And so I think within.
Any complex system, theretends to be kind of a natural
built-in resistance to change.
(04:20):
Now, this can really be hard tounderstand, I think, when it comes
to emotions, because if we'restuck in a lower than average mood,
why would we wanna stay there?
It makes no sense.
I do think that most of us tendto have a sort of baseline mood.
Some people call it anemotional set point.
(04:42):
I don't wanna make too much out of that'cause I, I think it's, it's a more fluid
concept than it sounds, but, but I dothink that that's something worth noting.
And, and what is it thatcreates that set point?
I do think genetics play a role here,but a lot of this is learned or comes
(05:03):
from our external environment, you might
say that it, it's conditioned.
So our growing up years I think areparticularly important for creating this
sort of set point our, our baseline moodbecause we're just learning and growing
so quickly and it's a period in our liveswhen we are just so strongly molded and
(05:24):
influenced by parents, teachers, youknow, society, everything around us.
We're just kind of very plastic,if you will, very moldable.
But the
truth is it doesn't stop in childhood.
It's always happening.
We're always being conditioned and we arepracticing and reinforcing these patterns,
whether we're aware of it or not.
(05:47):
So I think that this is especiallyimportant for folks who have struggled
with something like anxiety or depression.
And one reason I think it's importantis because whatever their baseline
mood was before they had theirfirst episode, let's say, it was
not enough to prevent the illness.
(06:09):
Something broke through.
And so I think, you know, our treatment,when I look at how we treat these
conditions, usually treatment isintended just to get people back to
their baseline and then kind of stop.
And that could be fine for somepeople that's enough, but I think it's
(06:29):
really important to try to keep goingand push through the, the built-in
resistance to change in order totry to move that baseline up a bit.
And this is actually how I see whatwe're doing in Joy Lab, I think that
our underlying purpose is to createthese upward spirals or at least try
(06:53):
to, so that we can train ourselves,condition ourselves, if you will, to
move that baseline to a higher level, nomatter what point we are starting from.
Yes, we should do anotherepisode on emotional set points.
I absolutely agree.
I look at, just an aside here, I looked atsome of my old journals when I was little.
(07:16):
I was a dark and depressed little being.
An example (07:19):
like so my emotional set point, I really think genetically also,
you know, um, modeled to me is, is low.
Um, in sixth grade we hadto choose a poem to recite.
Everybody was doing Shel Silverstein,Dr. Seuss, do you wanna know what I did?
Yes, I do.
(07:40):
Edgar Allen Poe,
The Raven.
And I remember it.
I was just so, I felt so seen andI recited it, and I just remember
seeing all of these kids justbeing like, what is happening?
So, um,
Do you remember what the teacher did?
I, I would assume there wasa call home to the parent.
(08:05):
I mean, it was just kind of, I thinkeverybody was a little surprised.
So I get it, like, if you feel likeyou're there, but I, the, the thing I
wanna say is that I don't think it's set.
I think it might be, you know,it might be a little stubborn,
but there is movement because I
am not there.
I am not there anymore.
So, I'll pivot here, but we, I, I wannacome back to that on another episode.
(08:29):
So I think we've, we've talkedabout this, back to kind of your
last point here about, care too.
We've talked about this unfortunate andcommon interpretation of mental health as
like just existing, uh, to the baselinereference you made, Henry, like you
have mental health if you don't havea diagnosable mental health disorder.
(08:49):
Uh huh.
Just the lack of diagnosis is the goal.
Yeah.
which
is super depressing.
We can, we can raise that set point.
We can raise that baseline.
I know it to be true.
We can experience so much more than that.
So, and there's a, a recentepisode that we talked about a
(09:11):
little bit of, that flexibility.
What resilience really is that we areinclined, this is our natural state.
I will link that in the show notes.
The other thing I think that's reallyinteresting is that emotional inertia is
not the opposite of emotional variability.
This is subtle, but Ithink it's important.
So if you have high emotional variability,then you'll move quickly and intensely
(09:36):
--intensely, key point here--from one emotion to the other.
And a frequent pattern of highemotional variability is associated
with higher levels of depression,neuroticism, lower self-esteem and
other negative wellbeing outcomes.
It sounds like the opposite, but we allprobably know someone who, or we are that
(09:59):
person who might overreact to a situation,just kind of blow up for a moment.
And then here's the inertia part.
We may get stuck there fortoo long, holding onto that.
So too long may not be asuper long time either.
Just too long in such a way thatwe've blocked other emotions.
We're not adapting or interacting withthe world around us after that event.
(10:23):
So we can have highvariability and high inertia.
Kind of extreme mood swings that westay in too long, but then we swing back
again in a big way and get stuck again.
I think the point here is that weare really looking for that resilient
state where our emotions aremaking sense with the environment.
(10:46):
So we just finished up our, Elementof Joy last month, equanimity,
and that's kind of the dance,
um, that we talked about there as well,so that we can respond to our inner
and outer environments in healthy ways.
So I wanna, I wanna say something,about that concept of high, high
(11:06):
emotional variability and high inertia.
'cause I, to me this is, I'm gonna tryto describe what I think is growth, at
least for me ' cause I, I am, I thinkI am that high variability type person.
I'm very sensitive you might say.
My, my, my parents used to alwaystell me I was too sensitive
(11:28):
God.
Yep.
and I, and I, I, I still am.
and so people can, I'm sure can relateto this, you know, when something throws
you off, let's just say it that way,it throws you off emotionally you're in
a, a bad mood of, of whatever shape orsize that is, but it, but it just stays
(11:50):
with you for a long period of time.
So for me, growth is that itdoesn't stay with me as long.
I still, I still, have that,you know, emotional variability.
I'm still sensitive, I still reactto things, although it probably
takes more to set off a reaction.
But, the, the real change that I'venoticed is that it doesn't last as long.
(12:12):
It don't, doesn't get,I don't get stuck there.
I'll go there and if I do some thingsthat I think will, will come and talk
about later, um, if I practice thosethings, it might not last long at all.
It might
still happen, and then it justkind of goes right through.
So I think that what we're talkingabout now is sometimes referred to
(12:33):
as emotional reactivity as well.
And
when it, when it's at the extreme,the, the mood can just seem
like it's on a hair trigger.
You know, it changes dramaticallyfrom one moment to the next.
Usually that's in response to something.
Some kind of external stress,but sometimes the trigger
(12:55):
is so mild that the Yeah.
that emotional reaction justseems all out of proportion.
and there are times where you justcannot identify a trigger at all.
It just seems as though the, in thatinstance, the person is just stuck
in a pattern of mood instability.
(13:16):
Hmm.
So when you were talking about this kindof, this dance of equanimity, I was,
I, I am thinking about the middle way,which we talk about often, and I believe
that most aspects of mental health, ifyou were to, to really kind of lay them
out that they exist on a spectrum, acontinuum, and strong emotional inertia
(13:41):
would be on one end of the spectrum andhigh emotional variability on the other.
Now, generally speaking, we don't wantto live at either end of the spectrum.
We want to try to move somewhere intothe middle 'cause either of those
extremes can just deplete our resilience.
(14:03):
Being too emotionallyreactive is just exhausting.
Both for the person who hasthat, but also kind of for
everyone, everybody around them.
And then having too much of that emotionalinertia being stuck in in a certain place.
It just leaves a person so vulnerableto something like depression and there
(14:25):
just aren't enough reserves in theemotional bank account to be able to
deal with something big that comesalong, a big stress or loss or, or
even a, just a change in one's life.
I think one of the other downsides tobeing on one extreme or the other of
the spectrum is that you, you are losingthe value that emotions offer to us.
(14:52):
Because you know, whether they'regood or bad, whether we've
experienced them as positive ornegative or somewhere in between.
Genuine emotions are a gold mine.
We don't want to shut them down, but wealso don't want to let them run our lives.
What we do want, I think, is tohave access to them, and we want to
(15:18):
develop the skill, the ability toallow our emotions to move through
us rather than getting stuck.
I think if we can do that and paysome attention to them, there is a
ton of really valuable informationthat they can give us to help guide
our lives, and also just to helpus feel more vital, more alive.
(15:42):
Yeah, This is making me think of a,a term from researcher Dr. Jonathan
Rottenberg, I think first coined it, it'scalled emotion context insensitivity.
it's actually a hypothesis of depression.
The idea is that, when we are experiencingdepression particularly, major depressive
(16:02):
disorder, we are less reactive to bothpositive stimuli and negative stimuli.
We're dull.
We don't see or feel the good stuff,
um, but we actually don't see orfeel the bad stuff very well either.
It's so, it's like our antennaaren't picking stuff up.
(16:23):
We're disconnected.
We may feel more empty than negative.
Actually, if you've haddepression, you might agree.
It's the disconnection, it's emptiness.
It's not necessarily a negativity.
This is a debated hypothesis.
There's some researchers would saythat depressed folks are more tuned
into the negative, more reactive to it.
There's not clarity though.
(16:44):
I like this interpretation though.
I think it, it resonates particularlyhere when we're talking about how we
can wake up to see all of what is.
Um, you know, we can get out of ourheads, also about how we're feeling.
So, you know, we're not feelingbad about feeling bad all the time.
We're not feeling bad about feelinggood or bad, about not feeling good.
(17:07):
But whether, like you said, Henry,you're, you're feeling good or
bad isn't necessarily the problem.
It has to do with the flexibility to move.
And are you in tune withthe environment around you?
I like that.
It reminds me that I can be present withthe environment, I can get out of my
head, get out of past regrets or futureworries and just pay attention to the now.
(17:31):
That's what we can do.
We can sync our emotionsup with what's around us.
And if they get too high or low toyour point earlier, we can practice
regulating those emotions so thatwe're not wound up or depleted by them.
and I like that.
The solution then is less about fixingthe emotions and more about connecting
(17:54):
with the world, with the people aroundme, getting my antenna reawakened.
And when I do that, that connectionwill support my resilience.
It will support my emotions.
We can all do that.
Yes.
And we can all learn how to connectdirectly with our emotions, you
know, and I think, as you said,Aimee, it has so much to do with
(18:16):
flexibility with not getting stuckat either end of that spectrum and
also not shutting our emotions down.
You know, you, you alluded to this andone of the things I often hear from
patients that their biggest concern isnot that they feel depressed or anxious,
but that their mood is flat or blunted
(18:37):
Yes.
And that sometimes happenswith me from medications too,
Right.
Which I usually interpret asbeing on too high of a dose.
But that's sort of a bigger discussion.
But, but the point is that feelingnumb might be better for a little while
than being overwhelmed by something,some negative emotion, but it is
(19:00):
just not a good or satisfyingway to live for very long.
So how how we stay connected to ouremotions and also flexible with them?
I keep coming back to this 'causeit's such a key for our inner
lives and that is attention.
(19:21):
Yeah.
So here's a really quick way totry to bring yourself back to the
moment and to pay attention to bewith whatever it is you're feeling.
And it involves asking yourselfjust two simple questions.
And I, I have a, a memory, a vague memoryof, kind of learning this from a book
(19:46):
which name might come to me... Um, theone thing holding you back, which is
to not be in tune with your emotions.
So anyway, here are the two
questions.
First, what am I feeling right now?
Simple question.
Just what am I feeling right now?
(20:06):
Not what was I feeling yesterdayor years ago when something
bad happened, but right now.
So you ask yourself that question,what am I feeling right now?
And then just tune in to yourmidsection, your chest or your belly,
and see what's happening there.
Second question, can I be with it?
(20:30):
Can I just stay with whatever I'm feelingright now, at least for a little while?
So notice there is no need to change it.
You're not trying to suppress it.
You don't need to speed it along soyou can get on to the next thing.
You just sit with it, notice it,experience it, and see where it takes you.
(20:53):
And you will almost alwaysfind that you can be with it.
And if you can't, if the feeling is toostrong in that moment, that is okay.
Just be honest about it and set itaside consciously, on purpose, until
you are ready or until the intensityof the feeling has subsided in, at
(21:16):
least in my view, that is not thesame as stuffing your emotions.
It's not avoidance, it's just honoringwhat you need at that moment, which is
more time, more spaciousness, and you cancome back to it whenever you're ready.
Mm. I love that.
Yeah, we can be present and whenthe storms come, we can practice
(21:40):
and we can practice again andagain to get better at this.
so I, I think I wanna close us withsome wisdom from Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
This is an excerpt from herpoem, The Winds of Fate.
When she talks about our sales, Ithink that's, she's talking about,
when we get into it, you'll understand,hopefully, that's our choice here,
(22:01):
our practice, our resilience.
So here it is, " One ship sails eastand another west by the self same winds
that blow 'tis, the set of the sails andnot the gales that tells the way we go."
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
(22:21):
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
about the full Joy Lab program.
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
(22:42):
and treatment from a medical professional.
Please consult your doctor orother qualified health professional
before beginning any diet change,supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:25):
Hello, I'm Henry Emmonsand welcome to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
So we are talking aboutresilience this month.
It is our Element of Joy here at thepodcast and the program, and we've been
talking about stuff that can depleteour resilience in a lot of ways.
We got into rumination in episode 205.
(00:50):
Uh, we talked about busynesslast episode, or time poverty,
and today we're talking about
emotional inertia, whichis kind of a weird term.
So let me explain.
Emotional inertia describes how wemight get into a state where our
emotions stay the same over time,regardless of what's happening.
(01:15):
So if someone has high emotional inertia,their emotions don't change easily.
They can feel stuck in these emotions.
And it's hard to adapt, right?
To move into a different emotion.
On the flip side, low emotional inertiameans emotions shift more easily.
(01:36):
So they're more responsive to not just,not just what's happening around us,
actually, I think this is important,but what we try to regulate them, we can
move through them and not get stuck quiteso easily with low emotional inertia.
So we wanna be on that lower end.
High emotional inertia is associatedwith depression, lower wellbeing,
(02:00):
and also subclinical depression.
We talked about that a few episodes ago.
I'll link to that in the show notes.
So there are a few really important thingsto kind of pick apart here to help us.
First, it may seem like emotionalinertia is just like an Eeyore kind of
state, like we just completely bland.
(02:22):
Uh, but it's not necessarilyabout the kind of state
we're in, depressed or happy.
It's that we're stuck there.
I think that's the key.
The emotion keeps cycling evenwhen the environment is queuing
us to respond differently.
Um, that's the inertia.
It really suggests that this emotionis like just powered by itself
(02:46):
and there's no force to stop it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kinda like a, a weatherfront that refuses to move.
Out of the area
and it, Yeah.
think this is a very interestingconcept and I, I wonder if it ties
in with the idea idea of homeostasis,which comes more out of the, out of
(03:10):
physiology rather than psychology.
But, but basically itmeans something similar,
I think, that, that once a steady state isreached, it tends to stay right as it is.
So unless something kind of dramaticor a lot of energy comes in to
change the way that things are, itwill just stay the way that it is.
(03:35):
So, it's always a little bit hard toget one's mind around this, because
whether we consider the state to begood or bad, it's still hard to change.
So
you might be in a, you know, sort ofa unhealthy or negative homeostasis
but it's, it's hard to move out of it.
(03:57):
It's kind of still stuck there.
Mm
So,
I think this happens in almostall of nature organisms.
You know, it plays out in a lotof ways within the human body.
And so I think within.
Any complex system, theretends to be kind of a natural
built-in resistance to change.
(04:20):
Now, this can really be hard tounderstand, I think, when it comes
to emotions, because if we'restuck in a lower than average mood,
why would we wanna stay there?
It makes no sense.
I do think that most of us tendto have a sort of baseline mood.
Some people call it anemotional set point.
(04:42):
I don't wanna make too much out of that'cause I, I think it's, it's a more fluid
concept than it sounds, but, but I dothink that that's something worth noting.
And, and what is it thatcreates that set point?
I do think genetics play a role here,but a lot of this is learned or comes
(05:03):
from our external environment, you might
say that it, it's conditioned.
So our growing up years I think areparticularly important for creating this
sort of set point our, our baseline moodbecause we're just learning and growing
so quickly and it's a period in our liveswhen we are just so strongly molded and
(05:24):
influenced by parents, teachers, youknow, society, everything around us.
We're just kind of very plastic,if you will, very moldable.
But the
truth is it doesn't stop in childhood.
It's always happening.
We're always being conditioned and we arepracticing and reinforcing these patterns,
whether we're aware of it or not.
(05:47):
So I think that this is especiallyimportant for folks who have struggled
with something like anxiety or depression.
And one reason I think it's importantis because whatever their baseline
mood was before they had theirfirst episode, let's say, it was
not enough to prevent the illness.
(06:09):
Something broke through.
And so I think, you know, our treatment,when I look at how we treat these
conditions, usually treatment isintended just to get people back to
their baseline and then kind of stop.
And that could be fine for somepeople that's enough, but I think it's
(06:29):
really important to try to keep goingand push through the, the built-in
resistance to change in order totry to move that baseline up a bit.
And this is actually how I see whatwe're doing in Joy Lab, I think that
our underlying purpose is to createthese upward spirals or at least try
(06:53):
to, so that we can train ourselves,condition ourselves, if you will, to
move that baseline to a higher level, nomatter what point we are starting from.
Yes, we should do anotherepisode on emotional set points.
I absolutely agree.
I look at, just an aside here, I looked atsome of my old journals when I was little.
(07:16):
I was a dark and depressed little being.
An example (07:19):
like so my emotional set point, I really think genetically also,
you know, um, modeled to me is, is low.
Um, in sixth grade we hadto choose a poem to recite.
Everybody was doing Shel Silverstein,Dr. Seuss, do you wanna know what I did?
Yes, I do.
(07:40):
Edgar Allen Poe,
The Raven.
And I remember it.
I was just so, I felt so seen andI recited it, and I just remember
seeing all of these kids justbeing like, what is happening?
So, um,
Do you remember what the teacher did?
I, I would assume there wasa call home to the parent.
(08:05):
I mean, it was just kind of, I thinkeverybody was a little surprised.
So I get it, like, if you feel likeyou're there, but I, the, the thing I
wanna say is that I don't think it's set.
I think it might be, you know,it might be a little stubborn,
but there is movement because I
am not there.
I am not there anymore.
So, I'll pivot here, but we, I, I wannacome back to that on another episode.
(08:29):
So I think we've, we've talkedabout this, back to kind of your
last point here about, care too.
We've talked about this unfortunate andcommon interpretation of mental health as
like just existing, uh, to the baselinereference you made, Henry, like you
have mental health if you don't havea diagnosable mental health disorder.
(08:49):
Uh huh.
Just the lack of diagnosis is the goal.
Yeah.
which
is super depressing.
We can, we can raise that set point.
We can raise that baseline.
I know it to be true.
We can experience so much more than that.
So, and there's a, a recentepisode that we talked about a
(09:11):
little bit of, that flexibility.
What resilience really is that we areinclined, this is our natural state.
I will link that in the show notes.
The other thing I think that's reallyinteresting is that emotional inertia is
not the opposite of emotional variability.
This is subtle, but Ithink it's important.
So if you have high emotional variability,then you'll move quickly and intensely
(09:36):
--intensely, key point here--from one emotion to the other.
And a frequent pattern of highemotional variability is associated
with higher levels of depression,neuroticism, lower self-esteem and
other negative wellbeing outcomes.
It sounds like the opposite, but we allprobably know someone who, or we are that
(09:59):
person who might overreact to a situation,just kind of blow up for a moment.
And then here's the inertia part.
We may get stuck there fortoo long, holding onto that.
So too long may not be asuper long time either.
Just too long in such a way thatwe've blocked other emotions.
We're not adapting or interacting withthe world around us after that event.
(10:23):
So we can have highvariability and high inertia.
Kind of extreme mood swings that westay in too long, but then we swing back
again in a big way and get stuck again.
I think the point here is that weare really looking for that resilient
state where our emotions aremaking sense with the environment.
(10:46):
So we just finished up our, Elementof Joy last month, equanimity,
and that's kind of the dance,
um, that we talked about there as well,so that we can respond to our inner
and outer environments in healthy ways.
So I wanna, I wanna say something,about that concept of high, high
(11:06):
emotional variability and high inertia.
'cause I, to me this is, I'm gonna tryto describe what I think is growth, at
least for me ' cause I, I am, I thinkI am that high variability type person.
I'm very sensitive you might say.
My, my, my parents used to alwaystell me I was too sensitive
(11:28):
God.
Yep.
and I, and I, I, I still am.
and so people can, I'm sure can relateto this, you know, when something throws
you off, let's just say it that way,it throws you off emotionally you're in
a, a bad mood of, of whatever shape orsize that is, but it, but it just stays
(11:50):
with you for a long period of time.
So for me, growth is that itdoesn't stay with me as long.
I still, I still, have that,you know, emotional variability.
I'm still sensitive, I still reactto things, although it probably
takes more to set off a reaction.
But, the, the real change that I'venoticed is that it doesn't last as long.
(12:12):
It don't, doesn't get,I don't get stuck there.
I'll go there and if I do some thingsthat I think will, will come and talk
about later, um, if I practice thosethings, it might not last long at all.
It might
still happen, and then it justkind of goes right through.
So I think that what we're talkingabout now is sometimes referred to
(12:33):
as emotional reactivity as well.
And
when it, when it's at the extreme,the, the mood can just seem
like it's on a hair trigger.
You know, it changes dramaticallyfrom one moment to the next.
Usually that's in response to something.
Some kind of external stress,but sometimes the trigger
(12:55):
is so mild that the Yeah.
that emotional reaction justseems all out of proportion.
and there are times where you justcannot identify a trigger at all.
It just seems as though the, in thatinstance, the person is just stuck
in a pattern of mood instability.
(13:16):
Hmm.
So when you were talking about this kindof, this dance of equanimity, I was,
I, I am thinking about the middle way,which we talk about often, and I believe
that most aspects of mental health, ifyou were to, to really kind of lay them
out that they exist on a spectrum, acontinuum, and strong emotional inertia
(13:41):
would be on one end of the spectrum andhigh emotional variability on the other.
Now, generally speaking, we don't wantto live at either end of the spectrum.
We want to try to move somewhere intothe middle 'cause either of those
extremes can just deplete our resilience.
(14:03):
Being too emotionallyreactive is just exhausting.
Both for the person who hasthat, but also kind of for
everyone, everybody around them.
And then having too much of that emotionalinertia being stuck in in a certain place.
It just leaves a person so vulnerableto something like depression and there
(14:25):
just aren't enough reserves in theemotional bank account to be able to
deal with something big that comesalong, a big stress or loss or, or
even a, just a change in one's life.
I think one of the other downsides tobeing on one extreme or the other of
the spectrum is that you, you are losingthe value that emotions offer to us.
(14:52):
Because you know, whether they'regood or bad, whether we've
experienced them as positive ornegative or somewhere in between.
Genuine emotions are a gold mine.
We don't want to shut them down, but wealso don't want to let them run our lives.
What we do want, I think, is tohave access to them, and we want to
(15:18):
develop the skill, the ability toallow our emotions to move through
us rather than getting stuck.
I think if we can do that and paysome attention to them, there is a
ton of really valuable informationthat they can give us to help guide
our lives, and also just to helpus feel more vital, more alive.
(15:42):
Yeah, This is making me think of a,a term from researcher Dr. Jonathan
Rottenberg, I think first coined it, it'scalled emotion context insensitivity.
it's actually a hypothesis of depression.
The idea is that, when we are experiencingdepression particularly, major depressive
(16:02):
disorder, we are less reactive to bothpositive stimuli and negative stimuli.
We're dull.
We don't see or feel the good stuff,
um, but we actually don't see orfeel the bad stuff very well either.
It's so, it's like our antennaaren't picking stuff up.
(16:23):
We're disconnected.
We may feel more empty than negative.
Actually, if you've haddepression, you might agree.
It's the disconnection, it's emptiness.
It's not necessarily a negativity.
This is a debated hypothesis.
There's some researchers would saythat depressed folks are more tuned
into the negative, more reactive to it.
There's not clarity though.
(16:44):
I like this interpretation though.
I think it, it resonates particularlyhere when we're talking about how we
can wake up to see all of what is.
Um, you know, we can get out of ourheads, also about how we're feeling.
So, you know, we're not feelingbad about feeling bad all the time.
We're not feeling bad about feelinggood or bad, about not feeling good.
(17:07):
But whether, like you said, Henry,you're, you're feeling good or
bad isn't necessarily the problem.
It has to do with the flexibility to move.
And are you in tune withthe environment around you?
I like that.
It reminds me that I can be present withthe environment, I can get out of my
head, get out of past regrets or futureworries and just pay attention to the now.
(17:31):
That's what we can do.
We can sync our emotionsup with what's around us.
And if they get too high or low toyour point earlier, we can practice
regulating those emotions so thatwe're not wound up or depleted by them.
and I like that.
The solution then is less about fixingthe emotions and more about connecting
(17:54):
with the world, with the people aroundme, getting my antenna reawakened.
And when I do that, that connectionwill support my resilience.
It will support my emotions.
We can all do that.
Yes.
And we can all learn how to connectdirectly with our emotions, you
know, and I think, as you said,Aimee, it has so much to do with
(18:16):
flexibility with not getting stuckat either end of that spectrum and
also not shutting our emotions down.
You know, you, you alluded to this andone of the things I often hear from
patients that their biggest concern isnot that they feel depressed or anxious,
but that their mood is flat or blunted
(18:37):
Yes.
And that sometimes happenswith me from medications too,
Right.
Which I usually interpret asbeing on too high of a dose.
But that's sort of a bigger discussion.
But, but the point is that feelingnumb might be better for a little while
than being overwhelmed by something,some negative emotion, but it is
(19:00):
just not a good or satisfyingway to live for very long.
So how how we stay connected to ouremotions and also flexible with them?
I keep coming back to this 'causeit's such a key for our inner
lives and that is attention.
(19:21):
Yeah.
So here's a really quick way totry to bring yourself back to the
moment and to pay attention to bewith whatever it is you're feeling.
And it involves asking yourselfjust two simple questions.
And I, I have a, a memory, a vague memoryof, kind of learning this from a book
(19:46):
which name might come to me... Um, theone thing holding you back, which is
to not be in tune with your emotions.
So anyway, here are the two
questions.
First, what am I feeling right now?
Simple question.
Just what am I feeling right now?
(20:06):
Not what was I feeling yesterdayor years ago when something
bad happened, but right now.
So you ask yourself that question,what am I feeling right now?
And then just tune in to yourmidsection, your chest or your belly,
and see what's happening there.
Second question, can I be with it?
(20:30):
Can I just stay with whatever I'm feelingright now, at least for a little while?
So notice there is no need to change it.
You're not trying to suppress it.
You don't need to speed it along soyou can get on to the next thing.
You just sit with it, notice it,experience it, and see where it takes you.
(20:53):
And you will almost alwaysfind that you can be with it.
And if you can't, if the feeling is toostrong in that moment, that is okay.
Just be honest about it and set itaside consciously, on purpose, until
you are ready or until the intensityof the feeling has subsided in, at
(21:16):
least in my view, that is not thesame as stuffing your emotions.
It's not avoidance, it's just honoringwhat you need at that moment, which is
more time, more spaciousness, and you cancome back to it whenever you're ready.
Mm. I love that.
Yeah, we can be present and whenthe storms come, we can practice
(21:40):
and we can practice again andagain to get better at this.
so I, I think I wanna close us withsome wisdom from Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
This is an excerpt from herpoem, The Winds of Fate.
When she talks about our sales, Ithink that's, she's talking about,
when we get into it, you'll understand,hopefully, that's our choice here,
(22:01):
our practice, our resilience.
So here it is, " One ship sails eastand another west by the self same winds
that blow 'tis, the set of the sails andnot the gales that tells the way we go."
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
(22:21):
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
about the full Joy Lab program.
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
(22:42):
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