Transcription
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another podcast episode. My name is Alicia Goen, the host of the Globe Secrets podcast, where I help you expand your mind and become more self-aware so that you can glow up into the best version of yourself.
Hello and happy Sunday and happy new year. It is 2026. I can't believe it. I am so happy that we are all here together once again, listening, growing, evolving, working on ourselves. And today, I want to talk about how to stop the spiral, how to regulate your emotions, and overall, how to be a more emotionally mature person. I think that is a very important thing that we should strive for. At least, that's what I do quite literally every single year. But I can definitely see how much I've matured within my own self when it comes to my emotions and living the life that I've lived. I've had to learn how to regulate and basically kind of like be my own therapist. I found tools that have helped me, and I basically want to talk about that.
If you are somebody who seems to spiral often, and or you feel like your emotions whenever you are triggered, or you are feeling low, or you're feeling a certain type of way, whether it's towards yourself, towards someone else, whatever it is, it kind of feels like you're in that spiral or in that loop for quite a long time, then hopefully this episode will be helpful because I've had many times in my life where I realized just how much I would spiral, spiral, but stay in the spiral, and my day would be ruined, my week would be ruined. I would just feel so disregulated until I learned over the years how to regulate myself and really become more mature. And you guys know, if you've been watching for a while, that I'm not somebody who is very black and white when it comes to emotions. Let's just detach. Let's just suppress. Let's just be mature and just like, you know, not feel your feelings. I'm the opposite. I'm so about feeling your feelings. But there's also a line you kind of need to draw for yourself when it comes to like being somebody who does make room for your emotions, but then realizes like, okay, at some point in your life, you're going to need to get up and move on.
And I was really thinking about this topic the other day, this whole healing trap and feeling like you're always on a healing journey. And the thing is, is you're always going to technically be on a healing journey, 'cause life is always going to trigger you in different ways to basically help you grow. But you'll typically get to a point on your journey where you realize like, I just want to move on with my life. I don't want to be somebody who's constantly having to heal. And when I mean having to heal, when you think of yourself as someone who's constantly having to heal, it's probably because you're in a state of emotional distress, or maybe you're having a lot of problems in your life, or your thoughts are negative. Like, whatever it is, it's like this constant like reaching and trying to figure out how to get out of the thing. And if you're in that constantly, there's probably a few things that could be going on. And I'm using myself as an example. I realized that there was a lot of me staying in this identity of being emotional, or in a spiral, or just triggered all the time, and knowing that, and knowing my problems, and being aware of that, even, and thinking that I was super self-aware, but not actually doing the work that I needed to do in order to get out of that emotional spiral and move on with my life, essentially. And when I mean move on, it's just like move on and like, you know, be somebody who can live your day-to-day life and and be happy and, you know, be joyful and not always be in this emotional state. And then, you know, sometimes when life happens, you get triggered, but then you have those tools and you know how to work through it. And I don't want to say quickly, but kind of like quickly, and then you kind of move on again.
So, I want to talk about, like I said, some of the things that have helped me. And I'll bring it back to a specific moment, probably about a week ago, or like, actually, I think it was this week, where this actually happened. So, I had woken up and I felt pretty okay, but there was a few things like work-wise that was kind of like stressing me out, and it just, it started to get me into this spiral. When one thing kind of disregulates me, and there's like a problem, and I'm trying to fix it, and then I'm not able to really fix it, or I feel like it's a bigger problem than it actually is because it kind of technically was. So, that's overwhelming me now. And now I'm feeling like my mood is ruined. And now I'm not excited to go and live the rest of my day, whatever the plans were. I don't really remember what I was doing, but I just like felt this annoying energy, this emotional energy, this feeling like life was just not good energy. And I know because I know the tools that work for me, and also, I've done this so many times that if I don't do something about that, then absolutely how I'm feeling right now will affect all the other habits that I want to do, or my mindset, even for the next day. It will affect the way I'm showing up in my relationship. It will just affect everything. And it does not need to be like that.
And I'll do a little side note here. I, like I already said, I'm not somebody who is an advocate for suppressing and not feeling your feelings and or playing them down. Sometimes you go through a period of your life where you're like emotional for a a while because maybe you're healing from like grief or something. Like, I, I had a huge year of dealing with grief and loss. So, I understand the importance of potentially having to go back to emotions and going through a period of time where you're processing a lot. Like, it just feels like your phase of life is very emotional. But it does get to a point where you know you can, if you want, decide that this emotional thing, it's not about putting it down and saying that it doesn't matter, or your feelings are wrong. But you can be somebody who alchemizes your emotions and your feelings and does the things that you need to do in order to get out of it, if you want.
And so when I was feeling the way that I was feeling, I said, "I know the thing that will help me the most." And for me, it's my emotional release practice. Now, this is actually in my four-part guided journal series, which is launched. So many of you guys over the holiday season have already gotten it and been working on it, and I'm just like, so excited for you guys to have breakthroughs and learn the way that I journal. And I'll talk more about it in this episode, but one of the main practices that I made sure to have in there that I'm guiding you guys through is called the emotional release practice. And that is exactly what I did that day when I was feeling really emotionally overwhelmed and getting to the point where I knew that was affecting how I was looking at life and moving through my day. And so I went to my journal and I wrote down all of the things that I was feeling, which was frustration, which was anxiety, which was just like all the things that was just stressing me out. I let that out. And what I was really doing is saying, "Okay, I feel a certain way. How am I going to show up for myself? How am I going to hold myself through this? How am I going to become my own best friend? And how am I going to become my own therapist in this moment and show up for myself instead of being somebody who kind of sits on the sidelines and watches yourself spiral?" 'Cause that's what I used to do. I'd like know that I'm spiraling. I knew that I was feeling a certain way. I would even sometimes let myself go into deeper spirals by like triggering myself even more depending on what it is that I was like doing. But being emotionally mature, I think, is genuinely standing up for yourself and saying, "Okay, I see what's going on here. I'm not pretending like what's going on here doesn't exist, or that I'm even saying it's wrong, but I'm going to stand up and I'm going to say, 'Okay, what do you need in this moment, Alicia?'"
And for me, what's been really helpful is for one, doing my emotional release practice, which is essentially writing out all the things that I'm feeling, all the things that I'm thinking, creating space for myself to actually feel my emotions versus telling myself that I can't or I shouldn't be feeling these things. And typically, what happens is an actual release of this weight that's been on me, and I typically am able to organize my thoughts a lot better and actually be able to think clearly and think in a way that will help me feel a little bit more safe. But that comes after me actually creating space for my emotions. So, if you are somebody who doesn't know how to journal, or you feel like you still don't know like how to do that practice, again, my journal series, that's just one of four different practices that you will be guided through. And I also give you a mini master class of teaching you like exactly why and how I think it's beneficial for you on your healing journey. So again, that will be in the description.
But another thing that I did, which is very, very huge when it comes to you being somebody who stops the spiral and regulates yourself, because you can do a journal practice. You can like tell yourself good thoughts and things like that, but your emotions and the way that you're feeling is also a nervous system thing and also lives in your body. And so doing something physical, whether it's you just getting up and trying to do a new task, or you're going outside, or you are doing movement, or you are dropping the thing that's really affecting you right now and you're going to go do something else. Like doing the act of that really can help you take your not only focus, your mental focus, but your nervous system that's attached to this like dysregulation away, your energy away from the thing that is dysregulating you. After I journaled, I felt, and I'm not saying I felt like 100% ready to take on life, but it took probably about 5 to 10 minutes after doing that journal session that I was able to then, of course, put my focus on something else, the next step, which is like, okay, I need to go do something that's not focusing on this, right? 'Cause it's stressing me out. And for me, I was planning on going to the gym to do a cardio session. So, I put my focus on that for a bit. And within 5 to 10 minutes, I wasn't even thinking about that thing anymore. And I was focused more on the movement. And then when I actually went to the gym and moved my body, I felt so much better. And that's so important when it comes to regulating your emotions. Sometimes we sit in our rooms and we try and think and think and think and think and think and think and we're wondering why we still feel the way that we feel. That's really because we're just becoming aware of the problem, but we're not really doing anything about it. I think being emotionally mature means taking some form of action, right? Like I said, standing up for yourself and saying, "Hey, let's do something about this." Instead of being somebody who says, "Ah, I'm aware. I know myself. I am this. I am that." But not actually doing any sort of action.
Now, everyone's emotional regulation tools will be different. For me, it's heavily been journaling. Like I said, the emotional release, but also doing things like changing my self-talk has been big, too. And I actually found this Pinterest quote that I think really resonates, and it says, "Self-talk for when you're feeling anxious or spiraling." And this is something that I can naturally start writing and doing based off of years of journaling. And you're going to get to this point if you make a journal practice and speaking to yourself a regular thing. So it says, "The feeling is temporary, even if it feels big right now. I can ride the wave instead of fighting it. My body is reacting, but I am safe in this moment. I don't have to believe every anxious thought. That's a really good one. I've survived moments like this before. I can again. Slowing down doesn't mean I'm falling behind. I can ground myself with breath, movement, or stillness. I am not broken. I am doing my best with my nervous system that's trying to protect me. I am not alone in this experience. I don't have to fix everything right now. I can just be." This type of self-talk is going to be the thing that will get you out of the spiral. You have to learn how to speak to yourself in this way because this is the same thing as like you going to a best friend or you going to a therapist, and they're going to be like telling you the same kind of stuff. And that's the thing that kind of regulates yourself. And the truth is, life is going to constantly trigger you in many different ways. And so getting good at doing this yourself. I'm not saying don't go to therapy, or don't go to a friend or family or community. That's actually very, very big. Or put on a podcast. But I think somebody who's emotionally mature can also do this for themselves.
And one of my other practices in my journal series at the end, it's called Loving Voice. I actually guide you through a practice so that you can start to first identify the self-talk that you are currently speaking, and when I say to yourself, it's really to your inner child, and then slowly being guided to think about the things that you could tell yourself that would be supportive and loving to yourself in any situation. If something is overwhelming you, or you think that you can't do it, or this person is annoying you, it's so important that we have that inner dialogue by saying, "Alicia, you can do it. You don't have to figure it out right now. It's going to be okay. Even if it doesn't work out exactly the way you want. This person is, you know, acting the way that they're acting. It has nothing to do with you." Like, whatever it is, you have to learn how to do that for yourself. And you have to become aware of the things that you're currently telling yourself, which is typically not the most helpful inner dialogue.
Now, I want to give you guys maybe a little bit of a reframe that has helped me when it comes to thinking about whether you're emotionally mature or not. Because there's something about if you realize, okay, like quote unquote, you're not emotionally mature, it kind of feels like crap 'cause it's like, oh, like, so I'm immature. Like, who wants to really like be immature? So the way I like to look at it is becoming your own safe space. That feels so much better, in my personal opinion. And if you think back to emotional release or that loving voice, that's what you're doing. You're coming back home to yourself. You're becoming your own safe space. You are allowing yourself to feel your feelings and to think the things that you want to think. But then you're also being like, you know what? I'm going to hold your hand right now, and I'm going to tell you how it's going to be okay, how things are going to work out. I'm going to find the tools and the things that will help us feel a little bit better. Maybe that looks like, like I already said, going outside and moving your body, or going into nature, or going for a workout, or talking to a friend. It could even be creating a new vision for yourself, creating new goals, setting up habits for yourself that you know that will be loving, that will feel good to yourself, whatever that is.
And I actually found another Pinterest quote that said, well, actually, I don't really remember like what the title was, but it basically says all of these points: "Nature is medicine for your nervous system. Laughter is medicine for your nervous system. Naps are medicine for your nervous system. Safe connections are medicine. Deep breathing is medicine. Movement is medicine. Sunlight is medicine. Yoga, journaling space is medicine. Glimmers are medicine for your nervous system. Gratitude is medicine for your nervous system." Creating your own safe space, regulating your emotions, and being somebody who's emotionally mature is really figuring out what are those things that make you feel better. And there's going to be a lot of things. It is going to be the emotional release, the self-talk. Maybe it's going to be a practice of you forgiving yourself and releasing shame, which is also another practice that I have in my series. Maybe it's about letting yourself have that day where you feel like but knowing that you're going to pick yourself back up. Maybe it is disconnecting from this idea that you even need to heal at all and going to live your damn life.
I have a lot of Pinterest quotes today, but I found another one that says, "Maybe the question isn't, how do I heal? Maybe it's, how do I become more alive than I've ever dared to be? Maybe the opposite of trauma isn't healing. Maybe it's presence, pleasure, play, permission." And that to me is true healing. And that to me is also true emotional maturity. Emotional maturity, to me, is realizing that as much as my emotions are real, and things might be hard, and people might be shitty, there is so many more things for me to focus on that I can be grateful for, that I can be happy for, that I could put my attention on, that I do not need to be spending countless hours, days, months, years being stuck in a state that's not going to allow me to live life fully. And so if you are triggered, if you are in a spiral, okay, fine. Show up for yourself. Ask yourself, what am I feeling? What do I need? Write it out. Let it out. Feel it out. And then slowly get out of your head and into your body. And give yourself permission to let go of the thing that has disregulated you.
The last thing I'll probably read from Pinterest says, "Emotional maturity grows as we face our emotions. Take responsibility for our actions. Honor boundaries, ours, and other people's. Practice honesty and vulnerability with self and others. Embrace change. Accept feedback. Make difficult decisions. Value and prioritize our authenticity. Embrace our humanity. Strive for self-awareness. Practice communication. Make space for intimacy. Act and live with intention." Shannon, the reason why I'm reading that out is because becoming emotionally mature is going to be a process. You're not going to just overnight be somebody who just perfectly regulates their emotions and has all the tools that will properly be able to help you get over the situation quick and efficiently and then like back to normal. Sometimes moving my body doesn't work for me, and I genuinely need to bring pen to paper and write my stuff. That's typically the thing that works best for me because I usually live in my head. So, what helps me is letting out all of the clutter, all the chaos, all of the things that I am holding and thinking of first. And then I can typically kind of go out into nature or move my body and things like that. But sometimes me just going outside is the thing that's going to like snap me out of it. And then I can come back, and then maybe I'm journaling, or maybe I just need to hear some sense and logic from my boyfriend or my best friend, and so I just talk to them about it, and it makes me feel so much better, and I don't really even need to do anything else. That is what healing and growing is all about, is understanding that you are dynamic, and life requires you to be somebody who's very adaptable. So if something is not working for you, try something else. Don't sit here and be like, "This thing is not working, and so I'm just going to stay like this." Or, "I don't really know what to do, so I'm just going to become aware of my emotions and allow myself to continue to spiral." Or going in the direction of things that you literally don't want to be in. And I get it. It's challenging because we're addicted to that feeling. We only know that feeling. But the emotionally mature person, the one that creates space and safety for themselves, is going to look at our behaviors and say, "This is not serving us. Us focusing on the thing that's distressing us, us sitting and being aware of how we're feeling, but doing nothing about it. That's not going to help us. Instead, we're going to get up and we're going to try. We're going to show up for ourselves because that's what we do when we are mature."
And dare I say, regulating your emotions and being somebody who's emotionally mature is not rocket science. It honestly is not. It doesn't mean that it won't be work. And it doesn't mean that you won't have to try different tools, techniques, and things. And at first, maybe it will take a while. But take it from somebody who has not known how to regulate her emotions, who has been through many spirals and different phases of her life, just understanding that my emotions are just information. And if I want to feel better, I just need to show up for myself and stand in this maturity and say, "Okay, what do I need? What are the tools that I can find that can support me on this journey?" And then allowing myself permission to let these things go and understand that life is so much bigger than even the feelings that I'm feeling right now. And I can be someone who moves out of this identity into someone who is feeling better about their days. Once I did that, it was quite easy for me to, when I'm having a bad day, do the things that I needed to do and move on. I don't live in constant spirals. And this is coming from somebody who has been anxiously attached. I have been going through grief. I'm not anxiously attached now, but I've had many seasons of being anxiously attached, whether it was towards a parent, but also in relationships. There has been times where I felt deeply depressed, or angry, or sad, or confused in life, going through grief, going through hardship. I have gone through all of those things, and I've still been able to be somebody who's moved on and has created a life where there's been many moments and many times where I've been happy and I've lived out my dream life because I've given myself permission to be like, I don't need to constantly be in this identity of somebody who needs to heal all the time, or somebody who doesn't know how to regulate their emotions.
So anyways, I just wanted to send this message to you guys that for one, it almost is not really rocket science. Just find things that help you feel better. Whether it's self-talk, journaling, moving your body, whatever it is, and understand that those things can be the things that make you feel better. You don't need to like continuously try to find more things or spend thousands of dollars on constantly like going to therapy and talking to someone over and over and over and over and over again. I'm not saying therapy is not the right move. I've done so much therapy, and I think it's really good, and especially if you like don't know how to navigate things. Absolutely. But I'm just saying like, there's other ways that you can regulate and be somebody who's like emotionally mature. And I'm saying this because I just felt like for many years, I was always like seeking something outside of myself when really all I needed to do was come home to myself and understand why I'm doing certain habits, behaviors, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? And letting that out. Like giving myself space to let that out. Forgiving myself and releasing the shame and guilt that I'm constantly always going over and over and over again. Like letting that go. And also learning how to talk to myself nicely. What do I need to tell myself to make myself feel better about this day? But whatever it is, find that thing and do it consistently. And like I said, the second part of me doing any sort of mental processing is usually movement. And it doesn't always have to be like an actual workout. Sometimes it's just going outside for a walk, or letting something go for a moment and putting my focus on something else, or talking to a friend, or seeing a friend, or getting excited about a new routine, a habit, a goal, watching a YouTube, like, whatever it is. Is like, just do the things that you need to do. It does not need to be this deep, and you don't need to do it perfectly.
Now, if journaling is something that you want to use as a way to regulate and release some pent-up emotions and show up for yourself and become your own safe space in the sense of just understanding yourself better, then my journal series might just be for you. It is not in replace of therapy, but it has changed many lives, and it has changed myself as well. This series is digital. So, all you'll need is a pen and a paper, or your journal, your favorite journal, whatever it is, it does not matter. It does not need to be perfect. I give you all the information in the introduction. And then you have four practices. You'll have a basically an intro video, which is kind of like a mini master class again, speaking about where this came from, why I use it, how I use it. And then the second part of each practice is you actually following it's technically like a guided meditation visualization. And throughout each practice, there will be different short bursts of writing sessions that you'll be able to write based off of the prompt that I'm giving you. So, it'll just be like meditation, music playing, and then you can write. And if you needed more time, you can also just like pause the video. So, everything will be guided, and again, I will explain everything before you get into the practice. And then the last part of each practice, you will get a PDF little journal prompt series. I call it a return practice. So, if you didn't want to go through the practices again, you can just take that PDF and whatever day you're feeling, oh, I want to work on my emotions and do emotional release, or I want to work on my inner conversations, which is kind of like a play on parts work and understanding maybe why you're doing a certain habit or self-sabotage, or you want to release yourself from shame or guilt that you've been like, you know, clearly holding on to. You cross a boundary with yourself and you want to release yourself from it, or working on your self-talk. You can just go to those prompts, open up your journal, and start writing from there. And then, of course, my hope for you is to be able to do that on your own.
Now, you can do one practice every Sunday for the next four weeks. You could do four days in a row. You can use one practice for a month. And then, you know, okay, now I feel like it's time that I want to learn how to speak to myself more lovingly. Whatever it is, you can start wherever. You're going to have those practices forever. So many of you guys have already been loving it. This is something that I use all the time, guys. The reason why I picked these four is because I realized there was typically a cycle that I would go through when it comes to journaling. I don't always do the same thing when I'm journaling. Sometimes I feel a lot of emotions, or like I need to release something, and so I basically ask myself like, what am I feeling today? And then it's more of that emotional release, and I just needed to get it out. Sometimes I realize like I'm feeling very negative about myself or about something, and I need to switch that, and so I'm doing more of that loving voice practice. Sometimes I'm doing a certain habit that I don't want to be doing, and I want to change that. So I need to understand why I'm doing it and where that's coming from and how to work with myself. Or I've done something that I'm kind of harping on and thinking about it too much, and I really want to release that. I want to forgive myself. And that's where I do a practice of shame shifting and self-forgiveness. And I found I was going through that cycle of practices when it came to my emotional world. And those were the practices that made me feel the best and made me feel mature and confident to go through life. And anytime that I felt that I was getting triggered, anytime that things were just like feeling off, I would go to those practices and I would feel better. So that is why I created that series. There's a few other practices that I definitely have when it comes to more positive thinking and things like that that I definitely will come out with, but I think that that lays a groundwork for being somebody who is confident within themselves when it comes to thinking about being their own safe space. I've had many seasons of my life where I couldn't go to therapy, or I didn't have people to help me regulate, or even if I was going through the therapy. Dude, you could be triggered on a day-to-day basis. How is it you're going to deal with those triggers? Well, something that I've learned is doing things like journaling. And even within my journal practice, I started to become aware of the things that would help me and make me feel better. Whether it was certain affirmations, or it was, okay, you know what, now I feel excited and motivated to go to the gym, or I need to go out into nature, or I need to talk to a friend, or I just need to like process something. Whatever it is, that definitely helped me as well.
If you have any more questions, of course, you can leave them in the comments. You can ask me, you can DM me on Instagram, whatever it is. And in general, I hope this episode helped. And also, I guess the last thing I'll say is sometimes you might still feel emotional. You might feel annoyed, frustrated, or triggered, but do the thing anyways. Go outside anyways. Go take a shower anyways. Go clean up your space anyways. Go talk to your friends and go connect out in life anyways. Sometimes you doing those things are going to be the actual key for you to feel better instead of you sitting here waiting for the day that you're going to feel better so that you can go do those things. That's typically not how healing works and not how life works. So if you are waiting, if you're sitting here just like thinking up the way that you're going to feel better, don't. Okay? Do some of the things that you need to do, and then go on with your life, and you will feel so much better.
So with that said, that's all I'm going to say. Happy new year. If you are wanting to make a vision board for the new year, I am going to be, it should be up by now, having a video on vision boarding and goal setting and things like that for the new year. I'm very much so excited for that. But I'm also understanding that January is January, still, guys. Like, we don't need to rush. We need to work on slow habits, building routines, slow everything, but very intentional. Also, if you're interested in that content as well, I'll have some videos on my second channel, my vlog channel as well. Don't forget to subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. And also, don't forget that I do have my podcast available on audio, on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to your audio podcasts. And with that said, I'll see you in the next one. Bye.