13: Why Positive Emotions Can Feel Uncomfortable (And How to Let Them Flow)

Have you ever noticed that feeling good can sometimes feel... uncomfortable? In today’s episode, we’re diving into why high-vibration emotions like joy, excitement, and peace can trigger unease or even self-sabotage. I’m sharing how our nervous systems react to positive feelings, why they feel unsafe at times, and how we can cultivate a solid sense of stability to embrace all emotions without fear or attachment. Plus, I’ll introduce a powerful concept from the Vedas that’s helped me navigate this emotional rollercoaster with grace. Tune in for some deep insights and practical tools to start allowing joy and peace into your life—without the fear of losing them. See you in there! 

Transcript

You didn't come here to simply survive. You came here to thrive. To reconnect and to remember who you truly are.

Welcome to the Return to Her podcast, where we uncover the knowledge that empowers us and discover the wisdom that's always been inside! Here, we blend spiritual insights, modern psychology, and embodied wellness practices to help us realign all aspects of our being—body, mind, and soul. This is where science meets spirituality, and true wellness becomes our way of life.

I'm Cassie Dalton, yoga teacher, energy worker, holistic coach, and intuitive guide. While I'm still walking my own wellness and spiritual path, my mission now is to walk beside you as you return home to your most authentic and empowered self. Now is the time to return to her.

The content shared in this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a qualified professional for any personal health or wellness concerns.

All right, now let's dive into today's episode.

Hello. Welcome back to Return to Her. If you're joining me for the first time, I am so glad that you have found your way to this space. It is all about helping you reconnect with your true self, your inner peace, and of course, your divine nature. For those of you who have been with me for a while, welcome back.

I'm so happy that you keep showing up week after week. And by the way, if you guys hear my rooster outside crowing, um, that's just an added little bonus for today's episode.

I've got my doors open because it's such a beautiful day today, so the sounds of the birds and my brand-new gigantic wind chime that my husband gifted me for my birthday. And of course, no backyard soundscape is complete without my rooster and chickens making their noises in the background. So, if you get a snippet of any of that, I'm so happy for you.

If not, I think this microphone might be really good at dampening some of those background noises, so we'll see.

Okay, so if you've been listening for the last couple of episodes, we've been talking about emotions. In episode 10, we talked about how all of our emotions, even those challenging ones, are really giving us an opportunity to return home to ourselves, to realign with who we truly are, to return to love. And it's about recognizing that every emotion, whether it feels good or bad, is part of the sacred process of remembering our true essence.

We were specifically focusing on the lower-frequency, the heavier-feeling emotions, talking about how it is helpful to allow those emotions to move through you, because emotions are simply energy in motion. And we can even learn to see them as guides or teachers that are here to deliver a message or teach us a lesson or remind us of something.

So instead of holding on or pushing away, just allowing them to move. And we talked about some strategies to help you do that.

So today we're going to go in a different direction with emotions, and we're going to talk specifically about a challenge that many of my clients and I have had in the past and continue to struggle with sometimes, and that is allowing ourselves to also experience those high-vibe emotions. What happens when we move into those lighter, more positive emotions like joy and happiness, excitement? And you might actually find those feelings, those emotions, as challenging, if not more so, than the heavier ones.

And that sounds strange, right? But I feel like some of you are probably nodding your head right now. So we want to feel happy. We want to feel light and free and joyful. But for many of us, those emotions can feel just as uncomfortable. And it's not because we don't want to feel them, it's because we simply aren't used to them.

They don't feel safe to us because they might not be as familiar as some of the feelings and emotions that we've had in the past. So we're used to feeling a little bit off or a little bad or some discomfort. And when we start to feel really good, it's almost like this subtle unease or fear creeps in, alarming our nervous system that something is wrong.

It's like our nervous system and our ego don't recognize that the lighter feelings are actually safe, and we start to feel unsettled. Like those good feelings might be a threat to our survival in some way, either literally or figuratively. And it's in that discomfort that we often will self-sabotage as a way of pushing away those high-vibe emotions before we really experience them.

Because again, something within us feels that they're actually dangerous rather than safe. So this is where we come back to the root chakra. And this chakra, it is at the base of the spine—that's the energy center. It's the one that connects us solidly to our human bodies and to this earth. And, uh, if you remember a few episodes ago when we talked about this, the root chakra, it is all about safety and grounding.

It's stability. When this energy center is out of balance, and it gets really out of balance for us, the way that we're living in our society today, it can make us feel anxious and insecure. It can make us feel really unsteady in our life. Uh, it can make us think that things are always about to fall apart, even though there is no evidence for that.

And this fear of instability is often what keeps us from fully allowing ourselves to experience the positive emotions, to feel comfortable allowing joy, peace, and excitement into your life. So in order to feel those positive, quote-unquote positive emotions, you have to have this sense of safety and stability in your own body and in the present moment.

This means getting grounded, getting rooted in the knowing that it's okay to experience all of these different emotions that flow through us. Um, it's okay to experience peace and joy and love without worrying that you're going to lose them. And that's how you start to release the tension around feeling good.

When you create that solid foundation of safety and security from your root chakra up, your system can handle both the highs and the lows with much more ease. That's why I love yoga so much. Practices like yoga and meditation, mindfulness, and of course Reiki—I'm all about it—those are crucial because they support the root chakra.

And help to reestablish this feeling of safety and stability in your own body. Yoga, with its focus on breath and grounded movement, helps you connect with your body in the present moment. It connects you to the earth beneath your feet, beneath your sits bones, supporting you. At the end, when we lie in Shavasana and really surrender into the support that's always holding us, it helps you feel more present and secure, not only while you're in the practice but once you get up and leave. Meditation also cultivates this sense of stillness and mindfulness. It teaches you to come back to center no matter what is happening around you. You always know how to return home to yourself.

And like I said, Reiki—it is energy healing. It's energy work. It works to clear blockages and bring balance to the whole system, which allows you to release fear and anxiety while also promoting a deep sense of peace and calm. And these practices are, for me at least, the bedrock of stability, both in my own life and in the work that I offer to my clients because they help create this foundation of peace that supports your emotional and energetic well-being, allowing you to move through life with more balance, more trust, more confidence.

So coming back to the point, low-vibration, low-frequency emotions will come and go because emotions are energy in motion, constantly wanting to flow. The high-vibration emotions are the same—they come and go. And that's okay.

We can't push them away, and we can't hold onto them, because when we try to do either of those things, we are creating suffering. It is so easy to get attached to the feeling of joy and happiness and try to hold onto it, afraid it'll slip away, and that means you've already lost it.

Maybe you had this experience. I used to have this often, especially when I was working full-time as a teacher. And we would be able to go on vacation over spring break or over fall break, and a few days into the vacation, I would already start to mourn the fact that the vacation is going to be over soon.

So I was having such a good time. I was feeling so relaxed, so joyful, heart so open, and then I would get the recognition or the fear would creep in that, "This is not gonna last for very much longer. And I'm gonna have to go back to feeling the way that I'm used to feeling."

And by thinking like that, I actually invited that shift in. I no longer enjoyed the rest of the vacation because I was already mourning its loss. And I think that happens to us a lot more than we realize. You're enjoying a moment of connection with someone, and suddenly a fear creeps in where you get kind of tight, and you realize that this moment is going to pass.

And then because you got tight, the moment shifted, the emotion moved on away. That thought of losing it creates a sadness or a tightness, and pushes the happiness right on out. The more we try to hold onto these moments, the faster they slip away.

It's like trying to hold water in your hands. It can't be contained. So instead of grasping and clenching, what if we just allowed those moments of joy and peace, love, whatever it is, to be experienced for exactly what it is? Temporary, but beautiful.

So again, we come back to the practice of allowing. Let's allow the joy to be there without that fear or attachment. Let it rise, let it fall. Knowing that nothing is permanent, and that's okay. That's part of the flow of life, and to help you with that, I wanted to bring in a concept that I learned a few years ago in the spiritual tradition that I'm in, and it's really helped me in so many ways.

So this is one of those concepts that my teacher mentions over and over and over again, and it's always the same concept, but it has different applications every time. So I hope that you plant this as a seed in your mind and you allow it to blossom in a way that serves you in your life and your journey.

So the concept that I'm talking about—this is the way my teacher pronounces it—you might hear it other ways through other traditions, but it is Stita Pta, and it comes from the Bhagavad Gita, from the Vedas. It refers to equanimity or balance in the face of all emotions, at least in this iteration of it.

So really, Stita Pta is maintaining your balance regardless of what is going on around you. Today, we're just talking about it from an emotional perspective. So it's about being steady and peaceful, whether you are feeling joy or sadness, excitement or fear. It is like the Buddhists refer to as the middle path, where you're not swinging from one extreme to the other.

You're not letting yourself get pulled into the rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. Think about it this way. If you've ever been on a rollercoaster, you know that that rush can be fun in the moment, but it is also exhausting. Once the ride is over, you're up, you're down, you're up again, and each time it can feel like you're hanging on for dear life.

And that is what happens when we ride the emotional rollercoaster, when we let ourselves be controlled by our feelings and react to our feelings rather than respond to them. So instead of thinking of emotions like a rollercoaster, let's maybe now imagine floating on a lazy river. First of all, I don't know about you guys.

I just turned 40, and the thought of a rollercoaster at this point in my life—I'm done with it. Uh, lazy rivers for me from here on out. So in terms of our emotional experience, choosing to float on the lazy river, there are some small waves here and there, but in general, it's pretty calm, pretty steady, pretty peaceful. You're not being tossed around.

That's what it feels like when you move into a place of equanimity or Stita Pta, where you're not attached to the highs, you're not scared of lows, you're not resisting or trying to hang on to anything. You're just letting yourself float. It is a place of balance where you can feel joy without clinging, sadness without sinking, and you stay steady in the middle.

It doesn't mean that you don't experience the ups and downs of life. Of course, we're human. We're always going to have those. It just means that you're no longer at the mercy of them. You're no longer controlled by them. You just allow them to come and go. And as you practice this, you build a sense of sustainability or resilience in your emotional landscape.

The more you move from reactivity to response, as we've talked about before, the more grounded you feel, no matter what the emotional tide is actually doing.

As we get older, wiser—I'm now 40 years old, I am so wise, I know. Some of my... oh my gosh. So I was, I teach, several of my classes each week. I teach at an active adult... um, gosh, what do I call this place? It's like an active adult retirement community, right? So they have like pickleball and tennis, and they have yoga classes, and my yoga classes are regular yoga, gentle yoga, chair yoga. So I kind of move through different styles of yoga.

But anyway, I was so happy to tell everybody that my birthday was coming up, and I said, "I'm gonna be 40." And one of my most amazing yoga students, she's like an Energizer bunny, she said, "Oh, you're turning 40? I turned 40 about 40 years ago," and then I immediately felt like I was a toddler again. So anyway, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. As we get older and wiser, we start to realize that chasing those emotional highs and avoiding the lows is exhausting, and it's actually damaging to our health. Creating all of that cortisol and adrenaline, and that leads to inflammation. And inflammation is the thing that leads to pretty much every chronic disease.

So when we are just on that rollercoaster, getting tossed here and there, we are not only damaging ourselves from a kind of mental and emotional perspective, but we're also damaging ourselves physically and energetically, and that all leads to spiritual exhaustion as well.

So here is the good news. You don't have to wait until you're older to start practicing this concept of Pta, the middle path, the path of equanimity. It's available to us at any age, whether you're my age, whether you're that yoga student's age, or even if you're just now starting your adulthood, your career. That's even better if you can start to apply this practice of finding Pta to everything that you do, your life just becomes that beautiful, lazy river in a good way.

Really, it's just about learning to respond to life with grace and balance, not to react to what's happening.

When we stop trying to chase the highs or hide from the lows, we step into that space of peace where we can just be with whatever emotions are present, knowing that nothing is permanent, so we don't have to reject or hold onto any of it.

So, as we wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you with this invitation to give yourself permission to feel the high-vibe emotions without fear that something is unsafe. And without attachment, without feeling like you need to hang on to them. Um, they too are here to remind you of your divine nature, your worth, your inner peace, your inner love.

So allow them to come and go as they naturally do. And when they fade, just trust that something else will rise up. You don't have to grasp or hold onto any of it. Just allow yourself to experience it all without judgment or fear. And thank you so much for being here with me today. I am so grateful for each of you, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you. Until next time, dear Divine Souls, remember you are already whole. Everything you need is already within you. The journey is about turning inward and reconnecting to that.

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Namaste, sweet Souls.

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