As women in business, we’ve often felt the stigma that showing emotions = weakness. With the emergence of so many powerful women in leadership roles both in corporate settings as well as entrepreneurial roles, it’s time to lay that stigma to rest.
There’s a new era of businesswomen – and they’re not afraid to show their emotions. Which is why Kristen is speaking with fellow author and business owner Neeta Bhushan. Neeta’s new book That Sucked. Now What? focuses on emotional growth and how to find the magic within the chaos that is life.
Here are a few key notes you won’t want to miss:
- Neeta’s story of hitting rock bottom – a cautionary tale, so you don’t have to
- How refusing to feel emotions can keep you from healing
- Importance of removing judgment
- Why people-pleasing can hold you back from emotional growth
- Lessons we can learn from toddlers and their emotional outbursts
As Neeta says, it’s the greatest liberation – to feel our feelings. When you dumb down your emotional responses, you’re doing yourself a great disservice. Give yourself permission to work through those feelings. Embrace them – and use them as a guide to get to the next level.
Neeta’s new book, That Sucked. Now What?, Is on shelves now! To get your copy, go to: thatsuckednowwhat.com and be sure to pick up your bonus companion guide! You can also follow Neeta on Instagram: @neetabhushan
Don’t miss out on the in-person social selling event of the year! Announcing the Rising Leader Summit, April 14-15, 2023, in Denver, CO. The LIVE EVENT that has historically been exclusive to 6-7 figure earners is now AVAILABLE to anyone who is hungry and willing and desires to step into higher levels of leadership. Go to kristenboss.com/rise to register today.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Transcript for Episode #151 That Sucked. Now What? with Neeta Bhushan:
Kristen Boss (00:03): You listening to the Kristen Boss Podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a bestselling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week, I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning.
Kristen Boss (00:57): Hey, bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I have a special guest and friend, Dr. Neeta Bhushan here with me today to talk about her new book That sucked Now, and if that title doesn’t sell you ongoing and getting it, this conversation will, and I am very excited about the topic of this conversation because if you’ve been following my platform over the last, I don’t know, six months, I’ve been talking a lot about mental health and emotional resilience. That’s a huge point in talking about business. And I eventually made my own pivot with my podcast. I’m like, I don’t want to talk just about social selling anymore. This is actually about the holistic view of the person. And so I could talk marketing all day long, but what really lights my fire is emotional resilience. And Dr. Neeta is giving such a gift to the world with this book that is now out with this podcast at the time of recording.
Kristen Boss (01:49): It’s going to be launched tomorrow. But when you are listening to this, just do yourself a favor. Put pause, go to Amazon or your local bookstore and go get the book, because I know that this is going to be an amazing conversation. I’m so glad you’re here, friend. You ready to go? Oh my gosh, I’m so excited, Kristin. Wow. We’re here. We’re doing it. We’re here. We’re here. So your book that sucked now, how to Embrace the Joy and Chaos and Find Magic in the Mess. First of all, I love the honesty of just that topic and acknowledging, yeah, things are going to suck. This is the mess. And you talk a lot about how to not do, I love this term, emotional per perfectionism and this idea of talk positivity and being an emotionally healthy person. So tell me what led you to writing this book? Why this book?
Neeta Bhushan (02:36): Well, yeah, because I was toxically positive growing up, and I’ve had a lot of stock moments, and I feel like just a lot of us kind of building our businesses and going through the shit storms of life, I think that was literally the, pretty much the first half of my life. I had to grow up early. At years old. I became a caretaker to my mom who got very ill. And that literally would change my full trajectory. And coming from, my parents were immigrants. My dad was from India, my mom was from the Philippines. So we were culturally ambiguous growing up. And I grew up in the city of Chicago. And so at 10 yeah, it was definitely weird to be the oldest of three. There was three of us, and I had two younger brothers. And I’m supporting my dad. I’m supporting my dad in and in being that emotional support for him, because as a Punjabi father, they’re taught you got to be stoic.
Neeta Bhushan (03:42): And my mom, she comes from a lineage of pageant queens, literally my grandmother, my great-grandmother they all had this idea of emotional perfectionism, which is really the idea that we have to only present a certain way. And the biggest analogy, if you’ve ever seen the show Marvelous, Mrs. Maisel, I don’t know it was out on Netflix anyways, but it’s like you’re quintessential Martha Stewart, everything is perfect. Or the women in the fifties where it’s like, oh, yes darling, I’ve got your clothing all wrapped up in, everything is done and the house is picture perfect and couldn’t be just everything is perfect and I’m feeling great. And let alone on the inside, you’re like, holy shit, I don’t even know if I’m feeling okay today. Nothing went right today. Like, yeah, I’m on the verge of a freaking mental breakdown. But you’re presenting to the world as, oh my gosh, everything’s great.
Neeta Bhushan (04:41): And we know these people. I was one of those people. In fact, I grew up seeing that as normal in my life. And so to then go through some of the hardest moments of seeing my mom succumb to her battle with breast cancer because it then ended up spreading to her lungs. And she lost that battle when I was 16. And then a year later I would lose my brother to an asthma attack just suddenly. Oh man. And this was almost a year after my mom died. And then if that wasn’t hard enough two years after that, my dad would be diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. So really tough moments of pain, heartache, what the f? How is this my life? And I mean really hard. There was moments where I had to work three jobs just to support my younger brother. So literally losing pretty much all of my family before I was 19 years old.
Neeta Bhushan (05:40): I got into my twenties thinking like, all right, I’m not going to let anybody feel bad for me. I am going to overachieve overperform. And just having the mantra on the back of my head, nobody feel bad for us because that’s what my dad and my mom would want. They were tiger parents. I mean, they focused on education, they focused on legacy. They focused on pride. And so I did what anybody in my shoes would do, become a dentist. Medicine was not my thing, but I became a dentist. I became a cosmetic dentist, and I literally shoved all of those hard, deep, agonizing, horrific emotions underneath the rug in the back closet underneath my mattress. I didn’t want anybody to see that I could potentially be broken because what would that mean about me? Would that mean that I’m not worthy of their friendship? Would that mean that I’m not worthy to be their dentist?
Neeta Bhushan (06:40): I grew my first seven figure business before I was 29. I got married, I had all of these fancy things. I thought I actually made it. And on December 31st, 2011, literally I came crashing down. I hit a wall. I recognized I was just in a very unhealthy, toxic relationship where my life was threatened and I had to make fast moves to get out. And so they say, you don’t really, when you hit rock bottom, you hit rock bottom, but you don’t actually make a choice until things get really bad. Well, for me, and I write about this in the book, cause I have a five step process around it now so that you all don’t have to go through that. But during that time, it was, all right, am I going to stay in this or am I going to go? And I had to make that tough decision to actually leave.
Neeta Bhushan (07:36): But that would mean that I had to be brave and courageous to actually look at where in my life was I trying to hold it together so much that I was bursting at the seams because I was trying to make everything feel so perfect, especially the emotional perfectionism of I’m fine, everything’s okay. It could have been worse. Oh, it could have been far worse. I could have been on the street. And so I think we bypass that, especially as high achievers. Yes, especially as overachievers, especially as people who do the work and the self-reflection, you know, are really good leaders. And we just bypass all of those hardships. And while, yes, I actually did overcome a lot, the pieces would be unraveling in all of the ways when I hit my breaking point, and that was December 31st, 2011, I had to let people in. I literally, I remember going in, and you guys would appreciate this, but I remember going into my dental office, I owned the building, I owned the whole dental office at the time in the building.
Neeta Bhushan (08:48): And the team, I had three doctors, seven people working with me, hygienists, assistance, et cetera. And I remember everyone was working in their little, what you would call their cubicle or their operatory, and patients had suction in their mouth. And I was having a panic attack because I’m like, oh my God, I have all of this stuff from my house in my S U V in the back of my fancy truck, and I’m going in this office. Why do I feel like I am a fraud? I feel like such an imposter right now. And I couldn’t take it. I brought everyone in and they’re like, why are you calling us in here? And I said, I just blurted it out. I didn’t know how. I said, I’m going through the toughest times of my life. I just left my house and I’m in just such fear and I have all of this anxiety and I know that I just don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few months if some of you are worried about paychecks in this.
Neeta Bhushan (09:44): I just don’t know. And I fully broke down. It was dry heaving. Oh yeah. Just letting it all out. And I was so embarrassed. So, but that sense of relief of, okay, I can be judged in this moment. I can feel seen, but you, I’m just letting it all out because I can’t hold it in anymore. And that is literally what the lightning bulb was. And that’s what shifted my relationships, how I led my teams, how I led with vulnerability. It was the one skill that would then take me all the way to Silicon Valley. But in that moment, it shifted so much in the way that I operated and allowed people to fully see me for my humanity.
Kristen Boss (10:30): That is such a powerful story. And you speak so well about this. I think a lot of people have this fear of letting themselves feel because there is this idea of if I let myself feel, I won’t be able to get myself out of it. What if I feel this way forever and it doesn’t last forever? But that’s part of our fear with allowing space for our feelings and feeling our feelings. And I have a say in what we don’t feel we refuse to heal. And so all of those things that you were stuffing down, it was like keeping you from your healing, from really stepping into the whole version of you. And it would make sense why it would make sense why you had a panic attack. Because it’s almost like your nervous system was like, we cannot contain this for another day. We are going to unload. It needs to explode. It’s going come out. Yeah.
Neeta Bhushan (11:30): You can have perfect teeth, but it needs to come out.
Kristen Boss (11:34): Your teeth are really perfect. I just keep looking, keep talking. Your mouth is beautiful.
Neeta Bhushan (11:42): Oh my gosh. Part of my healing was part, part, my healing was taking improv to make fun of the perfection of my teeth.
Kristen Boss (11:50): Wait, really?
Neeta Bhushan (11:51): Oh yeah. It literally it. It probably was a month later that I broke down to this team. And that’s what I’m saying. It’s like saying yes to these imperfect moments because things that are so low where you know, have a couple of these dark nights of the soul, your hero’s journey where you’re questioning everything and you’re kind of like, why am I doing this? I had some of my greatest months in the first months of me sharing my divorce and things were so busy. And when you’re going through really tough times, you’re just going to be tested in so many ways. And I was like, I just need to put this, I need to just go away somewhere where so much of it was actually, can you take over for me?
Neeta Bhushan (12:39): Can you cover for me? It’s asking people to show up for you. Yes. So that you can take that space. And I think to your point about fear, we’re so afraid of being stuck in the suck, which of course I talk about in part two of the book, but it’s also being seen and maybe even being judged, or at least that was my experience of it, and maybe even getting taken advantage of in your vulnerability. Because I know when I’ve spoken to leaders, that’s kind of why they have this stoic Yes. And leaders from our parents’ generation, they never let anybody in because my family always said, you don’t tell anybody your secrets. And now on social, we’re long form posts, everything that we’re going through in live telling our deepest, darkest secrets. And then we freak out when nobody’s liking it or watching it.
Kristen Boss (13:33): It’s the complete opposite. Or what we call, we suffer from. I don’t know about you, but when I do something intensely vulnerable, I get a vulnerability hangover that lasts me a little while. I’m like, oh, I’m going to go nap. Woo woo. I just kind of want to hide. But there is something really powerful about just letting our humanity be seen and acknowledging our own humanity. And it’s like, there’s two things that happens when you let yourself in that moment and you’re like, I’m just going to tell people what’s going on is first you opened yourself up to, people might judge what I’m thinking or saying right now, but actually the first person you had to reconcile not judging was yourself being like, I’m not going to judge myself in this moment for having this deeply intense human moment where I am acknowledging I am not okay.
Kristen Boss (14:23): And I actually think it’s that sometimes some of the most brave things we can say. I know for me last year there was an incident that came up and it was incredibly brave. I know for me, and incredibly vulnerable and terrifying for me to actually say out loud to someone I cared about who was asking me, Hey, are you okay? And for my response to actually be, no, I’m not. Yeah, yeah, I’m not. And I noticed we have to get out of, I noticed I wanted to tell them, but I will be, oh no, but I’m fine. But it’s almost like I’m trying to rescue them out of the discomfort that they might feel about my discomfort and being like, no, no, no, no. What if I can trust the person I’m telling this to has the capacity to hold my humanness in this moment, instead of me trying to placate them and be like, I’m just going to soften this so that it’s my pain isn’t awkward for you.
Kristen Boss (15:11): And that takes extraordinary vulnerability.
Neeta Bhushan (15:15): We do that so much. We placate so much.
Kristen Boss (15:19): Especially as women.
Neeta Bhushan (15:19): Especially as women. And I mean it’s, it’s as stigmatized. It’s socialized, especially when you think of breaking down in front of your colleagues if you work in corporate. That was kind of a big thing for a lot of women. Like, oh, I don’t want to be deemed as emotional or sensitive if I can’t take feedback or, because I have big emotions. And that’s the whole kind of mentality that we’ve grown up to think that, oh, I’m sorry, I’m not actually crying. I’m actually not crying right now.
Kristen Boss (15:56): No, no, I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t know why I’m crying. We won’t even let ourselves cry. It’s like we’re judging ourselves.
Neeta Bhushan (16:03): We’re judging ourselves, and we’re trying to placate. And please, it’s the people pleasing thing with other people to see where their discomfort is in the fact that they are not unsure, they’re unsure of how to hold that space.
Neeta Bhushan (16:21): And actually, one of the things that I talk about is how to actually stretch your emotional capacity to feel and not apologize for you breaking down. And I would hold my tears back so much. And there just came a time, and it literally happened when I actually stepped foot into motherhood where again, I had another one of these evolution for me to step into this next level of myself of like, oh, wow, I can’t hold all of these emotions in because wow, I am feeling the most joyous joy of having my son, but I’m terrified AF. Am I going to be a good mom for him? Am I all of these things of just threads from some of the things that were still kind of unprocessed for me in losing my own parents? And how am I going to bring this kid up that was coming in and I just had to sit with the discomfort and the pain and the leaning into, well, what does that really mean?
Neeta Bhushan (17:31): Well, what part of myself was suppressed that I actually thought that I had to be a certain way. And it shifted my whole world around being able to sit with a discomfort and actually, can you stretch yourself to lean into that difficult conversation or tell somebody, actually, I really love our relationship, but right now I can’t be that friend for you and I need you to know I love you so much, but I just can’t do it. Instead of saying, yeah, I’m going to do, yeah, I’m going to do X, Y, and Z and over commit and overcome, commit and overcome it until we burn out. And then we’re not showing up for anybody, not even ourselves.
Kristen Boss (18:12): Sometimes I wonder now I am not, I’m going to here, here’s my disclaimer, I’m not a psychiatrist, nor am I a licensed therapist. I do think some of the reason why us women suffer such intense anxiety is because we are walking around bottling up so, so much.
Kristen Boss (18:31): And our nervous system is the, it’s almost like the threshold. We cannot handle it anymore. And we’re just trying to appease everyone else. And well, I don’t want this outburst or this feeling, I have to cause you discomfort or whatever I can do. Our people pleasing goes everywhere. And we wonder why we walk around with such intense anxiety, not like, because we’re not even honoring our human experience. We’re like, bottle it up, bottle it up. And I just remember a specific example for me. I was working with my therapist and we went away on an intensive retreat and she’s like, I think you have a lot of bottled up emotions. I’m like, I don’t know. She’s like, no, I think you haven’t bottled up. I was like, and so we went away and we had to do this exercise where she handed me this plastic bat and she’s like, I want you to beat the absolute shit out of the couch.
Kristen Boss (19:18): And I was like, she’s like, we couldn’t break plates where we were, but she’s like, I want you to just she’s, and I want to hear you shout and I want to hear it from your gut. And at first I felt so uncomfortable because I felt like, oh, I don’t want her to feel awkward with me shouting and screaming. So I noticed the first hit on the couch, she was like, come on. No, I was. And I was like, oh, but you’re watching me. I was so wrapped up in her experience of my emotional experience, I wasn’t even allowing myself to have it. And then eventually, thankfully, thankfully, about two minutes, and next thing I know, I’m in tunnel vision and I am just going ballistic on this couch and just screaming and shouting and I could feel it from my gut. And it was most it was hard, but it was the most freeing experience.
Kristen Boss (20:05): And she said, and it lasted for a good five minutes. And she timed me and she said, I just want you to know that while that may have felt like eternity for you is only five minutes, that’s what your body needed to let go of. And it was very powerful for me because again, we walk around being like, well, if I let myself feel, how long will it last? Will I be in this feeling for forever or this place of emotional stuck? But we met metabolize and process emotion. People don’t know that. And if we don’t metabolize it, we store it. And then we walk around these bottled up beans and that so rigid, a panic attack or have a meltdown in the middle of our offices or at our jobs. But what she said to me, she’s all of the intensity of that emotion.
Kristen Boss (20:46): She’s like, that is what you have been carrying around for a long time. And for me, that’s when I realized I’m an intensely feeling human and it’s to deny myself the human experience, because I’m afraid of somebody else’s perception of that, or my own perception of myself. And you even talk about this in your book, you talk about how our upbringing shapes us and all of those things. And it’s learning to be our own best emotional advocates through, as what my therapist calls it, we learn to compassionately parent ourselves. Oh yes. Where it’s like when my daughter, and I’m sure you do this too with your kids, with my daughter, I’m learning that when she’s having an intense emotional experience to not try and tell her, stop feeling that that’s being ridiculous or whatever, it’s she needs to be held. She needs to be like, Hey, what do you want?
Kristen Boss (21:33): What do you need right now? Do you need a hug from mommy? Do you want some alone time? And she’s just learning to be with herself and us creating that. And then we need to do that for ourselves, being like, what do I need? Do I need like, oh, I’m going to hold myself, or I’m going to listen to this. I’m going to take a nap. So I also think it’s important for people to know this is a skill that takes practice. You’re not going to suddenly decide to become emotionally aware one day and feel feelings and be like, wow, I’m good at this now.
Neeta Bhushan (22:00): Absolutely. And I think, honestly, I mean, the greatest lesson has been motherhood and honestly, that now how to embrace the joy and chaos and find magic and the mess that was birthed as I entered motherhood, as I found love again and got together with my co-pilot A, but I think when you fast forward into, oh wow, you’re actually seeing this two-year-old wail and cry and throw themselves on the floor.
Neeta Bhushan (22:28): If you’ve ever spent time with a toddler or seen a screaming baby on a plane, which I used to be that person when I didn’t have kids, I would judge those parents. And then I became one, and I’m like, all right, I’m the one that A, actually really allows my kid to scream and have his moment. And I’m the one that gets scared and I’m fully okay with that. But it took a very long time to get there. And I think to your point of just reparenting ourselves, I talk about in part two of the book, in strengthening your bounce factor, we need to be okay with also those uncomfortable feelings. But in order to be okay with the uncomfortable feelings, we’ve got to actually take personal responsibility and build what I call your RSA, your radical self-awareness as to, okay, if I’m reacting because I see somebody else crying or I see case in point, our toddlers having their big moment.
Neeta Bhushan (23:25): And it took a really long time. And I would then, because my amazing in-laws are from India, and my aunt bonus mom, she’s also from India, and she’ll say, she would hear my son at two years old crying because he wants a piece of candy or a cookie or something sweet or whatever toy from grocery store that we weren’t going to buy. And she, she’d be like, okay, the shushing. Yes. And I’m like, oh my gosh. I’m like, yeah. I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m getting triggered right now because I feel like she’s saying that to me. And so then our nervous system goes in reaction mode, but it’s like, wait a minute, their emotional reaction, because their prefrontal cortex is not formed. They don’t know how to emotionally regulate. They are going to fully express, but guess what? That’s only going to last. That lasts about five minutes and maybe up to 20 minutes.
Neeta Bhushan (24:19): But they’re kicking, screaming, moving, having their little rage practice, getting it all out. And then many times, my son’s just like, okay, mama, I love you. And that was it.
Kristen Boss (24:30): Yes, same. My daughter will have her moment and just we need to let her have it. And usually when she’s, but understanding again, that prefrontal cortex is not developed and they don’t have this, the tools available to sit there with logic and be make a compassionate inquiry with their brain and be like, I wonder why I’m thinking this. I’m wondering why I’m feeling this. No, they’re just thinking all that’s happening is their monkey brain, their primal brain has just taken over and there’s like something is triggered here, whether it’s a sense of belonging, a sense of safety, a sense of all of those things. It’s like, okay, what’s happening now? Is this how they’re throwing their body around?
Kristen Boss (25:06): They’re regulating their nervous system. They’re actually metabolizing emotion, and that’s actually a beautiful thing. So, but we don’t let ourselves do that as adults. We’re just keep it buttoned up, keep it together. And so again, a therapist handing me this plastic bat telling me to go to town with a couch, it just felt very like, this is so not appropriate. And she’s like, oh, this is so appropriate. This is so appropriate. Exactly what’s needed. This is called medicine. And sure enough, it was amazing.
Neeta Bhushan (25:37): So it’s so good. I mean, it really, if we can, and I talk about a few emotional release practices that we kind of go through throughout the book, but it’s also inviting you to figure out how could you create that safe space for yourself or whoever’s listening yes to this if you wanted to actually try that and take it on for yourself when you’re going through these really big, intense emotions.
Neeta Bhushan (26:04): Because it is the greatest liberation when we can allow ourselves to fully express and feel. And I think going back to your point around placating the other person and dimming down or dumbing down our feelings, diminishing them or stuffing them simply because it’s not the right time. And honestly, I have to say what I’m loving, because we didn’t get that. I feel like we kind of grew up in the same time, but we didn’t get that growing up. And now I see all of these talkers, fully emote fully. And some people say they’ve taken it too far, but I think, Hey, you’re giving permission for people to actually feel their feels and record it. Yes. And all of the things, I mean, the results of all of that is a different conversation, but just the permission that people are recording themselves doing that, I think is so it, we’ve come a long way. We really have. We’ve come a long way.
Kristen Boss (27:02): I have the exact same thoughts. I’m just watching on social media. I’m like, wow, these conversations that our generation, these millennial, us millennials are having millennials, us millennials, I mean, I love us. We’re great right now. I’m like, but this, we’re so great. We’re so great. I, I don’t know what X and the next one, or not Gen X, sorry, gen Z, whatever. My kids, whatever generation, I wonder what they’re going to say about us and be like, oh my God, our parents are going to say, our parents were so cringe living out their feelings on the internet for the world to see. And we’re going to be like, and you’re welcome. And you have so much emotional freedom in your life. Because we went first, we went first. Yeah, we went first. And it’s fine. But I think I, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation because I do think there is a turn of the tide happening.
Kristen Boss (27:51): I do think our generation has noticed what happens when you bottle it up and you stay stoic. And it’s so interesting. I would say up until probably two years ago, I would tell you I was not a big feeler. I’d be like, I’m not a feeler. I’m not a really emotional person. But I realized that that was, somebody else had handed that story to me that I took on as at a very young age, you are not emotional. You’re right. I’m not emotional. Or I was told emotions made me illogical and irrational, and therefore, once I wasn’t emotional, I was worthy. Whatever I had to say, only then was it worth considering. But if there was any emotion attached to what I was presenting, it was immediately dismissed. And so I took the story, if nothing is worth saying, if it’s laced with emotion, because that can’t be trusted, and you must present everything with logic.
Kristen Boss (28:43): And I was literally just robbing myself of so much in my life, and then I realized, oh, I am. And for anybody else in the audience that’s listening and they’re like, I’m not a feeler. I’m not a big feeler. I would argue that you are. You’re just feeling not in your body. You’re feeling through things. It’s like, that’s why I’m shopping.
Neeta Bhushan (28:59): Well, it’s that. I was was just going to say it’s that masculine way of like. Think about the patriarchy. And I feel like my dad, when you’re just saying that, I’m like, oh my God, that was my dad saying that to me. You can’t have emotion lace. That’s such a dad thing to say. But for them to even be growing up, I’m sure their parents were like, well, boys don’t cry. Boys don’t cry.
Neeta Bhushan (29:25): So it’s got to be factual. Otherwise you’re not smart and you can’t come up with an argument. And I think just we are kind of really in this kind of uprising of reconciling how much as women we bring to the table in our leadership in really that vulnerability. But we’ve got to be able to feel the feels in order to have that empathy, have that greater capacity to understand what somebody else is going through, and to not just be stoic when they’re saying, well, I can’t get whatever done because I’m going through this really big crisis. Or to actually for us, be able to acknowledge it for ourselves. I mean, that’s just the unlearning and the un patterning. So I love what you just shared about that and absolutely challenging the non feelers to tap into what’s.
Kristen Boss (30:18): Yeah, I’m like, oh, you’re feeling, you’re just feeling either with food, alcohol, scrolling, you’re feeling somewhere in your life, it just might not be in your body the way that we are designed to feel and metabolize emotion.
Kristen Boss (30:31): And so oftentimes go catching back to my therapist, she’s like, oftentimes we’re grabbing the bottle, grabbing the food, grabbing the phone, because we are running away from some feeling that would arise to when we’re sitting in stillness. And oftentimes the feeling is some form of judgment, some form of shame of what we didn’t do right today. And as moms, we are the epitome of constantly holding this mental inventory of all the things I think I should be doing and should be doing it well, should be doing it with excellence and should do all the things like women, we are pretty terrible with shoulding ourselves to death. And we wonder why again. And we’re just, if we’re not reconciling that, we’re just creating so much judgment and so much, and then we’re creating this emotional experience. It’s like this is this idea where I’m loving that you’re saying how to embrace joy in the chaos and magic and the mess.
Kristen Boss (31:27): Because last I checked, life is messy and chaotic 90% of the time. And my audience, they’re business builders, my audience, they are looking to build side hustles and make some money online. And what’s happening is, what I’ve noticed is when life especially an emotionally intense experience comes up, the business gets the back burner. They’re constantly, I’ll build my dreams another day because this life experience is knocking me out instead of, how can I hold space for myself? And this is why learning to feel and grow your emotional capacity is so important. And you talk about this in your book, and I think it’s huge because my audience does ask. They’re like, well, how do I grow my emotional capacity? It’s like, well, learning to hold space for yourself, learning to feel, because if you don’t, every inconvenience of li in life is going to knock you out of the ring.
Kristen Boss (32:15): And your business and your dreams will continually take the back burner because you’re going to feel knocked on your butt every time you have an emotional experience.
Neeta Bhushan (32:21): Constantly. Constant. And it would be that constant invitation for sure. And I feel like you’ve hit the nail on the head really talking about as we grow, that it grows everything else. Around us, our relationships, the way we make decisions, the way we kind of second guess ourself or really trust our gut, our intuition, and to really say yes to some of those projects and feel into, well, do I really want to do that right now? Or is it because I’m really good at that? Or is it because somebody else told me once upon a time that I should be doing that? Or is it because I’m looking outside and my blinders aren’t really on and I want to be kind of like that person, so I’m going to follow what they’re doing instead of figuring out what I really want.
Neeta Bhushan (33:08): And so to really grow and anchor in your emotional capacity to feel and be really solid in that for yourself, that’s all the juice and the magic in That Sucked. Now what?
Kristen Boss (33:24): Oh, friend, I love this. This was such a good conversation. I can’t wait for everybody to read your book because this is a conversation that is timely. It’s timeless as well. It’s timely and it’s timeless. And I’m so thankful that you have put your words to paper to bless people. And I know my audience is going to love this because I talk a lot about emotional health and emotional resilience all the time, but I feel like this is really going to give them the tools and the tactics to be like, okay, but, and I’m going to be like, great read. That Sucked. Now What? By my friend Dr. Neeta. So thank you so much for being on the show. If my people want to find out more about you where, tell them where they can find you.
Neeta Bhushan (34:02): Oh my goodness. Okay. Well you can go ahead grab the book. Thatsuckednowwhat.com, because it actually comes with your 44 page guide. Literally. I’m actually.
Kristen Boss (34:13): My people love printed books. You don’t even know my people love printed books.
Neeta Bhushan (34:17): It’s just, it’s all color coded and it’s just magically done to go even deeper in a lot of the topics that we were talking about today to actually build your emotional release practice to embrace the suckiness but not get stuck in it. And we also give you a five day healing guide. So to actually start repairing some of those relationships in the form of affirmations, meditations, visualizations, to actually see that, but really anchor it back into yourself. And then you can find me at Instagram. I’m constantly over there, that’s my jam. Neetabhushan on IG. Everywhere else as well, YouTube, LinkedIn.
Kristen Boss (34:56): Love it. My people will find you. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Neeta Bhushan (35:00): Oh my gosh, Kristen, it’s so amazing. I am so, so excited. I can’t wait for us to record on.
Kristen Boss (35:06): I know. I’m going to be on your podcast soon, so awesome. Great. Part two. All right, thanks.
Kristen Boss (35:22): That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to kristenboss.com.
