Aug. 8, 2024

Frost or Face: Managing Your Tough Emotions

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Episode Summary:

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

Key Points:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quotes:

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

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

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

Timeline:

00:00 Introduction to Gratitude and Emotions

01:22 Understanding Toxic Positivity

02:07 Personal Experience and Emotional Processing

02:52 Turning Negative Emotions into Positive Outcomes

04:51 Examining and Reinterpreting Emotions

06:27 Changing Expectations and Emotional Recipes

09:50 Final Thoughts and Viewer Interaction

Connect with Kim:
Website: https://www.kimkorte.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekimkorte/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thekimkorte/

Purchase her book on Amazon

Visit FlavorsofEmotions.com for more information and to leave feedback or topic suggestions.

Thank you so much for listening to my show!

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

01:22:20 - Understanding Toxic Positivity

02:07:20 - Personal Experience and Emotional Processing

02:52:20 - Turning Negative Emotions into Positive Outcomes

04:51:20 - Examining and Reinterpreting Emotions

06:27:20 - Changing Expectations and Emotional Recipes

09:50:20 - Final Thoughts

Transcript

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The other day, I was talking to this gentleman and we got on the topic of gratitude.

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And he said to me, gratitude is like poop on a turd.

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I was kind of taken back because I had heard of lipstick on a pig.

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but not poop on a turd.

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It also was a little intriguing to me because what am I about?

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Emotions.

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And he's talking about food and turds like it's food.

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So it got me to thinking, is that the right thing to do?

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Should we be frosting these stinky, nasty emotions that really are unappetizing with frosting or some sweet feeling?

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To frost or not to frost?

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That is the question when it comes to our stinky emotions.

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This is Flavors of Emotions, expanding your emotional palate for a tastier life.

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My name is Kim Korte.

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Together, we explore how to make sense of our feelings through the lens of a chef, understanding flavors in a recipe.

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I am here to help you refine your emotional palate to differentiate the emotions that shape your world.

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What we're talking about is toxic positivity.

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You may have heard that term before, but that's when we try and be positive or have those sweet, savory emotions.

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And I'm going to say in this case, a sweet emotion to cover up the ones that are really stinky.

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And I think that we've all been handed emotional piles of, poop in our lives.

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And if you haven't, Bless you.

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And I hope it never happens, but when it does, do we try and cover it up with sweet feelings?

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Is it wrong to do that?

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Well, I'm going to say yes and no, and here's the yes part.

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So the yes part is if we have these bad experiences.

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that we either push down or put a nice frosting on, the body still wants to have you experience it, you know, to acknowledge it.

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And I can tell you this because In my own experience, I've tried to put frosting on bad situations, even with my ex husband who hurt me terribly.

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I was really, really determined to not hate him.

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And for a long time, it kept me from processing a lot of emotions that I needed to, to feel, and eventually they did come out.

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When I am offering as an alternative to putting the frosting on the turd is turning the turd into frosting.

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And what I mean by that is do something like what I did, do some introspection, do some, some work on yourself to say, Hey, what was my role in this whole situation?

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Cause trust me, while, I didn't do the cheating and I didn't, you know, do the things that he did, I still played a role in that whole situation because at the end of the day, I picked him as my partner.

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And I also ignored warning signs.

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And I've talked about the problems with willful blindness in other episodes of my podcast.

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And I will continue to talk about willful blindness every opportunity I can, because that is not even putting frosting on the turd that's saying there's no turd at all.

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And that's even worse in my opinion.

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So taking the turd that you're given the emotional, just pile of crap and turning it into something that's more palatable.

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That's something that you can use in the future.

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If you can look at your responsibility in the whole situation, because trust me, I had responsibility in my divorce, it's going to help you in the future to avoid these piles.

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So instead of just stepping in them, so to speak, cause you know, we got to use this metaphor as many ways as we can, or having emotional constipation by not even acknowledging the excrement before you, we can do something if we're proactive with that situation and keep ourselves from stepping in it in the future.

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But before all that, before any of that happens, I think it's a good idea to question, is this really a turd in the first place?

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You may encounter a situation where it's looking like a turd.

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It's got the shape.

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It has the color.

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But upon closer examination, it's not.

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It's actually like a piece of dark chocolate.

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Emotionally, you know, we're all talking about emotions here.

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So let's make sure we're on track that this is not literal turds and literal chocolate.

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But my point is, is that we get our emotions wrong.

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And if we can take a moment or two and give closer examination to the situation.

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It might not be what we are expecting it to be.

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And the fact is, if you have a history of having, you know, stinky experiences, and especially by particular persons or types of people, or, you know what I'm saying, certain situations, you've historically said, Oh, this always is going to turn out this way.

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It's probably going to turn out that way.

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So if you take a closer look at it, you might go, Oh, that's not what it is.

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And so my feelings aren't shitty.

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This isn't a turd.

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And the digestion process of that emotion is vastly different.

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That's the goal.

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That's the goal of my book.

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That's the goal of my podcast, that we are more consciously examining situations as they arise, the emotions that we feel, especially the ones that are on the bigger side and seemingly stinky, to look at them closer.

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We think our emotions are always right, and they're not.

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They're a prediction by the brain, and our brain will predict more or less what we expect.

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So it's about changing your expectations, developing more curiosity, and looking at situations as they arise for what they are.

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More so than what they appear to be.

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It doesn't take long.

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It's not a long process for you to take in more of a situation and I always like to say especially negative situations.

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It's like putting a blinder on and you are limiting your field of vision literally and emotionally, I'm saying this because your brain is focusing on what you prioritize, what your past experiences are.

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So when you can be conscious and engage consciously, more curiosity, even if you're cautiously looking around cause you're a little bit nervous about the whole thing, you can still change that emotion because you are able to recognize it for what it really is and not what you expect it to be.

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Expectations have a lot to do with how we feel and what are our expectations based on?

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Our beliefs, how we were raised experiences in life, what we've learned, all of these things make up what I call the emotion recipes that we cook up second by second.

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Next time a stinky situation comes your way, check to make sure, is it a turd or is it something else?

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After that process, whatever that emotion is, however long it takes you, it could be quick.

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It could take you a little bit.

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Digest it.

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If you don't digest your emotions, it's that emotional constipation I talked about.

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It's It, it just sits in you and is waiting for you to, to pass it for lack of a better term.

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Frosting it should be what comes afterwards, meaning we can take the situation and turn it into frosting, do something good, make a change in our own lives, take responsibility for our part in that situation.

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It's one of the worst things people want to hear, but it's really what gives us the most benefit from any feeling that we get.

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It changes how we experience life in the future.

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Otherwise, We just keep experiencing what we expect.

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And lastly, I do think it's okay sometimes to put a little bit of frosting on a situation.

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As long as you acknowledge, not everything has to be turned into frosting.

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Sometimes frosting's okay.

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It it's saying, Hey, the situation is an ideal.

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But it could be worse and I, you know, I, I could be living in a war torn country right now and I'm not.

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And so it's helping me to see and focus on the good that I have in life, not just the bad.

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Tell me what you think.

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Do you think that what I said is the way to go, or do you have another thought?

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I would love to hear back from you.

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If you go to FlavorsofEmotions.com, there's an area for you to leave me a message.

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And you can also say, Hey, I'd love for you to talk about this topic.

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I want to talk about what you want to hear.

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So any interaction I get from you makes me joyful.

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Well, this has been fun.

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Hasn't it?

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Talking about turds.

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If you enjoyed this conversation, please like and share and tell other people about my podcast.

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If not, I appreciate it that you made it this far.

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Take care.

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And we will talk to you next time on Flavors of Emotions.

Frost or Face: Managing Your Tough Emotions

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