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Episode 249: Are You Hot Potato-ing Your Emotions?
If you’ve been doing the work – journaling, mindset shifts, emotional processing and still find yourself reacting, overwhelmed, or stuck in the same patterns with money… it can feel confusing.
Because on the surface, you’re doing everything right.
But there’s a subtle pattern that often goes unnoticed: instead of actually feeling our emotions, we learn how to move them, manage them, or make them go away as quickly as possible. And it can look like healing… while still keeping you in survival mode underneath it all.
This episode offers a different perspective, one that isn’t about doing more, fixing yourself, or finding the next tool. It’s about understanding what it really means to feel an emotion safely, and why that changes your relationship with money, decisions, and yourself in a much deeper way.
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You Might Be Avoiding Your Emotions (Even If You’re Doing the Work)
If you’ve been journaling, doing mindset work, or using emotional regulation tools—but still feel stuck in the same patterns… it can feel confusing.
Because on the surface, you’re doing everything right.
You’re aware. You’re trying. You’re putting in the effort.
And yet, something isn’t shifting underneath it all.
There’s a subtle pattern that often goes unnoticed: instead of actually feeling our emotions, we learn how to manage them, move them, or make them go away as quickly as possible. And it can look like healing… while still keeping you in cycles of reactivity, overwhelm, and survival mode—especially with money.
This is where the shift begins.
When “Doing the Work” Isn’t Actually Processing Emotions
Most people in the personal development space have tools.
Journaling. Tapping. Breathwork. Walking. Grounding. Mindset reframes.
And these tools are not the problem.
But the way they’re being used can be.
The subtle shift:
Instead of using these tools to support emotional processing, they become a way to avoid feeling the emotion altogether.
It often sounds like:
- “I just need to clear this quickly”
- “Let me fix this so I can move on”
- “I don’t have time to feel this right now”
So you reach for a tool.
You do something productive.
You move the feeling.
And for a moment—it works.
But underneath, nothing has actually been processed.
The Pattern: “Hot Potato-ing” Your Emotions
This is what we’re calling hot potato-ing your emotions.
An emotion comes up… and instead of holding it, you immediately try to pass it off.
- You journal to get rid of it
- You tap to neutralize it
- You take action to override it
- You distract yourself with productivity
It feels like you’re doing something helpful.
But what’s actually happening is:
You’re moving the emotion instead of feeling it.
And when emotions aren’t fully felt, they don’t disappear.
They stay just under the surface.
Why You Still Feel Stuck (Even With All the Tools)
This is where many entrepreneurs get frustrated.
Because it feels like:
“I’m doing everything… why am I still reacting like this?”
The answer isn’t that you’re doing it wrong.
It’s that the emotion hasn’t actually been processed.
A simple way to understand it:
Imagine your emotional capacity like a cup.
If you’re constantly managing emotions instead of processing them, your cup stays almost full.
So every small trigger:
- Feels bigger than it should
- Creates faster reactions
- Keeps you in survival mode
Even if you’re “doing the work.”
Action Feels Safer Than Feeling
For high-achieving, heart-centered entrepreneurs, this pattern makes sense.
Because action feels safe.
Doing something:
- Creates a sense of control
- Gives a dopamine hit
- Feels productive
Sitting still with an emotion?
That can feel uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Even unsafe.
So your system chooses what feels better in the moment:
→ Do something instead of feel something
Not because you’re avoiding on purpose—but because your nervous system is protecting you.
What Emotional Processing Actually Looks Like
Processing an emotion isn’t about fixing it.
It’s not about making it go away.
And it’s not about doing it perfectly.
It’s much simpler—and often harder—than that.
It looks like:
- Pausing instead of reacting
- Naming what you’re feeling
- Letting the emotion exist without adding meaning
- Allowing yourself to feel it without rushing it away
No fixing.
No forcing.
No performing healing.
Just feeling.
And when an emotion is fully felt, it naturally moves through your body.
Not because you made it—but because you allowed it.
The Missing Piece: Emotional Safety
Most people don’t struggle with tools.
They struggle with feeling safe enough to feel.
Because if your system doesn’t feel safe:
- You’ll rush the process
- You’ll reach for control
- You’ll avoid the depth of the emotion
This is why more tools don’t solve the problem.
Safety does.
And safety is built over time—through small moments of allowing, not forcing.
Why This Matters for Your Relationship With Money
This pattern doesn’t stay in your emotions—it shows up in your finances too.
When emotions aren’t processed:
- Decisions become reactive
- Money feels stressful or overwhelming
- Patterns repeat (even when you “know better”)
Because your nervous system is still operating from survival.
But when you create space to actually feel:
- Your reactions slow down
- Your decisions become grounded
- Your relationship with money starts to stabilize
Not because you did more.
But because you stopped avoiding what was underneath.
Key Takeaways
- You can use all the “right” tools and still be avoiding your emotions
- Emotional avoidance often looks like productivity or healing
- If emotions aren’t fully felt, they stay just under the surface
- Action can feel safer than feeling—but it doesn’t create resolution
- Real emotional processing is simple: pause, feel, allow
- Safety—not more tools—is what creates lasting change
A Gentle Next Step
If this shifted something for you, the next step isn’t to go do more.
It’s to notice.
The next time an emotion comes up, instead of reaching for a tool right away, just pause.
Give yourself a moment.
That alone can begin to change everything.
If you want to go deeper into this work, you can explore more inside the podcast or through my programs at:
👉 https://aimeecerka.com
Or come connect with me on Instagram:
👉 @AimeeCerka
Before You Listen (or Revisit the Episode)
As you move into the full episode or transcript, notice where you tend to shift into doing instead of feeling.
There’s nothing to fix here—just awareness.
Even recognizing this pattern can create more space than you’ve had before.
Below is the full transcript of the episode, where I walk through this in more depth.
What “Hot Potato-ing” Your Emotions Really Means
We’re gonna talk today about what I’m calling hot potato your emotions. So especially if you were somebody who is in the personal development space, but also more of like the spiritual space you’ve got, modalities that you were using.
When emotions come up, feelings come up, all of those things. We have tools in our tool belt, really personal development space in general.
When Healing Tools Become Avoidance
And when we are hot, our hot potato wing, our emotions, what we end up doing is it’s another form of avoidance or, um, fear’s not really the right word, but like we’re still managing to avoid the thing under the disguise that we’re doing what we need to do.
So let’s get into it.
This is Money Simplified, the podcast where I help female entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable with money.
Meet Your Host: Aimee Cerka
Money is more than just budgeting and p and Ls, and we’re gonna take you through all of it here.
We blend proven financial strategy with mindset work and energetic alignment, so you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business and truly enjoy your unstoppable life.
It’s time to take my wisdom and my expertise to help you simplify money and go beyond the numbers.
I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
The Pattern You Don’t Realize You’re In
Welcome back to Money Simplified. and I’m pretty excited to talk about this today because it’s something.
That I think a lot of us are doing and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it. And it’s fun because, well, it’s not fun, but it is fun at the same time.
All right. And I’m calling it hot potato wing your emotions.
The Moment Emotions Start to Rise
Okay. So especially those of us who use different tools, modalities, if you are feeling emotion, we, we can also do this with tactical strategies though, so I don’t wanna give just that example, but.
This is where we are using all of the good tools as an escape mechanism still as opposed to like healing.
A Real Example of Emotional Reactivity
Okay, so if you listen to the last episode, you heard me talk about shame and criticism and I’ll link it for you.
If you haven’t checked that one out, I would listen to that one. But this episode we’re gonna talk about the moment, like when that shows up.
So for example, last week there was stuff going on. I was sitting at my desk working, and all of a sudden I was very much in this like, shame, guilt, like being hard on myself, being critical, going into fear, like, and then like beating myself up for going into fear.
Reaching for Tools Instead of Feeling
Like all of like those crazy emotions.
Okay. And I could feel it coming on and it’s like, well, I, I know what to do, right?
Like I can go tap, I can journal, I can go for a walk, I can go ground outside, like whatever. Like I’ve got the tools in my tool belt, breath work, all the things.
And my instinct there was like, okay, let’s go do this thing.
Disguised Productivity
Let’s go handle this. Let’s go take care of it. But that was hot potato wing, my emotion.
So instead of sitting and actually like feeling the feelings, right? Acknowledging them, feeling them.
It’s like, oh my gosh, I don’t want it, I don’t like it. Like let me get rid of it.
Why We Push Emotions Away
I don’t like it. We’re hot potato with the emotion. Like we catch it and it’s like, oh my gosh, get rid of it.
Like let me go do that so we can do this disguised as productivity.
Let me go reorganize my offer suite. Let me go, um, work on this thing.
The Cycle of Avoidance
Let me go attend this coaching hall and we can jump from thing to thing to thing.
And we do the same thing with those healing modalities that we use, right?
We are not allowing ourselves to actually feel and process that motion without letting it mean anything, without going into the shame.
Why Nothing Is Actually Shifting
Because if we just hot potato it, we deal with it. It goes underground, but it feels productive, right?
Like you’re doing something with it.
You’re doing the things we we’re tapping, you’re doing, somatic movement, or you’re walking, we’re journaling, you’re doing a new strategy, you’re doing a meditation, you’re doing a self-hypnosis.
The Need to “Get Rid of It”
Like all of those things. Is this like, oh my gosh, I can’t feel this.
Like, I’ve gotta get rid of it.
I know. I’ve done that, especially with the EFT tapping, like that’s probably my thing.
Action Feels Safer Than Feeling
It’s like, I don’t wanna feel this. Let me start tapping.
Like, I don’t like this. So it’s like, instead of honoring it, feeling it, recognizing it and releasing it.
It’s like, let me just get through this. I just gotta do it.
The Dopamine of Doing
And really like, it’s a form of protection and especially our overachievers.
Like, hey, there’s a dopamine hit. Like, I’m doing the thing, this is what I need to do.
And action feels safer than just sitting with it.
Your Emotional “Cup” Is Still Full
But we’re not clearing out all of the emotion.
Like, you know, you’ve got this cup and it’s like basically almost overflowing.
You’re sitting like just below the overflow line.
Why You Keep Getting Triggered
So every little thing keeps setting you off and you feel like you’re doing the process.
But it’s not, you’re not clearing the cup out.
It’s just moving a little bit and it’s not actually going anywhere.
The Root Isn’t Being Addressed
Because we’re not getting to the root of it.
It’s just, oh, that feels better because we’re not overflowing.
Now we keep reaching for the tools, but nothing’s shifting.
Still Operating in Survival Mode
Because your cup is still just about to overflow.
Like your money relationship is still in that survival mode.
You’re still reacting.
What If You Just Sat With It?
So what if it’s so much easier said than done.
I’m gonna give you that caveat right now because I know this.
Been there, done that.
A Different Approach to Emotions
It’s like, what if I could just sit with this for a minute?
Just give yourself the space to feel the emotion.
Without beating yourself up, without shaming yourself.
Let Yourself Feel Without Meaning
Just let yourself feel it.
Let yourself cry. Let yourself do whatever it is that you need to do.
Don’t create meaning around it, and just keep going.
Why Strategy Alone Doesn’t Work
This is all of the work that we do inside Money Mastery Academy and the Unstoppable Experience.
Because all of the strategy in the world isn’t gonna work if your cup is still about to overflow.
You’re not gonna feel unstoppable.
Learning How to Actually Feel
Because you just feel like you are reacting to everything.
There’s just this nonstop thing.
But I had to go through the process of learning how to feel my emotions myself.
Feeling vs Showing Emotion
Because I could be crying and not feeling my emotions.
Two different things.
You can show the emotion without letting yourself feel it.
Safety Is the Missing Piece
But you have to feel safe enough to let yourself feel it.
And that’s what takes the programming.
And when we’re going to our tools, which are amazing, and I still use and love my tools.
Why Routines Don’t Always Help
But it’s why I don’t create the hard, fast routines anymore.
Because then we’re just going through the motions.
And getting the dopamine hit from the action.
The Real Shift
As opposed to actually using it in the way that it was designed.
If you can train yourself.
My challenge for you.
Final Reflection
When you just let yourself feel the emotion without all the other stuff.
You just feel the emotion.
It goes away so much faster.
Where to Go Next
All right. And then of course, if you were ready to go deeper, if you’re like, I need support with this.
I’m gonna put the link below in the show notes.
This is the work that we do inside my signature programs.
Stay Connected
All right. That’s what I’ve got for this one.
Remember, you’ve got this and I’ve got you.
We’ll see you next time.
