Are you sacrificing your emotional well-being for the benefit of others so much that you don’t have enough left in the tank for yourself? Have you mastered the art of masking your feelings for the sake of your own sanity, your ability to function, or even just to appear stable? The gift of reclaiming your heart is PRICELESS. If you are able to connect with your PAIN, then you will also be able to connect with JOY, FULFILLMENT, and HAPPINESS! This is the BIGGEST emotion we ALL chase! I know you all are going to enjoy hearing from my guest today. With over 300 million video views, this emotional healing coach, comedian, author, speaker, and world traveler is about to open your mind and UNLOCK your ability to lead a more meaningful life. He is one of my favorite people to listen to and one of the ONLY life coaches I know that can use humor to help others become the next best version of themselves. I’m thrilled to bring JP Sears to The Ed Mylett Show!

Who Is JP Sears?

JP Sears started out as a life coach. Since then he has become a renowned YouTube comedian who uses satire and humor to empower his viewers to live more meaningful lives. I truly believe that the levity he brings to tough-to-discuss issues gives others a fresh perspective which allows them to experience freedom and joy in their life faster. In this LIFE-CHANGING interview, JP and I dive deep into trauma and life experiences that can cause emotional numbness and the havoc that numbness can have on your life. This episode is full of actionable tips that you can implement with the very next choice you make today. If you are ready to step into your greatness and master your emotions and your mind, you MUST read the rest of this post!

Why You Need To Feel Your Feelings If You Want To Feel Alive

Have you ever sat at a funeral wondering why you can’t cry over the passing of someone you loved dearly? Have you ever watched your friends have the time of their lives at a party wishing you could get into the moment, too? If so, you may have mastered the art of numbing your emotions. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself in this moment is the gift of being willing to feel pain and not be numb. We often think pain is a negative feeling. But really, pain is a feeling that tells us that we need to change and that something inside us needs attention. JP shared this example during the podcast:

“I threw my back out [doing squats the other night]. I racked the weight. I wish I could have felt numb. But I was feeling the pain. And that's good. Once we're numb for a while, we don't feel the pain. Like anesthesia in the shoulder, you're not going to feel the surgeon's knife going in [but you won’t be able to] feel the Swedish massage, either. So when we're numb long enough … we don't have the feeling experience that we're alive. We can know we're alive. We can be in our head like, dude, like my IQ is high enough. I know I'm alive. Look, I have a pulse. That's cool. I know I'm alive. But that doesn't mean we feel alive.” - JP Sears

A lot of us choose to numb ourselves as a way of dealing with pain caused by adversity. We mean well, but we block out positive feelings as well as negative feelings in the process. As a result we end up feeling lifeless, joyless, and stuck.  The good news is that allowing ourselves to feel again is a huge part of healing!

Our emotions are like our digestive tract. If you eat food and your digestive tract stops you become constipated. We know that can be toxic. But a well moving digestive tract, that's awesome. So when we need healing, what we're really seeing is, ‘I have an old emotion it's stuck in me. Like I'm constipated.’ ...  That means there's more feeling that needs to be done.” - JP Sears

Unsure of how to allow yourself to feel again? Here’s the simple practice JP recommends to get your emotional tract running smoothly:

“[It’s] what I call FFF meditation, Feel Your Freaking Feelings. [Here’s what you do], just sit where you're comfortable, not driving a car. Find the dominant feeling in your psyche mind. If it's sadness, awesome! Congratulations on being so aware that you have sadness. Find the sadness. Where do you feel it in your body? Is it in your chest or your throat or your heart or your gut? And then here's the gift you give yourself in the FFF meditation: focus on the sadness. No distractions. Not escaping it. For the first time, you are being with it.” - JP Sears

In the beginning tapping into and identifying feelings can be hard and uncomfortable for a lot of people. If you haven’t slowed down to be with your feelings, you might not remember what it’s like to feel or you might be overwhelmed by all your feelings. Don’t be discouraged. It’s okay to practice this first part for a few days before moving to the second part. If you’re able to tap into and identify your feelings, here’s what JP says to do next:

“Do your best to let [your feeling] amplify. See if you can feel the sadness even more. And all you do is simply breathe in and out deeply as you’re feeling the sadness. If it intensifies, great. If you cry, great. If it gets less, great. That would be a practice I would do for at least two minutes. If you've got five, do it for five. If we can get in the habit of giving ourselves that deliberate connection to our emotions through the FFF meditation every day, then that means we're having an emotional bowel movement every day.” - JP Sears

Embracing our feelings is the first step to healing. It can be scary and uncomfortable at times, but so is staying wounded and out of touch with who we want to be. So, ask yourself, “What am I feeling most right now? Where am I feeling it the most? When can I do this exercise again tomorrow?” You are not weak to have feelings and emotions. We all have them. Being able to sit with them and understand yourself through them will get you to a place of strength and stability you probably never imagined you were capable of experiencing.

Why You Need to Honor Your True Self If You Want to Feel Fulfilled

Ever had this feeling of, “I was made for more”? Or the feeling of, “This feels close to what I’m supposed to be doing, but not quite right” — almost like you’re not being the full version of yourself? Then you’ll LOVE the formula JP shared! Not only has it brought him repeated and mind-boggling success, but it’s also the formula that unlocked the most authentic version of himself!

“Here's the formula that is just unshakably freaking successful for me: Do the thing that scares me, but also feels purposeful. Everything I do that's become great [has been created with] that formula. - JP Sears

JP saw this formula in action in his life for the first time when he released his very first comedy video. He had been an emotional healing coach for 13 years before he decided to challenge his inner dialogue that told him to keep his humor separate from his business. In his words, “I was doing meaningful work yet excluding a lot of parts of me.” He explained this experience as a waking up: 

“I made my first comedy video released on October 5th, 2014. And man, that woke something up inside of me. I mean, it woke up an expression of creativity that I had never known before. ... It's like that first video was an initiation where I was taking my inner child out of the basement where I locked him and reclaimed him  saying, ‘Not only do you have a place in my life, you are the gift in my life.’” - JP Sears

A lot of the most fulfilling things in life happen when we question things we’ve believed or told ourselves for years. Consider an area of your life that you often feel unfulfilled in and ask yourself these two questions: What is a constant piece of you that you’re hiding and not allowing into that area of your life? What one way could you introduce that hidden piece of you to this specific area of your life? As we’re navigating life it’s easy to shush pieces of ourselves in order to feel like we will be accepted. But sometimes, the pieces of ourselves we hide are what will make us most likeable and successful. 

Why You Have to Be Willing to Be Scared to Death If You Want to Be Spiritual

Do you want to end up being a 84-year-old who is so bitter about life that you tell a random, twenty-something in the supermarket that life is pointless and scary? NO! That’s not the kind of people who listen to this show. So, take JP’s advice, sign up for the mysterious adventure of life, and dare to feel scared to death.

“Life is a mystery to be experienced. It’s like a mysterious roller coaster where we can't see the track ahead. We don't know if it's going to go up, twist around, spin us in a circle, or go down and like any roller coaster, it's not a very thrilling ride if it just goes in a straight, predictable line. That's why I believe life truly is a mystery and it is intentionally and purposefully a mystery. I think the mystery of life is what creates the thrill. [Like you said earlier] ‘The people who are the happiest have the most tolerance to feel uncertain,’ for me, what that means is those people are the ones most willing to experience the mystery of life.” - JP Sears

In other words, it’s a lot like being on a good roller coaster. Sometimes, it's a little scary. Being open to the mystery of life means you’re open to being uncertain and afraid at times. When we choose to build a life that keeps us comfortable and certain we don’t stop life from being a mystery. We just suffocate our awareness of it’s mystery. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be someone who misses out on experiencing the miraculous and mysterious gift of life because I don’t want to risk being afraid or uncomfortable. So, I choose to be willing to feel scared to death, like JP suggested:

“[Sometimes] it feels like the world's going to end us. And that's why I believe to live a life of self-realization, growth, and fulfillment we have to be willing to feel scared to death.” - JP Sears

You have to be willing to get on the roller coaster before you know the route. You have to be willing to let the roller coaster take you up, up, up so that it can hurl you down and up and around for the thrill of a lifetime. You have to be willing to feel your stomach drop and your adrenalin soar to have a ride you’ll remember forever.  If you can do it at an amusement park, you can do it in life. Those uphill climbs of not being accepted for the thirteenth job in a row, sharing your first comedic video as a spiritual life coach, telling that girl who is way out of your league how you feel, are the set up for the thrill of your life if you dare to be scared-to-death. So ask yourself, “Am I willing to embrace the mystery of life? How can I embrace uncertainty? What’s making me feel scared right now?” You won’t die riding this roller-coaster life. It might feel awful. But it will be worth it!

#MAXOUT with JP Sears

I can’t wait for you to hear the complete episode of my conversation with JP. We shared a lot of EPIC content here, but we couldn’t get all the goodness in one blog post. If you’re ready to live a healed and fulfilled life this is the episode you’ve been looking for. Between JP ‘s humor and profound, life-changing principles you won’t only have a good time listening, you’ll also learn how to live a MAXED OUT life.  Want more of JP Sears in your life? Then subscribe to his youtube channel AwakenWithJP. You can stay up to date on his latest videos and adventures by following him on Instagram and Facebook.  If you enjoyed this episode or learned something, do JP, myself, and the world a favor by sharing it with a friend. I truly believe the world needs to hear what JP has to say in the way he says it. Besides, who doesn’t want more humor and self-improvement hacks in their life? So, take five seconds and share a screenshot of this episode or drop the link on social media. Don’t forget to tag myself (@edmylett) and JP (@awakenwithjp)!  If you're not already following me on Instagram, you've got to follow me. First of all, I'm a good follow, but Instagram is where I run the max out two minute drill EVERYDAY. I do it because I want to connect with the people who are engaged with me so that I know what you need and what you want. The better I’m connected with you the better I’m able to keep creating content and bringing people on like JP that can make an incredible difference in your life.  Here’s the breakdown of The Two Minute Drill. It’s really simple. First, turn on your notifications. I make a post at 7:30am Pacific (10:30 Eastern) every day. Comment on it and you’re immediately entered into a drawing  every day and you can win coach coaching calls with me, coaching with my guests, a free copy of my book, tickets to see me speak. Some folks have even flown on my jet! You can increase your chances of winning by commenting EVERYDAY and replying to other people's comments. If you miss the first two minutes, just make a comment on every post every day. At the end of the week we choose a WINNER!  It’s time to #MAXOUT your life by feeling your feelings, honoring your true self, and being willing to feel scared to death!