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There is a sentence I had never heard before this conversation, and it stopped me cold.

“You don’t have emotions. You use them.”

I have spent years saying things like “I have anxiety” or “I have depression,” as if these were just facts about me, as permanent as my height. Hearing Matt Young reframe that in a single sentence genuinely shifted something. This episode landed differently, and I think it will for you too.

If you have ever felt like your emotions are running the show and you are just along for the ride, this conversation was made for you.

Meet Matt Young: From Professional Footballer to Emotional Freedom Coach

Matt Young is a UK-based coach who has spent over seven years helping thousands of people around the world break free from the limiting beliefs and emotional patterns keeping them stuck. But his path to this work was anything but straightforward.

Matt spent eight years as a professional footballer before walking away from the only identity he had ever known. What came after that was a period of raw self-reckoning: no career to hide behind, no external role to define him, and a set of emotions he had been masking for years suddenly demanding his full attention.

That reckoning led him through 17 ultra marathons, five of which exceeded 100 miles, deep immersion into human psychology, and eventually to the coaching practice he runs today. He now works with athletes, executives, parents, and entrepreneurs globally, helping them move from emotional paralysis to genuine freedom. You can start with his free resource, the Five Day Mindset Shift, which delivers short daily videos directly to your inbox.

You Don’t Have Emotions, You Use Them: What That Actually Means

The concept at the center of this episode sounds simple until you sit with it.

Most of us say “I have anxiety” the same way we would say “I have blue eyes.” It feels fixed, biological, identity-level. But Matt argues that framing is exactly what keeps people stuck.

“We don’t necessarily say, I have love. We use those traits in certain ways. And I think the same can be said for these limiting emotions, because ultimately any emotion that we use, we use to serve a purpose.”

According to Matt, anxiety is typically used for three reasons: to keep us safe, to keep us secure, and to keep us away from dealing with something that feels completely out of control. The emotion is not a malfunction. It is a strategy, and once you understand the strategy, you can change it.

This framing is supported by established research in emotion science. A peer-reviewed paper published in PMC by the National Institutes of Health on Emotion Regulation Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder confirms that emotions are functional and tied to our motivations, serving as signals that something important requires our attention. Understanding what an emotion is signaling, rather than treating it as a fixed identity trait, is a core principle in evidence-based approaches to anxiety treatment.

Understanding that your emotions are tools, not traits, is where the real work begins.

The Identity Trap: What Happens When You Become Your Anxiety

One of the most uncomfortable parts of this conversation was the discussion around identity, and I say uncomfortable because I recognized myself in it immediately.

When we label ourselves “I am an anxious person” or “I am a depressive,” something quiet but significant happens. We stop being a full human being and start living inside what Matt calls the anxiety box.

“I’m now Matt Young, the guy who can only live within the anxiety box of my life, and can only do as much as this emotion and trait allows me to perceive.”

The anxiety box does not arrive all at once. It shrinks around you gradually, decision by decision, avoided situation by avoided situation, until your entire world has been shaped by a label you gave yourself in a hard moment.

This connects directly to a conversation I had on a recent episode about mental health labels and how they can quietly define us. If you have not listened to The Diagnosis Generation: How to Stop Mental Health Labels From Defining You, that episode pairs with this one in a way that I think will genuinely help.

Research from the field of self-concept and mental health supports this idea. According to a study in Psychological Science, rigid self-labeling around emotional states reduces psychological flexibility, which is one of the strongest predictors of long-term wellbeing. Staying fluid in how you define yourself is not soft thinking. It is neurologically protective.

Your Body Controls Your Emotions More Than Your Mind Does

This section of the conversation genuinely surprised me, and I think it will surprise you too.

Matt used an ice cream analogy that I keep coming back to. The flavor of the ice cream, which he compared to the mind, gets all the attention. But without the cone or the bowl holding it, the ice cream melts. The body is the cone. Without it in place, the mind has nothing to stand in.

Here is the science behind that analogy: approximately 80 percent of the neural pathways that regulate our parasympathetic nervous system run from the body to the brain, not the other way around. These are called afferent pathways, and they mean that how you are physically holding yourself, your posture, your breathing, your muscle tension, is actively shaping your emotional experience in real time.

“If I’m holding my physiology in a certain way that feels like I’m anxious, tense, stressed… it doesn’t matter what I’m telling myself up here. I’m never going to believe it. I’m never going to feel it.”

This is especially relevant for those of us navigating ADHD and executive dysfunction, where the nervous system is already running differently on a biological level. I have written about the body-nervous system connection before, and this episode deepened my understanding of it significantly. If you want more on how the nervous system connects to everyday functioning, the episode with Rhiannon Neuharth on getting out of survival mode is essential listening alongside this one.

Movement, breath, and posture are not just wellness habits. They are emotional regulation tools backed by neuroscience.

Blame Is Caging, Ownership Is Liberating

One of the most direct lines in this entire conversation came when Matt was explaining how he helps clients lower their defenses without shaming them.

“Blame is caging. Ownership is liberating.”

This does not mean that hard things that happened to you were your fault. Matt was explicit about that. But it does mean that as long as we outsource responsibility for how we feel to our circumstances, other people, or our past, we also outsource our power to change.

When someone owns their emotional situation, not what caused it, but what they are willing to do about it, the results, in Matt’s experience, can be radical.

This is also where his coaching approach distinguishes itself. He is not interested in unloading, in sessions where the goal is simply to process pain. He is interested in breakthroughs, in people leaving a conversation with something they did not have before.

For anyone feeling stuck right now, the Mental Health Resources Hub on here on my site, it has a range of tools and professional resources that can support you beyond what any podcast can offer.

Key Takeaways

  • You do not have emotions, you use them, and every limiting emotion is serving a purpose your brain invented to keep you safe, secure, or in control.
  • Attaching your identity to an emotion gradually shrinks your world until the emotion becomes the ceiling of your life.
  • 80 percent of the neural pathways that regulate your nervous system run from body to brain, meaning your physical state shapes your emotions more than your thoughts do.
  • Blame keeps you caged. Taking ownership of your emotional response, not what caused it, is where your actual power lives.

People Also Ask

Q: What does it mean to use emotions instead of having them?

A: Rather than treating emotions like fixed traits you were born with, the “use” framing means recognizing that every emotion is serving a function. Anxiety, for example, is typically used to keep you safe, secure, or away from something that feels out of control. When you understand what an emotion is doing for you, you can address the root need instead of just managing the symptom.

Q: How does body posture affect emotional state?

A: Research in neuroscience shows that approximately 80 percent of the neural pathways regulating the nervous system run from the body to the brain. This means that how you hold your body, including your posture, your breathing, and your muscle tension, is actively creating your emotional experience. Changing your physical state can shift your emotional state in ways that thinking alone often cannot.

Q: How do I stop letting anxiety define my identity?

A: The first step is recognizing that the anxiety label was adopted, not assigned at birth. You were emotionally fluid before that label existed. Cognitive flexibility practices, working with a qualified coach or therapist, and regularly questioning whether a thought is a fact or a story all help widen the space between your identity and a single emotional pattern.

Q: Why does taking ownership of your emotions matter more than understanding your circumstances?

A: Your circumstances explain how you got here, but they do not determine where you go next. Research in psychological flexibility and cognitive behavioral therapy consistently shows that people who take an active role in shaping their emotional responses, regardless of what caused them, experience better long-term outcomes than those who remain focused on external causes. Ownership is not about blame. It is about agency.

This Episode Changed How I Think About My Own Emotions

I have spent a long time treating my anxiety like a roommate I never invited but cannot evict. This conversation with Matt made me realize I have been giving that roommate way more authority than they deserve.

The idea that emotions are tools, not identities, is one of those concepts that sounds simple and then quietly reorganizes the way you see everything. I hope it does the same for you.

If anything here resonated, please leave a review on whatever platform you are listening or watching on right now. It genuinely helps other people find this community. Follow along @TheVibeWithKy on every platform, and if you want the exclusive Reverse The Mic segment from this episode where Matt turned the tables and put me in the hot seat, subscribe for five dollars a month on Patreon or Facebook. Links are in the show notes.

Please remember: this post and this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional. You can find a curated list of mental health resources at the Mental Health Resources Hub on TheVibeWithKy.com.

Much love. Good vibes. – Ky