When we think of negative emotions, ones like sadness, grief and anger come to mind. In a desperate attempt to escape their veil of negativity, you might try to suppress these uncomfortable emotions with “positive thinking”.
While a positive mindset is great and generally helpful for your mental health, it might not be the right approach in this case. In fact, it might be detrimental. Suppressing your emotions (yes that includes covering them up with “happy thoughts”) can lead to poorer mental health outcomes and stress. Trying to avoid emotions requires additional attention and energy, leaving you exhausted. It’s like trying not to think of a pink elephant!
So what can I do about this?
Learning to release difficult emotions will lower the stress associated with them. As an extra, it will improve your emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and relationships.
However, while this sounds simple, it can be a challenge for many who have been conditioned to cover up negative feelings (like sadness for men and anger for women) or fear their intensity.
Whether you’re completely detached, or have some experience in emotional management, the tips below can help you re-connect to your emotional experience.
1. Body Check-ins
Simple body check-ins are a great place to start familiarising yourself with how you’re feeling.
Since our emotions are also stored in our body it’s one of the easiest paths to help us reconnect with them. As you start becoming aware of your physical sensations and needs, you also start gaining awareness of how you feel.
You can start practicing this with quick body scans 2-3 times a day. During the scan go through different parts of your body and see how they feel. Give names to the sensations. You don’t need to change them, simply recognise they’re there.
2. Emotional Check-ins
Similarly, you can start checking in with your emotions and gain more self-awareness.
The technique is the same as the one above, except your focus is inwards. Close your eyes and see what emotions are there. Whether it’s calm or anger, give them names. You can also check in which part of your body you can feel the emotion.
Without emotional awareness, we might act out or feel bad about ourselves for the way we feel. As we start recognising our emotions, we understand what caused them, can start responding more appropriately and tackling the real problem instead of blaming ourselves.
3. Sitting with your emotions
This is the next step after acknowledging our emotions.
Sitting with your emotions might feel really uncomfortable at the start, that’s why I would suggest not doing it for longer than 5 minutes at a time.
Set a timer, close your eyes, and feel the emotion you just acknowledged. Ask yourself:
How does it feel?
What does it look like?
What does it need?
Does it want to communicate something to me?
Try to understand what it’s communicating. This is key for emotional intelligence and understanding our needs.
4. Journaling
Journaling is incredible at helping us process emotions.
When you feel an intense emotion, write about it. Give yourself 5 minutes, take out a piece of paper or open your note app and just write. What’s the situation, what emotions do you feel, why do you feel it, what do you need in the situation?
This technique is very powerful and cathartic. Often people find it helps them understand themselves better.
5. Self-compassion practice
All these exercises are very helpful in reconnecting to and processing our emotions. But giving yourself compassion is crucial in this whole process.
Practicing self-compassion revolves around connecting to our common humanity and offering ourselves kindness. Suffering, just like joy, is universal. It’s what connects you to the rest of humanity and reminds us we’re not alone.
In difficult or emotionally charged moments, take a self-compassion break, especially if you feel hateful towards yourself.
A self-compassion break would include:
Awareness and acknowledgement of what you’re experiencing. You could acknowledge it by saying “This is painful” or “This is stress”.
Common humanity – reminding yourself that suffering is common to all humans. You could tell yourself “We all struggle in life” or “We all experience stress. I’m not alone”.
Kindness – the final step is being kind to yourself. Ask yourself what you need to hear at that moment and choose a reassuring phrase. You could say ‘I will do my best to take care of myself’ or ‘May I be patient’. If you find it difficult to be kind to yourself, ask yourself what you would say to a friend in this scenario.
Practicing self-compassion can calm stress and help you feel reassured. You can learn more about self-compassion from Dr. Kristen Neff here.
Want support?
Poor emotional management can lead to stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and damaged relationships. It’s also a trait more commonly seen in those with poor resilience.
Developing emotional awareness is a key skill to help you gain control and nurture safety and joy in your life. If you would like help in learning to recognise and process your emotions, as well as manage stress, get in touch.
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