How to Manage Difficult Emotions - 4 Valuable Strategies
How to stop the struggle.
In order to understand our emotions on a deeper level, in past articles we discussed why we struggle with difficult emotions, where our tendency to avoid and fight them comes from and why we need difficult emotions, what their functions, benefits and purpose are.
Taking a step forward, we go through some of the strategies that you can apply when faced with your emotions so that you can make space for them and stop your tendency to fight them.
1. Allow space for your emotions
This means acknowledging what you are feeling in a specific moment. It comes with the realization that you, like everyone else in this world, might experience challenging emotions from time to time, and that is perfectly normal.
Be willing to stay in that moment and sit with your emotion. Be present and mindful about your experience. Start to evaluate what is happening in your body, in your mind and your tendency to respond to it.
Having more information about your emotions is an important step in learning how to manage them. But you can only do that if you try to move away from your impulse of avoiding what you are feeling and take a positive step towards letting your emotions manifest.
2. Find your Why – Identify your thoughts
Why is it so hard for you to stay with that emotion?
Do you feel scared or overwhelmed?
Do you feel lost and don’t know what to do?
Do you think that if you avoid your emotion, it will eventually go away?
Do you think that you just can’t tolerate that feeling and you shouldn’t be feeling that way?
Is it a combination of these options?
Stop and analyze what is happening in your mind in the moments when you are experiencing a negative emotion, and before you start to push it away or try to avoid it. The things that you tell yourself right then represent the cause of why you are struggling. And that is what needs to change for you to be able to manage your emotion better.
You can also journal and write down your thoughts in order to slow them down and bring more clarity. You can read more about the journaling technique here.
3. Work with your thoughts
After you have identified the specific thoughts that you associate with a negative emotion, it is now time to find ways to change your perspective.
For example, if your thought is that you can’t tolerate what you are feeling and you shouldn’t be feeling that way, you can ask yourself the questions below and try to find specific answers to them. Once you do, repeat those answer every time you need to.
Can I actually dictate how I am feeling? If this were true, wouldn’t I have a different emotion now?
I have told myself many times in the past that something is necessary or must happen, was it true every time?
Just because I want to feel differently right now, does this mean my wish must come true in this very second?
How does it help that I have imposed this rule / I have this unrealistic and rigid expectation?
Is it realistic for me to expect to feel differently considering the context in which I am and the factors that are influencing me?
What does it mean that I cannot tolerate my emotion? Last time when I had the same emotion or a similar one, how did I manage to tolerate it? Isn’t this past experience showing me that I can tolerate it once again?
4. Practice acceptance
Experiencing negative emotions is part of human existence and it’s something that you have done in the past and will continue to do in the future, even though you might not always be aware of it.
Acceptance of our negative emotions will come with the realization that even though you can’t avoid feeling bad sometimes, you have control over how you choose to react to your emotions and how you want to manage them.
Acceptance of our difficult emotions implies:
You acknowledge that challenging emotions exist and, in your life, you will experience a wide range of emotions.
You realize that you can’t stop yourself from experiencing difficult emotions and you can’t run away from them, they will appear in your life from time to time.
You can evaluate that even though it is difficult, challenging and uncomfortable to experience challenging emotions, it is not awful or intolerable.
You understand that the way you react to your emotions is important and you can find constructive ways to manage them.
We can try to pretend that negative emotions don’t exist, try to ignore them, judge or resist them, but this won’t change the reality that every now and then, we are going to experience them. So, we should make sure we are prepared to manage them.
If you are noticing that you are experiencing intense difficult emotions that are holding you back, are intervening with your goal achievement and are negatively affecting your life, and you would like to discover personalized strategies to handle them, get in touch. We can discuss your needs and goals and make a plan of how we can work together.
