When Feelings Are Too Much

When Feelings Are Too Much

Learning to manage emotional upsets is a valuable skill on the journey through life. As human beings we rely on our emotions for expression of desires, response to conditions, and feedback about our experiences. E-motions are energy-in-motion, and emotional energy usually follows a pattern of growing and then dissipating as we shift mental focus from ideas, people, activities and circumstances. Depending on how closely we assign the significance of an experience or relationship to an essential or core belief we hold related to survival or self-identity, our emotions can escalate, gain momentum and we might find ourselves caught in an uncomfortable,  emotional loop.

 

Take a Break

 

When you find yourself overwhelmed with anger, sorrow, loneliness or fear and are unable to deal with the intense feelings in the moment, remember that you have a choice. You do not have to be in those feelings right now. In fact, if you are overwhelmed it is a sure sign that you need a break from the thoughts and feelings fueling the uncontrollable emotional state. Take a break and you will be better able to deal with the feelings later. Doing this does not mean that you are denying the emotions are there. It is important that you come back to the feelings when you are rested. Even if they have changed, acknowledging your feelings is key to allowing yourself to accept yourself fully. Oftentimes we want to push feelings away and if we do, we resist the information they provide about hindering beliefs we hold, about ourselves or others. After taking a break you may have a different perspective which can help you understand what is happening underneath the emotional upset, and prevent further painful emotional loops.

 

Here are some ways to let yourself take a break from your feelings:

1. Journal about how you are feeling. Writing out your feelings is a form of release and allows you to focus the emotional energy into words. As you write let yourself feel the emotions pouring out of you onto the page (or computer screen). Ask yourself, what else do I feel about this (relationship, situation, experience, etc.) and empty yourself of every thought and emotion that comes up. When you are finished thank yourself for acknowledging what you are feeling and imagine putting the pages safely into a box in the shape of a heart. You can lock it if you wish or set it aside for later.

2. Go within and create a safe space in your imagination, a comfortable chamber you mentally step into where you breathe and relax. As you step into your chamber leave your feelings outside the doorway. Create an image that represents of how you are feeling them in the moment and allow the image to encompass and protect the feelings outside your chamber door. Your feelings are still there and you can decide to pick them up again after you are done relaxing in your chamber, or let them dissolve within the image holding them.

3. Movement can help. Chose to think about something else for the time being. Go for a walk, go to the gym, change the scenery. Moving your body moves the energy and as you breathe and oxygenate your brain the chemistry changes in as little as 15 minutes.

4. Focus on taking care of you. Your mood can shift when you try something different. If you have been doing the same old thing every day, stuck in your feelings then try changing your patterns. Rather than going home after work or staying inside on the weekend and feeling lonely, take yourself for a drive in the countryside, go to movie, visit a museum. I worked with one young man who was going through a divorce and decided to take himself on a date. He had the best day he had had in a month.

Your feelings are not always easy to feel but you can become adept at feeling and appreciating them for the insight they offer into yourself when you allow and work with them. There really are no “bad” feelings for on the other side of every feeling is the opportunity and reward of moving into a better feeling state. Taking a break from emotional struggle is a valuable tool to help you manage the process of getting there.

 

Are you looking for guidance in managing your feelings? Coaching sessions are available via Phone, In-Person in Colorado or Skype.

Feeling Our Feelings To Create Change

Feeling Our Feelings To Create Change

EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE

 

Have you noticed how much time you spend trying to control the way you feel? When negative emotions arise you might seek validation for feeling as you do by blaming another person or an outside condition.  Perhaps you see your feelings as an indication that you are a failure and condemn yourself. Or, something may have happened in your experience that you have no control over and it seems like there is nothing you can do to feel better.  In each of these scenarios in the effort to control your feelings you are practicing resisting feeling your feelings. As a result, pretty soon this feeling of struggle turns into a repetitive pattern and you find yourself in a disheartening emotional state more often throughout your day.  You may not have control over other people, outside conditions, or world politics, but you do have the ability to stop beating up on yourself for having uncomfortable emotions, and the reason you might want to do so is that they have the potential to show you what you want to live more satisfied and fulfilled. If you do not try so hard to get rid of what you deem as unwanted emotions, and instead go with the flow and make peace with where you are, you will allow a shift in the underlying energy that the emotions represent.  The emotion you feel in any moment of time is vital to the evolution of your path to joy – it is a temporary indication of what you have going on in the present. It is not an indictment of who you are; it doesn’t mean you are in the wrong place. Emotions are a manifestation of what you’ve got going on. Think of it as a gas gauge that indicates you are out of gas so you can go do something about it.

 

Make Peace Emotions

 

Emotions that we deem as “bad” are showing us where we are holding resistance to making the changes we want in our experience.  Like peeling the layers of the onion, our so-called negative emotions or feelings of struggle show us where we are introducing tension into the equation and what needs to be released to come into balance with a state of well-being.  When negative emotions are triggered by conditions or circumstances, transitions or life-events, we can be sure that our core beliefs influenced that emotional reaction based on a limiting perspective of ourselves. We work against ourselves when we try to push those feelings away because we are not allowing the emotion to show us the core belief in the way of moving into a more satisfying feeling.  Of course, we want to feel better, but the path to feeling better becomes further and further away as we get ourselves into a stuck place due to more and more resistance. Denying, hiding, suppressing or trying to do things in an effort to get rid of feelings does not make them go away, and does not change the feeling.

As we make peace with our feelings and surrender pushing against them in our tendency not to feel them when they arise, we loosen the “charge” or intensity of the emotion.  In this process of allowing ourselves to accept what we are feeling we find self- compassion. We free up the emotional hold of the negative emotions when we let go of whatever judgement we have made about having the unsatisfactory feelings.  In the process of releasing resistance to feeling our feelings we alleviate the futile cycle of attempting to defeat the negative emotional grip, all the while keeping it active in our psyche with our attention to the uncomfortable feelings. What follows from feeling our feelings and not trying to change them or make them go away is a natural opening up of our awareness to what is underlying these negative emotions – beliefs that can be shifted to more loving, supportive and positive thoughts; and as they are the emotions release. In the thoughts that come to us next, the emotions are soothed and begin to subside.

 

The Path Forward

 

Changing how you feel within is the sure path to the freedom, happiness and joy you truly desire. To allow that change to happen release all the reasons why you think feeling your fear, sadness, hurt or abandonment is beyond your ability.  Appreciate the truth that you are a human being who feels and acknowledge the spectrum of your feelings – whatever you are feeling in the moment. Even the thoughts and feelings that make you think you must be doing something wrong or else you would not be living it.  Out of acknowledgement of your feelings – without self-judgement or self-criticism – a resolution comes through. Because out of that experience of feeling contrast is born the clarity of desire. A problem actually has the potential of producing an answer that puts you in a better place, closer to your desire for joy.

In order to stay in harmony with who you really are, you must go with the flow of your desire for creating your happiness. Harmony is really a matter of giving up practiced resistance to feelings. Feeling your feelings, acknowledging their importance to your path forward, strengthens the relationship between who you really are on the inside and what you want to flow into your experience.  You do not need to run away from unpleasing feelings in order to invite well-being into your life. Relax and stop railing against or condemning your problem. Instead of getting up tomorrow morning and reactivating self-blame, appreciate the resolution that is coming into being as you adjust to a more peaceful, loving acceptance of your emotions.

If you are afraid of feeling your feelings or worried that you will never not feel bad if you acknowledge emotional discomfort, contact me to discuss how my emotional coaching program, The Surrender Solution, might help you release resistance and get back into the flow of emotional well being.

Marilyn Decalo Logo, Phoenix

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