Based on Darlene Mininni's The Emotional Toolkit and Beth Jacob's Writing for Balance
Darlene Mininni, PhD, MPH, author of The Emotional Toolkit, explains that many people find emotions to be scary or unsettling. In reality, emotions are valuable and offer a bounty of benefits. In order to make them work for you, you have to know how to process and cope with them. You can do this by following two simple steps: decoding the emotion (ie. figuring out which emotion you’re experiencing) and identifying the emotions’ message(s).
Know your emotions. There are a many different ways you can feel, but scientists have classified human emotions into a few basics that everyone can recognize: joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation
Jealousy, for example, is a manifestation of fear - fear that you're not "as good" as something else, fear of being abandoned because you're not "perfect" or "the best."
Know what kinds of situations cause which emotions, and be able to tell the difference between anger and fear; sometimes multiple emotions can bubble up at the same time, and the person going through the emotions might not be able to distinguish the two.
Sadness: What have I lost?
Anger: How have I or my values been attacked?
Happiness: What have I gained?
It's also good to recognize an emotion from the moment it materializes, as opposed to letting it build up and intensify. The last thing you want to do is ignore or repress your feelings, because you probably have experienced that when you do that, they tend to get worse and erupt later.
Ask yourself throughout the day: "How am I feeling right now?" If you can, keep a journal. Write down situations that caused an interesting emotion in you. That way, you can help pinpoint the moment it appeared instead of letting its origin slip away.
Take ownership of your emotions. Don't blame them on other people. Recognize when you try to blame other people for your emotions, and don't let your mind get away with that trick. Taking full responsibility for your emotions will help you better control them.
Notice what was going through your mind when the emotion appeared. Stop and analyze what you were thinking about, until you find what thought was causing that emotion. Challenge the thoughts/emotions. Is it a helpful feeling? What message is it trying to tell you?
Your boss may not have made eye contact with you at lunch, for example; and without even being aware of it, the thought may have been in the back of your mind, "He's getting ready to fire me!"
1. Distancing yourself from your emotions
2. Defining what emotions mean for you
3. Releasing stuck emotions
4. Learning to focus while experiencing overwhelming emotions
5. Using organization to clarify emotions
6. Regrouping after you’ve had an emotional setback
7. Maintaining your new skills.
Distancing Yourself from Your Emotions
According to Jacobs, gaining distance from your emotions is vital because “…You can’t see or understand something if you are right in the middle of it.”
Gaining distance, Jacobs writes, occurs with time and a different perspective. Time doesn’t heal unacknowledged emotions, she notes. But the key is to realize that feelings are fleeting. So if you’re incredibly sad right now, there was and will be a time when you’ll feel excited, relaxed or happy.
One way to practice this idea is to write about a good experience. Not only does this remind you that there’s life beyond bad feelings, but it also serves as an emotional anchor, according to Jacobs.
“Your memory can become a positive emotional reference point, to remind you of your range of possibilities when you are at your worst, feeling rotten and hopeless. When you describe a happy memory in your journal, you will be mentally reinforcing that memory so that it might occur to you later, in difficult times.”
You can try the following exercise to access that anchor.
Exercise 1.1
I remember a good feeling [when] _____________________________________________________________________________________________. I simply felt ______________________________________________________________. I was [where] ___________________________, and I remember noticing [something sensory] ____________________________________________________________. It was a time in my life when I was [an activity or a general description] __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. I’ll never forget [people, weather, environment, etc.] _____________________________________________________________________________________around me. I’ll never be right there again but I know I CAN feel that way again.
After writing out your memory, Jacobs encourages you to think about what you usually feel like when you’re overwhelmed. Then reread your good memory. For a few times go back and forth between the overwhelming memory and the positive memory. This helps to create an association between the two.
The second part of gaining distance, according to Jacobs, is “knowing that your feelings are only one possible reaction to a situation and not the only ‘right’ reaction.”
To illustrate that, you can do the following exercise.
Exercise 1.2
Pick three people: someone who knows you well; an acquaintance; and someone who makes you feel uncomfortable. Write down their names. Next, describe or comment on a major life event from each person’s perspective. (Or you can describe yourself in each person’s voice.) Try to really put yourself in the person’s shoes by capturing their voice.
Jacobs concludes the idea with a powerful thought: Getting distance from your feelings can help you “survey your situation with greater breadth and flexibility, and that, in turn, can help you feel calmer and allow you to make better decisions.”
Defining Your Emotions
According to Jacobs, naming a feeling “encloses the feeling instead of allowing it to enclose you like an invisible vapor.” It also can “contain and quiet a feeling.”
Feelings consist of thought processes, sensory experiences (such as irritating sounds), and physical sensations (such as muscle tension or your heart rate).
Exercise 2.1
Think of an emotion and describe these three parts.
Emotion: _____________________
What thoughts, memories or statements come to mind?
What sensory experiences do you have?
What physical sensations do you experience?
Learn to define feelings even further by completing the following exercise for basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger.
Exercise 2.2
Happiness
If this feeling was a color, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was weather, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was a landscape, it would be _________________________________
If this feeling was music, it would sound like _____________________________________
If this feeling was an object, it would be __________________________________
Sadness
If this feeling was a color, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was weather, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was a landscape, it would be _________________________________
If this feeling was music, it would sound like _____________________________________
If this feeling was an object, it would be __________________________________
Fear
If this feeling was a color, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was weather, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was a landscape, it would be _________________________________
If this feeling was music, it would sound like _____________________________________
If this feeling was an object, it would be __________________________________
Anger
If this feeling was a color, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was weather, it would be ____________________________________
If this feeling was a landscape, it would be _________________________________
If this feeling was music, it would sound like _____________________________________
If this feeling was an object, it would be __________________________________
These exercises help to sharpen your awareness, so you can notice even the most subtle signs of a feeling. The earlier you can name an emotion, the sooner you can intervene.
Releasing Stuck Emotions
The following are common schools of thought about the best way to work with feelings.
Express--we can express our feelings. Often this helps us feel better, at least temporarily. We can vent our anger, letting off the steam, and as the pressure lets up we feel better. Be careful that expressing your feelings, like anger, does not hurt others.
Suppress/Avoid--we can avoid our feelings. This is a common strategy that doesn't work well. Suppressing ungrounds us, but the feeling often comes back to bite us.
Release--we can try to let the feelings go. Emotional release techniques (letting go of automatic emotional reactions, such as learned behaviors), can help people let go of uncomfortable feelings. And sometimes, we can just sigh or stretch and just let things go.
Insight--we can try to understand what the feelings are about. Thinking through feelings, either with a friend, therapist, or alone (perhaps with the help of a journal), can help us understand our feelings, and in this process they will often change. Some methods, such as nonviolent communication, guide us to shift our focus away from the pain of the feelings and towards greater insight.
Transform--we can work through the emotions and reclaim our power and joy trapped within them...finding the silver lining within our heavy, uncomfortable feelings. We transform feelings by experiencing them fully, bringing them up into the light of day, into our present awareness. The stuck emotions change, revealing their gifts.
Mindfulness techniques such as guided meditation can help you experience emotions fully and defuse them. Below are some resources.
Ocean Meditation - Mindfulness for Anxiety, Fear, Hurt, Sadness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hpGer2qvI
Anxiety Relief Practice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2_UfFIszkY
From Blocked & Stuck to Connected and Empowered Creator - A Guided Meditation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgEXuaf8jno
Guided Meditation For Anxiety & Stress, Beginning Meditation, Guided Imagery Visualization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vO1wPAmiMQ
Learning to Focus While Experiencing Overwhelming Emotions
Don’t let your feelings carry you away! Try to stay grounded; get out of your head. The following exercise can help you out with this.
Exercise 3.1
Take a minute and remember a specific event or imagine yourself in a typical scenario that really bothers or overwhelms you. Think of what type of situation tends to set you off and what you feel like physically, what you think and what you do when you get emotionally upset. Run it through your mind like a movie scene and then answer these three questions:
1. What is the main physical feeling that accompanies being really upset in your scene?
2. What thought is running through your head in the scene?
3. What are you actually doing or saying that shows you are overwhelmed?
This is your “before” scenario. Before you picture an “after” version, return to your three questions and imagine an antidote to each. For instance, if your breathing quickens when you’re upset, maybe a deep breathing exercise would be a good antidote. If you’re thinking, “What a total jerk” about someone, maybe your thought could be counteracted with a more detached stance, like “So-and-so can misinterpret me sometimes, but I’ll be able to explain myself better at another time.” And, if the answer to the third question is that you are screaming your bad thoughts at the top of your lungs, you could imagine being very quiet and simply exiting the scene.
Write your ideas for antidotes.
1. A better physical experience:
2. Calmer thoughts:
3. Behavioral reaction that is ultimately more beneficial to me:
Now replay your imagined movie with the three antidote ideas you just described. Try to see yourself reversing some of the emotional reactions that are painful or counterproductive to you. This is your “after” vision, and if you can imagine where you’d like to be, “Writing for Emotional Balance” can give you steps to get there. When you read more about emotion management skills, you may even revise some of your answers to the questions above. You won’t end up always experiencing the ideal version of your situation, but thinking it through gives you something to aim for.
Using Organization to Help Clarify Emotions
Writing about your emotions can help bring clarity to your emotion. The structure of language itself, putting your feelings into words, can help organize emotional thoughts and help you gain clarity.
Regrouping After You've Had An Emotional Setback
It's difficult to control emotions, so when we try to "control" them we often end up frustrated. For this reason, it's best to practice acceptance and focus on what you can control.
Maintain
Practice makes perfect! The more you use these skills on a regular basis, the more they will become second nature to you.