4 Steps To Feeling Emotions Deeply Without Becoming Overwhelmed
How can you manage your emotions so that you feel better?
getty Has this year been a year of emotional overwhelm for you? How have you handled your strong emotions?
Emotions are a powerful force and part of your evolutionary process. When you deny your uncomfortable emotions, you deny your soul’s growth.
Your uncomfortable emotions are just as important as your more positive ones.
You can't learn how to feel better and more comfortable in your own natural state until you learn what managing your emotions can do for you.
Your emotions are an empowering force in your life. Stop the emotional overload and start honoring this powerful feminine force in your body.
When you become better at feeling your emotions, you’ll transform the overwhelm into embodied awareness and mental clarity.
And once you become proficient in it, your emotional awareness will heighten and intense emotions won’t be so scary anymore.
Here are 4 steps you can take to learn how to manage your emotions and feel better.
1. Notice what you're feeling.
When you're triggered and experiencing strong emotions, your logical brain literally goes offline and you become reactive.
For some people, they shut down. Others lash out. What is it for you?
There are negative behaviors that disconnect and even destroy your relationships, including the relationship you have with you.
Whether it’s yelling at someone, giving someone the silent treatment, or turning to self-destructive behavior, emotional awareness is developed by first noticing.
When strong emotions arise, you become "unconscious."
By doing this first step, you bring more consciousness to unconscious and disempowering behavior.
2. Name the feeling.
Noticing is half the battle. Instead of automatically reacting to highly emotional situations unconsciously, noticing shifts the energy and allows you to take a different path.
Name the uncomfortable feeling you’re having. Your emotions (or feelings) are vast and many. There are so many emotions and your emotional state changes throughout the day.
To simplify, there are six different types of emotions — sad, mad, glad, fear, numbness, and shame.
You want to bring your attention to your body, take a deep breath, and name the feeling you feel. What type of feeling is it and where are you feeling it in your body?
"Numbness" is actually devoid of feeling but it's included here because, often, when people start learning how to feel their feelings, the first feeling they feel is numbness.
3. Nurture your feelings.
Once you've shifted your focus by noticing your behavior and named the feeling and its location in your body, the next step is to nurture it.
Your emotions are in your body. It’s like a screaming baby that wants your attention. You wouldn’t tell a crying baby to "get over it," would you? You’d nurture the baby.
Emotions need the same thing. They want your undivided attention. They don’t want to be repressed, pushed away, or denied.
Take another deep breath. Place your hands on your heart, belly, or wherever the emotional pain is. This is where your stuck emotions are.
Hold it. Be present with it. Breathe deeply into it.
Give this emotional pain your undivided attention and then go to the final step.
4. Know what you need.
This step is the gift you get by paying attention to your emotions instead of denying them. Now that you’ve done the first three steps and are being there for yourself emotionally, you can ask yourself, "What do I need?"
Anytime you’re feeling uncomfortable, it means you have an unmet need. It’s really that simple. Not your need to have someone be different than they are.
It’s about discovering your core needs.
For example, you may need gentleness, patience, space, cleanliness, or clarity. Becoming aware of your core need in any emotional situation will center you and set you on a more productive course in handling the situation.
Emotions are energy in motion. Paying attention to them is important. Society has taught us how to repress them instead of understanding their purpose and why they arise.
That’s what causes emotional overwhelm — the inability to deal with emotional situations in a productive way. So, instead, you deny them, often not even realizing it.
In these scenarios, the only emotions that are acceptable are "positive" emotions. But you have a full range of emotions and they're everchanging.
Negative emotions are just as valid and important as positive emotions. And being emotional doesn’t mean you’re weak.
Your emotions are part of your guidance system — letting you know when something’s not quite right. Gaining access to this guidance system will free you from emotional overwhelm.
In emotional situations, do you say to yourself, "I shouldn’t feel that way," or, "It’s no big deal"? You're denying your feelings and disempowering yourself.
It’s actually through feeling your feelings and understanding what’s underneath them that will free you from the overwhelm. It’s not about trying not to feel.
Instead, it’s about learning how to get better at feeling!
Knowing your core needs and focusing on that instead of the drama is the key to your emotional empowerment and mental health.
Anna-Thea is an author and Certified Divine Feminine Educator. To experience greater mental and emotional health now, check out her feel-good course to get started.