How to Work with Challenging Emotions
When I was a kid I was often asked to identify what I liked and didn’t like. I can’t help but imagine what things and life would be like if I was invited to share what I noticed instead. I’m curious how different the tendency to judge my experiences would be.
We are human beings. We are not indestructible, productivity machines. Part of the human experience is to feel our emotions.
Firstly, I need to bust the happiness myth and that is if you don’t feel happy and joyful all the time, that doesn’t mean something is wrong. From an evolutionary perspective, humans are hardwired for danger, pain and comparison. Once upon a time, the ability to sense and feel danger, pain and comparison was literally a matter of life or death.
So, how can we open up to feeling, healing and dealing with our emotions – especially the challenging ones?
Three ways you can work with challenging emotions:
1. Validate Your Emotions
No matter what emotions you’re experiencing and no matter what triggered them… they are valid. Often we beat ourselves up for feeling a certain way. For example, “I shouldn’t be so upset about that!”
If a friend came to you and shared that they were upset over something, would you ever respond by saying, “You shouldn’t be so upset about that!” Probably not. No matter what you’re feeling, it’s normal and your feelings are valid. Try validating your own emotions when they show up and try speaking to yourself kindly, the same way you would to a friend.
2. Accept Your Emotions – Without Judgement
Emotions without judgement are simply experiences with feelings and sensation. Here are some examples of judgement words: good, bad, like, dislike, right, wrong, stupid, werid, gorgeous, beautiful etc. Here are some examples of emotions: happy, sad, calm, angry, frustrated, excited etc. If we accept our emotions, especially some emotions that people consider more challenging such as sadness, without judgement they just are what they are. They are an experience. They bring sensations and sometimes those sensations might be heavy or uncomfortable, but I can promise you they are worth feeling. No emotion is good or bad, or right or wrong. Try and feel your emotions without applying the words like or dislike – simply notice the experience and the emotion.
3. Look at your emotions as messengers
Sometimes, our emotions are messengers trying to communicate with us. For example, when we’re sad or anxious perhaps the emotion is trying to tell us something. Actually let's start with an easier example. Let’s explore the feeling of hunger. When we feel hungry, what do we do? We eat! Hunger is a feeling. It’s a little messenger communicating to us that it’s time to eat. So, back to sadness or anxiety. What could those emotions be communicating with you? There’s no right or wrong answer. The answer is unique to each person. My invitation to look at your emotions as messengers is about releasing criticism and replacing it with curiosity. What is this emotion trying to tell you?
Next time a wave of challenging emotions comes your way, try validating your feelings first. Then accept them without any judgement. After that, become curious if the emotion is simply trying to tell you something.
