Processing Feelings: How to Stop Avoiding Difficult Emotions
Navigating the emotional landscape that is you is sometimes challenging. And for many of us, recognizing and acknowledging our emotions doesn’t come naturally or easily.
To further complicate the matter, external factors such as life experiences and culture, can shape and influence our emotional expressions. And because we’re social creatures, we’re also tasked with understanding and recognizing how others experience and express emotions.
First, let’s explore how we can identify and be in tune with our emotions.
What Makes Some Emotions More Difficult to Process Than Others?
To put it simply, emotions are complicated. Emotion is defined as a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavior and physiological elements. As humans, emotions enable us to handle circumstances we find personally significant.
Emotions can be linked to or affiliated with these six universal emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Surprise. And there are 3 key elements of emotions to further unravel the mystery.
The Subjective Experience
Although experts maintain there are universal emotions experienced by people regardless of circumstances or culture, how we experience emotions can be highly subjective. Take sadness for example. When sad, your experience may manifest itself through bouts of tears followed by periods of quiet contemplation.
The Physiological Response
This is how your physical body reacts to emotions: butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms, or racing heartbeat. The sympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system, governs our body’s fight or flight reactions.
The Behavioral Response
As humans, this is our expression of emotions and the component with which we are most familiar. Here is where we expend considerable time and energy interpreting, and sometimes translating, the emotional landscape of the people we encounter in our lives.
Like I said, it’s complicated. So if we apply the 5 W’s and H questions to emotions, we now know the who and what. Let’s examine the when, where, why, and how questions next.
How to Process Emotions, Even the Difficult Ones
There are emotions and then there are feelings. Before we begin, it’s worthwhile to know the difference between the two.
Emotions come first, then feelings. Think of emotions as raw data produced by us. Our feelings are the interpretation or translation of that data. And that information can be distorted or biased based on mental miscalculations.
Suppressing our emotions and the feelings that arise as a result, especially the difficult ones, is unhealthy and can lead to chronic disease and illness according to experts.
So it’s critical, we develop a plan with tools to help us navigate our emotions to deepen our emotional intelligence.
Lean into the emotion instead of turning it off
First and foremost, be curious about how you feel. Be in the moment with an open mind and heart, forgoing any judgment towards the feelings as they arise.
Identify and label it
Next, name your feelings. This creates space between you and the feelings allowing you to see them more objectively.
Accept it as an objective fact
Instead of burying the difficult feelings or pushing them away, acknowledge them in the present moment.
Your emotions are not here to stay. They’re impermanent: there’s a beginning, middle, and end to their existence.
Investigate the source, cause or trigger of the emotion
Once you’ve named your feelings, begin to explore the “why” behind your feelings. This is an introspective process where asking yourself questions is revealing.
Questions such as:
What triggered me?
Why do I feel this way?
What is causing me to feel this way?
Relinquish the need to control your emotions
Mindfully dealing with your emotions means letting go of your need to control them.
This takes practice. Be kind, compassionate, and patient with yourself. Don’t ruminate on what’s outside of your control or influence.
Rather, reflect on your emotional experience and look for ways to mitigate or minimize your triggers.
Accept your emotions and find an outlet
Pain and suffering is a universal, human experience. Even though we often feel alone during times of distress, knowing others experience pain can alleviate our suffering and help to bring us comfort.
Look for healthy, positive outlets to help channel your emotions. Journaling, exercise, meditation, and seeking the professional assistance of helping professionals are ways to take steps towards living a healthier life.
Remember: You Aren’t Your Emotions
Emotions come and go: They are impermanent. Our emotions are reflections of our experiences with the world and people around us.
Emotions are messages from your body — important messages.
Openly accept and acknowledge these cues in the moment, and through this practice you will be empowered to mindfully take the next step forward .