How to Handle Overwhelming Emotions
We’ve been through a shitstorm of events in 2020. I was trying to think of a more delicate word to use, but it honestly wouldn't be accurate to describe it any other way.
People have lost their jobs and loved ones due to COVID-19, the economy has tanked, racist hate crimes are finally being acknowledged (by some people uggg), and a new civil rights movement has been ignited.
On top of this, many parents are trying to navigate working at home without childcare.
Tensions are high, and there isn’t much of an end in sight.
When my therapist called for our regularly scheduled session (we had all been in lockdown here in California for a few weeks), she asked how I was feeling with all the changes and unknowns.
I paused for a moment to check in with myself, and I said, “I’m actually doing pretty okay.” I was a little stunned by my own response, and this got me thinking…
Why am I okay? So much has changed. So much is happening so fast. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve still felt sadness, rage, disgust, anger, and fear. I’m not immune to having feelings.
When I say “I’m okay” what that means for me, as someone who has diagnosed PTSD and depression, is that despite all these feelings I’m feeling and all these things happening, I remain stable and able to process these emotions and cope in a healthy way.
I feel so lucky because I know that the reason why I’m able to stay grounded amidst the chaos is because of the work I’ve been doing on my mental and emotional health over the last 6 years.
I believe in divine timing, and I couldn’t ignore how I felt God prepared me for this moment. And that’s how Emotional Resilience Week came about.
After talking to people on my Instagram about what people are struggling with right now, I realized the best thing I can do to help is to teach others the tools and knowledge that have helped me develop emotional resilience.
Just to back up a bit, here’s some background about the word “resilience,” which I found from Positive Psychology. The word ‘resilience’ comes from the Latin word ‘resilio’ meaning “to bounce back.” Another definition the site provides is: “Emotional resilience is an art of living that is entwined with self-belief, self-compassion, and enhanced cognition. It is the way through which we empower ourselves to perceive adversities as ‘temporary’ and keep evolving through the pain and sufferings. (Marano, 2003).” (Source https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-resilience/).
After people expressed a desire to learn how to cultivate emotional resilience, I put together a series of 5 Instagram live classes to teach what helped me develop this ability, which I am now realizing is really helpful during a pandemic and an onslaught of racial gaslighting.
The 5 classes I taught for #emotionalresilienceweek are:
How to Handle Overwhelming Emotions (watch here)
How to Use Journaling to Develop Self-Awareness and Inner Peace (watch here)
How to Respond to a Trigger and Ground Yourself Back in the Present Moment
How to Develop a Stronger Sense of Self-Worth
How to Make the Most of Your Therapy/Counseling Sessions
The classes have been viewed a total of 765 times on Instagram last week, and since people asked for the “notes” from the classes, here they are. I also plan to re-teach the classes on my YouTube channel in the coming weeks.
How to Handle Overwhelming Emotions
When you’re experiencing emotions that feel like they’re taking over your body (for example: tightness of muscles or chest, shaking, heart racing, sweating, stomach aches) and/or mind (for example: spiraling, ruminating, poor focus), try using this process to help yourself cope:
1. Do not numb.
That’s right—no numbing. No scrolling social media for the 80th time. No stress eating. No picking at your face or nails. No drinking or drugs. The reason why you don’t want to numb is because it just suppresses the emotions. The sting might go away initially, but once the ice cream is gone or your Instagram feed says “You’re all caught up,” and there’s no new posts to see, those feelings come right back up to the surface, like a beach ball that you can never really shove under the water. In order to release overwhelm you have to deal with overwhelm.
With that being said, we don’t always have the time and space to deal with overwhelming emotions the moment we feel them. If you’re in that situation, you can do something I like to call positive redirection, which is shifting your focus from what’s upsetting by doing something that grounds you back in your body and your surroundings. Some examples of positive redirection are exercise, getting fresh air, making yourself something nourishing to eat, listening to a guided mediation, or taking a shower.
2. Plan for time and space to process your feelings.
I work full-time from home, and I’m a mom of two little kids. Yeah, I know. It’s a lot sometimes! I don’t always have the time during the day to process big feelings, so I decide that after the kids go to bed, I’m going to take as much time as I need to process. I usually communicate with my husband about that so that he knows what my evening plans are. Knowing that you’ll have a designated time to work through your feelings when things are calmer in your home helps you to be more present with the tasks in front of you during the day because you know that you’ll take care of what’s bothering you at a later time.
3. Name your emotions.
Yes, something this simple can help you deal when you’re spiraling. Psychologist Dan Siegel names this practice “name it to tame it.” Naming our emotions “lessens the burden they create” and helps us start problem solving what we can do about them. For example, if you’re feeling scared you’ll know you need to do something to help yourself feel safe. And if you’re feeling angry you’ll need to do something to help yourself feel calm. You can’t process your feelings if you don’t know what it is you’re actually feeling.
4. Show yourself compassion.
Want to know what’s one of the worst things you can do to yourself once you identify your feelings? Tell yourself you’re dumb for having those feelings. How many of us have realized that we feel jealous or scared or angry and then proceeded to tell ourselves that if we were just better, bigger, stronger people we wouldn't have these feelings? No, no, no. If you didn’t have those feelings you’d be a robot. Have your dang feelings, okay?! I’m yelling at myself too lol. Respond to yourself with, “It’s okay” or “You’re safe” or “You didn’t deserve that” or “It makes sense why you feel that way.” Give yourself the validation you need. Having feelings isn’t wrong. Working them out on others by being mean and snappy is. So name your feelings and give yourself some grace.
5. Remind yourself of what’s true.
What I mean by this is, if you think, for example, “I’m so scared that I’m going to die from coronavirus,” you need to remind yourself that currently you are not dead. There is a chance that you won’t get the virus, and you won’t die. Worrying about being dead doesn’t help you stay alive. Make sense? Sometimes we need a friend to help us see what’s true, but this is something you can learn to do for yourself for the most part with practice.
6. Focus on what you can control.
Back to my dying of coronavirus example (I’m not trying to be insensitive here. I know this is a fear many of us have had). So, after you remind yourself that worrying about dying is not helping you stay alive, you ask yourself, “What CAN I do?” Then, you make yourself a list of all the things you can do. You can focus on eating healthy, washing your hands, wearing a mask when you go out, staying home as much as possible, and doing anything else that can help boost your immune system.
In action, the process looks something like this:
You get triggered by a news article about how many more COVID-19 deaths there are in your city.
You feel the impulse to open Instagram and start scrolling. Instead of numbing, you walk away from the place where you saw the bad news to give yourself a break and take 3 deep breaths.
You want to process through what you saw but you have a zoom call in 15 minutes and your hair is still standing straight up. You decide that you’ll process your feelings at the end of the day after work is over and the kids are in bed.
You open your journal and quickly jot down what’s bothering you. You name the emotions on the page, “scared, nervous, uncertain.”
You show yourself some love by saying, “It’s understandable why I’m feeling scared. I’m not the only one.”
Then, you remind yourself what’s true, “At this moment, I’m okay. I’m safe. I can’t know what tomorrow will bring. There is no point in worrying about it.”
Then you ask yourself, “What can I do right now? What do I have control over?” To which you respond with “I have control over how much news I consume, and how I take care of my body to be as healthy as I can be.”
After you’ve walked through this whole process in a matter of 5 minutes, you decide to put on a decent shirt and fix your hair before that Zoom call in 10 minutes.
You may have noticed in this example that I reference writing down what you’re feeling. Even writing down your compassionate response, what’s true, and what you can control is also very helpful.
That’s why I encourage people to keep a journal, especially if you struggle with any level of anxiety. It helps you to get out of your spiraling mind and back into reality where pen is hitting a page in real life and you have to engage with what’s happening in reality. It’s incredibly grounding and helpful for us chronic worriers. :)
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