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Takeaway Mindfulness, offers an alternative way to deal with strong emotions: instead of moving away from the emotion, it teaches us to move towards it.
In this blog we will look into how to step out of moments of emotional overwhelm.
First things first. Let’s understand what is happening here.
Often, when we experience unpleasant emotions such as stress, anxiety, anger and fear our initial reaction is to want to push it away, we don’t want to have it. This reaction is an automatic response. We also call this going into auto-pilot. In general we can distinguish between four different responses:
- To distantiate ourselves from the situation and/or the emotions.
- To remove ourselves from the situation.
- To avoid the situation or emotions completely.
- To overthink: to go over the same problem over and over again; rehearsing, solving, scenario planning.
These reactions can be useful strategies for a certain period of time. However, when strong emotions are experienced – and pushed away – over an extended period of time they start to grow. They become more intense in our mind and start to manifest in our body.
Keeping the ball under water.
You can compare this to trying to keep a ball under water. When you are strong, you can keep it under water. However, when you loosen your grip on the ball, even for a moment, it will come to the surface with great force and pressure. Or, in the ‘language of emotions’: one day all these emotions will rise to the surface. Coming out as a seemingly uncontrollable cascade of feelings, also called: emotional overwhelm. There can be anxiety, anger, stress, fear, sadness – and often all mixed together.
Conclusion: always keeping this ball of emotions under water is not sustainable. So.. then what is?
2x effective ways to deal with strong emotions.
Mindfulness, offers an alternative way to deal with strong, unpleasant emotions: instead of moving away from the emotion, it teaches us to move towards it. In this way we can process and soften these emotions. Giving us a sustainable, long-term healing strategy.
In the peach box 🍑 below you can find a meditation and a reflection exercise. Try it out! If not now, then when? Schedule it in your diary!
If you enjoyed it feel free to share – using the the links below – with any friend or family member. Sharing is caring. 🤍
With Calm, and Love,
Marie-Claire
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Below are two tools for you to try out:
One to use in the heat of the moment and one to use when you experience stress for an extended period of time.
- Meditation on strong emotions.
This is a meditation made for ‘the heat of the moment’. You can try this meditation when you experience strong emotions such as stress, anxiety, anger or fear.
>> LINK to Meditation Recording
- Do a stress reflection.
Often there are multiple triggers from stress. Also, it always means a boundary is crossed. This may be crossed by yourself or by others. This reflection helps you to clarify what the key drivers and triggers are of your stress and which boundary is being crossed. Also, it gives some ideas as of how to best move forward.
Of course, these exercises are a taster. A full Mindfulness training will allow you to deepen your understanding and obtain concrete tools to step out of- and process- these emotions to ultimately experience calmer, lightness and flow.
Let me know what you thought of the meditation and/ or the reflection exercise. How was it to move towards your emotions? How did you feel different after?
Would love to hear from you. 🤍
Remember: we take care of the future by taking care of the present moment.
