Coping with Overwhelming Emotions

Often clients will tell me they feel overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings. They may be stressed about deadlines, upcoming exams, speeches, or performance reviews. Worried or sad about their relationships, health, family, finances, lack of leisure time, and sometimes they worry or feel sad about everything in general. They are often very critical of themselves… “I’m too fat, thin, unattractive, hopeless, not good enough”.   

They don’t want to feel this way as they are not living rich and meaningful lives. They may spend a huge amount of time trying to make their feelings, thoughts, memories, go away. They try their hardest not to think about “it” in the hope it will go away. They drink alcohol, eat “comfort” food, or use illicit drugs, to feel a different way or numb themselves. Others self-harm, gamble, or binge eat. It makes sense why they use these strategies as most of them work really well in the short term. However, the unpleasantness inevitably comes back, and the process of getting rid of it starts all over again.

All this self-criticism and efforts not to feel a certain way, takes a lot of time and energy.  And while they are spending all this time and energy trying not feel a certain way, overthinking the past and/or future, they are missing out on living life in the present moment. 

One way to connect with the present moment is to “ground yourself”. I like to teach my clients to ground themselves using their five senses. When you notice you are caught up with what’s going on in your head, or notice your body is reacting to negative thoughts (heart racing, fists or jaw clenching, butterflies in stomach etc), practice beginning to notice what is happening around you:

·     What five things can you see?

·     What four things can you touch?

·     What three things can you hear?

·     What two things can you taste?

·     What one thing can you smell?

This practice gets you out of your head and into the present moment. It’s important to remember that it doesn’t take the painful or unpleasant thoughts/feelings etc away, but it does give you a break from them, an ability to do something other than focus on the unpleasantness you have been going through. 

After you have grounded yourself it may be a good time to slow down your breathing. Our breathing often speeds up when we are stressed/nervous/angry about things. It’s our bodies natural way of preparing us for the danger (your worries) that we sense. We are very good at breathing in, it’s the breathing out part that we tend to forget (shallow breathing). There are many slowed or controlled breathing techniques. A good one to begin with is to 

·     Breathe in and smell the cake (or roses or whatever smell you like to imagine)

·     Breathe out and blow out all of the imaginary birthday candles 

Grounding yourself does not get rid of your negative thoughts, but it empowers you to put them aside and enjoy living in the present moment.