Connecting with oneself involves increasing awareness of one’s inner world, thoughts, feelings, values, emotions, and goals. This is not just a mystical journey but a practical path to knowing who you really are. It involves recognizing what ticks you off on a bad day or makes, asking nonjudgmental questions to understand your emotions, and discovering your agency in acting from your emotions or letting them go.
Various techniques can be used to connect with your higher self, such as meditation, mindfulness, mirror work, and positive thinking. To support emotional wellbeing and reconnect with your authentic self and the world around you, there are simple steps you can take.
- Work on self-awareness by talking to friends about your and their feelings and becoming curious about other people’s emotions. Ask questions and listen, as others crave to be heard as much as you do.
- Explore your primary emotions by sitting in a quiet place, focusing on your abdominal area, and centering yourself. Write a dialogue with your inner critic and respond as if in conversation.
- Engage in self-expression and learning how to feel and process your emotions. Other ways to deal with emotions include exercising, meditating, prayer, creating or listening to music, writing poetry, painting, or journaling.
- Talk directly to your emotion and ask it to tell you more. Ask your emotion to help you understand what’s going on.
- Accept your thoughts and emotions without judging our cognitions, feelings, or experiences. Encourage yourself to “allow” the sensations to be present and flow without trying to control, reduce, or escape them.
By actively observing and questioning how you feel at given moments, you can develop an acute awareness for your feelings. Belly breathing is one of the simplest yet most effective ways of calming and connecting the mind and body.
| Article | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Therapist Tips: Connecting with Your Emotions | Dance to music, scribble with crayons, get a massage, follow a guided meditation, read or write a poem. Engaging with other forms of expression … | kindman.co |
| How to Get in Touch with Your Emotions | Other ways that people deal with emotions include exercising, meditating, prayer, creating or listening to music, writing poetry, painting, or journaling. Find … | bergencounselingcenter.com |
| How to Feel Your Emotions (Especially If You Don’t Know … | Keep it simple by asking : What’s at the root of my emotion? Why am I sad? Why am I nervous? Why am I angry? Why am I hurt? See if you can feel … | kimegel.com |
📹 How to Process Your Emotions
In order to be calm and at ease with ourselves, we need regular periods where we do something rather strange-sounding: …
Why Do Empaths Feel So Deeply?
Empaths and highly sensitive people (HSPs) profoundly experience the emotions of those around them, leading to an emotional overwhelm that can disrupt their own feelings. Often acting as emotional sponges, they absorb external energies, making it challenging to maintain their emotional equilibrium. Despite occasional positive experiences, such as good feedback or accomplishments, the arrival of an emotionally charged partner can shift their mood entirely.
Empaths possess a unique sensitivity, characterized by their capacity to connect deeply with others, making them adept at interpreting emotions, often without effort. They can experience phenomena like mirror touch synesthesia, where observing another's touch elicits physical sensations in themselves. This heightened awareness, while a form of emotional intelligence, can become burdensome, as they can inadvertently take on others' distress, further exacerbating their anxiety.
Empaths thrive on meaningful relationships, valuing authenticity and trust. However, their inclination to feel deeply often attracts insecure individuals, leading to emotional entanglements. In essence, while empaths have the gift of profound empathy, it can leave them vulnerable to overwhelming emotional experiences and challenges in managing their own well-being.
How Do I Not Let My Emotions Control Me?
To manage your emotions effectively, start by taking deep breaths when feeling overwhelmed; pause and breathe for a minute. Incorporate daily meditation, dedicating 10 to 20 minutes to clear your mind. Recognize and acknowledge your feelings instead of suppressing them. Asking insightful questions about your emotions can help you understand their root causes. You have two choices when triggered: react impulsively or respond thoughtfully. Although you can't control your emotions, you can choose how to react.
Focus on adjusting the meaning you assign to emotions rather than trying to control them directly. Validate your feelings without dismissal to better manage them. To avoid being swayed by others’ moods, awareness of your emotional triggers is crucial. Practice emotional intelligence to recognize the emotions of those around you. Techniques such as mindfulness and deep breathing can ground you in the present.
Taking brief breaks when feeling negative emotions helps prevent overwhelm. Develop self-control and resilience to navigate emotional challenges. Lastly, engage in positive reframing and affirmations to uplift your mood and encourage emotional awareness.
How To Stop Feeling Things So Deeply?
To become less sensitive, consider enhancing emotional regulation skills, practicing mindfulness, journaling, and accepting oneself. It’s essential not to take things personally and to improve the ability to tolerate distress. Sensitive individuals often benefit from therapy for anxiety or depression. Emotional intensity includes depth, velocity, and complexity; recognizing triggers can help in managing sensitivity. When feeling overwhelmed, practice deep breathing and take time for self-care, ideally spending 10-15 minutes daily on affirmations to boost emotional independence.
Techniques like grounding exercises can aid in calming oneself. Emotional numbness, often linked to depression, can also be addressed through mindfulness. To manage intense emotions, engage in self-care, regulate sensory input, and seek therapy if needed. Embracing feelings without extreme reactions is vital; this can be supported through rhythmic breathing, exercise, and supportive discussions about sensitivity. Recognize the strength that comes with being a deep feeler, allowing emotions such as tears and laughter to be acknowledged as healing expressions.
Why Am I So Bad At Communicating My Feelings?
Many individuals struggle with expressing their true emotions due to various fears and upbringing. Some worry that vulnerability may lead to rejection, while others grow up in environments where emotional expression is discouraged, making it challenging to articulate feelings later in life. For those who feel deeply, words may not capture their emotions accurately, complicating communication. Recognizing and understanding one’s emotional state is crucial for personal development.
Individuals may experience conditions like alexithymia, which hinders their ability to identify and express feelings. The process of emotional expression can be navigated through four key steps: feeling, accepting, managing, and sharing one’s emotions. It’s essential to name emotions, accept them, and practice communication skills such as using "I" statements and active listening. Research indicates that discussing and labeling negative feelings can reduce their intensity.
Various factors contribute to the difficulty in expressing emotions, including fear of conflict, judgment, and the complexity of emotions involved. Learning to communicate feelings can be enhanced with practice, leading to healthier relationships.
How Do I Communicate With My Inner Self?
Communicating with your inner self requires intentional practices such as introspection, mindfulness, meditation, and journaling. To connect with your inner self, start by journaling your thoughts and experiences. Engage in self-reflection through writing continuously for a few minutes, as suggested by Eddins, which can help articulate your inner experiences and desires. Various techniques, including mirror work and positive thinking, will facilitate your connection to your higher self, enhancing self-awareness regarding your thoughts, feelings, values, and goals. A lack of this connection may lead to living inauthentically, perceiving the need to shield yourself from reality.
To nurture this connection, discover practical tips that assist in accessing inner wisdom—meditate, set purpose-driven goals, eat healthily, and commune with nature. Engaging regularly in these activities fosters a relationship with your higher self, guiding you to clarity through love and wisdom. Awareness of your internal dialogue is crucial; shift your self-talk positively to strengthen this connection.
Finding a quiet space, sitting comfortably, and focusing on a mantra like "OM" can set the stage for deeper introspection. Ultimately, embracing your inner voice empowers you to recognize and align with your core values and beliefs, fostering acceptance and hope.
What Are Some Ways To Control Emotional Eating Impulses?
The belief of impending failure can lead to worry, which may result in actions like skipping a test. This illustrates a clear link between thoughts, feelings, and actions. Emotional eating arises from the urge to eat in response to negative emotions rather than hunger. Understanding this connection can help manage emotional eating, which is characterized by eating to escape, numb, or amplify feelings. Dietitian Kasey Kilpatrick highlights that overeating can lead to discomfort and reduced energy.
Recognizing triggers is essential in addressing emotional eating. Professionals suggest several strategies to cope healthily, such as maintaining a food diary, identifying emotional triggers, managing stress, and seeking support. It's acknowledged that emotional eating is common and not inherently shameful. The emphasis is placed on mindfulness and breaking the habit through awareness rather than just focusing on portions.
Finding alternative coping mechanisms can lead to better emotional regulation. Though emotional eating may help alleviate some feelings temporarily, fostering healthier habits and understanding one's emotional landscape is vital for long-term well-being.
How Do I Let Go Of Heavy Feelings?
Letting go of negative emotions involves a gradual process that begins with self-awareness and acknowledgment of one's feelings, whether it's anger, sadness, or resentment. Emotions are neither inherently "bad" nor "good," and it's essential to allow oneself to experience these feelings without judgment. Mindfulness practices can aid in recognizing and feeling emotions in the body, helping to unpack the emotional baggage that often weighs us down. To facilitate emotional release, individuals can express their feelings through writing or speaking, as articulating struggles is a crucial step in the healing journey.
Engaging in distracting, relaxing activities—such as reading, bathing, or walking—can also provide new stimuli for the mind. Learning new skills or reframing negative experiences as opportunities for growth can further support the release process. Additionally, recognizing signs of bitterness and taking responsibility for one’s emotions through self-reflection helps promote healing. It's important to practice breathing and journaling to express feelings in an unfiltered manner.
Ultimately, the path to emotional healing requires patience and conscious effort, culminating in the ability to let go of painful experiences and embrace positive emotions fully. By taking these steps, one can facilitate a lighter heart and a greater sense of peace.
Why Am I So Uncomfortable With Emotions?
Judgment significantly influences our ability to express emotions, often leading to discomfort and vulnerability due to fears of mockery, rejection, or exploitation. Negative emotions like anger, fear, and anxiety inherently create unease, which societal norms may impose as a "weakness." Signs of discomfort with emotions can include conflict avoidance, difficulty relaxing, and trouble accepting compliments. Many find these emotions unpleasant and may shy away from them, yet they are essential for self-understanding and direction.
Highly sensitive individuals often grapple with intense feelings, which can stem from their upbringing and prior traumas. Avoiding these emotions is common; however, it can lead to increased pain, cardiovascular issues, and negative health consequences. Building emotion regulation skills can mitigate the intensity and duration of negative feelings. Recognizing the roots of our discomfort with emotions can help: family dynamics often discourage emotional expression, leading individuals to feel lost or confused in their emotional responses.
Despite fears surrounding emotional expression, it's vital to confront and cope with these feelings rather than numb or exacerbate them. Understanding this dynamic can pave the way for healthier emotional experiences and interactions.
Why Do I Struggle To Connect With My Emotions?
Feeling emotionally numb can stem from various causes, such as depression, anxiety, past trauma, or medication effects. Emotional detachment is characterized by a lack of ability or willingness to connect with others emotionally, often to avoid stress or drama. Individuals may also experience emotional dysregulation, leading to difficulties in recognizing and expressing their emotions, resulting in confusion and guilt. Mindfulness meditation is suggested as a method to ground oneself in the present moment, which is essential for emotional awareness.
Recognizing and addressing one’s own emotional state is crucial for well-being. Emotional detachment can arise from past neglect and may indicate underlying mental health issues like PTSD or borderline personality disorder. Therapy and medication can be effective treatments.
Moreover, feeling disconnected from emotions can lead to frustration and disorientation. People often struggle with the fear of vulnerability in expressing their feelings, fearing it might damage relationships. Understanding one’s attachment style can clarify emotional responses and interactions with others. Those with alexithymia may face additional challenges in recognizing their feelings and responding to others' emotions. Ultimately, developing emotional awareness through observation and questioning can foster a deeper connection to one’s feelings and improve overall emotional health.
Are You Encouraged To Get In Touch With Your Emotions?
We often face societal pressures to mask our true emotions, presenting a happy facade on social media while hiding our struggles. Personally, I've benefited from supportive relationships that allow me to process my feelings deeply, unlike my teenage years. Understanding emotions is crucial— they signify how we feel and connect us to our true selves. Gaining emotional clarity can be achieved through various practices such as mindfulness, which helps us recognize our bodily sensations and stay present.
Identifying and allowing our feelings to exist without judgment is vital. This personal emotional exploration aids in healthy conversations with loved ones and fosters support. Strategies for getting in touch with emotions include exercising awareness of physical sensations, performing body scans, and accurately labeling our feelings. It's important to understand what matters to us and how it aligns with our emotions. Seeking guidance from professionals or trusted friends can be beneficial.
Remember, being in touch with your feelings is about acknowledging them without being overwhelmed; it requires awareness and a willingness to engage with emotional pain. Ultimately, understanding and managing our emotions impacts our lives significantly, leading to better communication and healthier relationships. Therapy is a valuable tool in navigating these complex emotional landscapes.
How To Stop Being So Sensitive?
To be less sensitive, consider these 11 strategies: 1. Practice mindfulness to enhance emotional regulation. 2. Keep a daily journal to process your feelings. 3. Embrace self-acceptance to foster self-compassion. 4. Manage stress effectively to reduce overwhelm. 5. Set healthy boundaries to protect your emotional well-being. 6. Challenge negative thoughts to shift your perspective. 7. Engage in physical activity for emotional release. 8. Seek support from friends or professionals.
9. Reflect on the origins of your sensitivity to better understand your reactions. 10. Avoid taking things personally to minimize emotional triggers. 11. Recognize that highly sensitive individuals, who often have lower stimulation thresholds, can benefit from balance and resilience. While you cannot completely eliminate sensitivity, you can manage your responses to it. Developing emotional resilience through techniques like deep breathing and empathetic reflection can help.
These strategies, such as practicing mindfulness and enhancing emotional regulation skills, enable you to navigate life’s challenges without feeling overwhelmed. Understanding your sensitivity can foster self-awareness, leading to healthier interactions and reduced emotional distress. Ultimately, embracing your sensitivity while employing coping techniques can enhance your overall emotional health.
📹 how to master your emotions emotional intelligence
In this video, I talk about mastering the emotions and emotional intelligence (for lack of a better term). My video on the theory of …
I see people supressing instead of processing and People get broken by it. I am a introvert myself and I don’t show my feelings often, but I still take time to experience difficult emotions. When I am feeling these unpleaseant emotions I do not distract myself. Quite the opposite, I sit down and experience them fully. You can hide your emotions, but you can’t run from them. They will catch up, so why not face them right now. I always feel better after I embraced them completely. And after all if there were no bad feelings, then we wouldnt know what “good” feelings are. I’m glad a fellow YouTube website talked about this!
It hurts me when I talked about my problems to people, they usually back away. They only want to talked about achievements and success or a fun adventure you had. Of course I know they don’t want negativity in their life, perhaps they may have many problems too. But sometimes a fake smile is even difficult to pull off than being just sad and depressed and in other moments anxious.
I just got cheated on a few days ago, and this could not be more true. I wanted so desperately to move on and kept my mind busy with gym, work etc. i never sat down and felt to grief. I’m starting to realise this now and its helping with the healing process. It still hurts, especially when alone at night when my mind races. However, feeling these emotions and not ignoring them is so important otherwise i think ignoring them will manifest its self in other unhealthy ways.
I had letten a guy broke my hearth severely. I did not think about him much afterwards, occasionally looking back in bitterness and cynic commenting. Eventually I almost forgot about him, then one day I thought about how he hurt me and what he did to me emotionally. I broke down, experiencing how I started to cry as if someone told me a loved one had just died. I could not take it and lied there crying like a baby for an hour, fully aware and concious of what was happening. I watched myself doing it, just told my inner self “Sure, go ahead. I am surprised, yet I will follow your demand and grief in despair” and afterwards I had this strange feeling of self love, thankfulness from my inner self, and tge feeling that is was what I surpressed all along.
I loved the part where you said, ‘Our minds grow unoriginal from a background anxiety about their contents.’ I have this constant unrelenting fear that my thoughts won’t cohere, the words I speak won’t make sense, and that generally my personality won’t come out. And, as easily as that, it happens. It must appear to the rest of the world that I’m constantly distracted, and indeed I am, but not with anything specific like an incident at work, a relationship breakdown or the like. I know this might be slightly idiosyncratic, but those few words in the article capture so much of the essence of my experience. It has implications for my writing, which grows unoriginal from a background anxiety about its contents (and….I think I just proved my point lol).
I think it’s very easy and appealing to avoid directly facing one’s emotional difficulties because in many ways, there is very little one can do about the hardships and sadness of life. And by trying to solve these issues, we soon discover they can’t really be solved and we only worsen our state of disillusion. I believe doing things that require our focus and energy like working, art, exercise, etc. can distract us from our existential dread and still remain healthy, sustainable solutions.
Repressing emotions causes depression. Never though of it that way. I’ve been rejected by an individual I fell in love with past year. The emotional and mental roller coaster was something. Never have I felt greater emotional pain, not just due to self esteem issues, but mostly due letting go. That one person only exists as one. No one like that. And letting go and never seeing that person again is like having a relative die. In fact it’s part of you dying. This is the reason why casual hook ups are so dominating today, because of pain like this that comes from falling in love. I’d say the worst part were the mornings. Waking up to a nightmare after remembering that “oh yeah, that one who made your world colorful….yeah she’s gone”. This heart piercing moment that spiked up my adrenaline levels would go on for months. When I was a kid and a teen I hated the concept of love and those “weak adults” who were acting like children. Crying, screaming, having tantrums. Now I know. This is in the essence part of being human, and avoiding rejection, failure or painful emotions is cowardly. These are all the risks and trials that lead to a colorful life and happiness. I rather be happy at the cost of eventual sadness, than never to have experienced happiness due to fear of being sad.
I’ve been so stubborn in thinking I don’t need help for anything my whole life. Finally, I submitted and decided that it couldn’t hurt. I still hold the final decision in anything I hear… and so I got over the stigma. I saw a therapist for the first time today… Then I watched this article. Thank you for this. I wept after perusal and felt a wonderful release. I don’t have words to express my gratitude for the work you’ve put into these articles. You’ve clearly done your research.
It’s hard to process emotions. It’s scary. There can be a huge feeling of panic, worry, and the urge to avoid the hard feelings. It can be extremely overwhelming and sometimes painful to go through the emotion. One thing I can say is that it hurts for a much longer time when you don’t process the emotion that is coming up. You can try to stuff it down, but it’ll come out in different ways (usually in neurotic/anxiety/depressive ways), and then you’re dealing with a whole bunch of problems. 😒 Someone gave me this advice once and it helped me see my emotions differently and actually start to process them in a healthy way: There is no such thing as a GOOD or BAD emotion. There can sometimes be bad actions, like acting possessive, but simply expressing an emotion is not good or bad. Over the years this is how I learned to process (and eventually move on from) my emotions…. just sit in it and feel the emotion. Don’t fight the emotion or try to control it. Notice the emotion in your body, and how your body is reacting to it. At first it’ll be very scary, but remind yourself that you’ll be ok and that this feeling will eventually pass. Practice self-compassion: Thank yourself for allowing yourself to process the emotion. Acknowledge how much strength and courage it took to sit through the pain. Give yourself a pat on the back and repeat whenever you feel emotions bubble up again.
Let go of your “fantasy-self”, or the “perfect version” you like to see yourself as, or your “perfect life”. It helped me a lot. It can be pretty sad to realize how hard reality is, and how far you are from being who you like to think you are. And it’s good to be sad, otherwise it gets stuck in yourself. Bad karma haha
the timing of this article was so perfect…i’ve just started cognitive behavioural therapy and realised that so many of my problems just leave me feeling overwhelmed and like i want to run away, so i don’t even think about them until negative emotions rear their ugly head at unexpected moments…sometimes it just hurts too much for your mind to process how it is feeling
This is my second time perusal this article. I’ve been digging very deeply into my heart for the past 7 years or so and it has been worth it. I was very angry and misserable at one point and I suffered a lot, about anything. And one day I said no more. I want to be happy. And slowly things have began to change for me. Nothing has changed over night, I’ve had ups and downs but I’m finally understanding what caused so much of my suffering as a teenager. And I’m in the process of dealing with that. Then, I’ll be above ground again, and then I’ll continue to build up and make my own castle. I love you and wish you all the best in your journeys.
At first I thought “it’s called ‘how to process your emotions’? where’s the ‘how to’ bit?”… but then I realised this actually helped a lot, potentially more so because it evades that prescriptive element. As a result I had to think a bit more deeply and organically – as the answer is simply to do that; think genuinely, honestly and thoroughly about potential factors and hardships which you’ve experienced, which you may not have actually fully emotionally experienced, and process them consciously and vigorously, so they can’t build and overwhelm you suddenly in other forms, such as anxiety – because you have consciously taken them on and placated them, even if difficult or upsetting. For me these things were very obvious and considerable, but for others they may be more subtle, and so potentially more difficult to pinpoint. Very interesting; thanks!
It’s scary to me how some of the visual (and amazing) artwork in these articles match recent events or past events for me.. it helps me relate to the message even more, thanks to coincidences like those. Anyways, don’t be afraid to share your gifts and always appreciate, thank you Alain and this website for making me realize how little I know.. of myself, of others.. I’m glad i can always expect a reminder that I’m not alone, the reassurance is comforting to say the least.
Dear School of Life! Happy birthday! I know it was on the 9th. But in Germany, even if you are two days late, you always have the option to say ” happy birthday nachträglich”. So I will take the chance to thank you for the 1000th time ( !!! ) for your wonderful work, for all your efforts and sacrifices and for all the enrichment, serenity and wisdom you bring to our lives. You have reached almost 3 million people in three years. Touching so many lives in such a short time is something to be extremely proud of! As always I send you lots of love and my best wishes :- )
I was having a pankc attack when this article popped up in my feed. I dont know why but whenever im going through something troubling, this website releases a article directly relating to how I feel or whats hurt me. Not many people I know discuss the topics covered in these articles but its nkce to jnow that theres at least one light shining in the darkness.
This should be on trending page! Everyone should know this. I spend a lot of time thinking about the depths of universe, this world and our minds, and I have a sense we know so little. Seems that we should dedicate more of our resources to knowing ourselves and each other than knowing what’s on the bottom of the ocean or far away from our planet…
It takes courage to face your feelings. As a sensitive person, I always saw emotions as a negative thing because it makes you appear weak. But I later realized in life that it takes courage to even speak out about your problems to people. I also learned that suppressing it makes it even worse. So even though its very painful to face your emotions, at least you’re actually doing something about it. 😁
That’s why I stay up until my head demands sleep, because if I have time to feel, I’ll feel all the negative emotions I’m constantly suppressing. How does one throw out regretful memories? Where is the blank silence that comes with putting your phone down and closing your eyes? That’s when I’m most awake…
Recently asked to review the one hour mental health session I had with the rest of year 10 classmates which have been the same for the past 4 years and tell us things like ‘be positive’, ‘smile’, and ‘be grateful’ where we used to think we understand what it meant but now doubt its usefulness when it’s challenged by everyday adversities. We’ve barely scratched the surface and it’s no wonder that we feel bad and embarrassed because it seems like we’re not allowing these pieces of advice to solve our problems. It’s not thought provoking when they just remind us what we already know but find useless sometimes unless they tell us how to combine it with more complicated examples like compassion, processing thoughts, jealousy and philosophical topics.
Honestly the hardest part for me is just being able to find someone to talk to. I don’t like asking or talk to someone because that makes me seem like I’m attention seeking, but then if someone points out that I look like I’m sad I immediately hide it. I just wish someone would ask me how I was feeling because it breaks me down when I just bottle all my emotions up. I just want to feel like someone cares
This was my life during my teens and twenties. Now I’m halfway through my thirties I acknowledge and explore my feelings, no matter how painful, through writing and talking about them. I can’t say I’m a lot happier since I’ve been doing it but I do understand my unhappiness a lot better now. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for.
I needed this article right now. I have been very unmotivated, and distant from other people especially my roommates lately. Consciously Ive been focusing on their flaws and absorbed in my personal woes. perusal this article in dawned on me: all be the only one who doesnt graduate this semester, they all move out December and I’ll lose the best friends I’ve ever had.
ima kinda just let it out here, i’m scared about going to 8th grade. i’m not scared about having bad grades, i’m scared about being called on in class. the week after coming back from winter vacation my math teacher had a sub. he called on me in class and i burst into tears for a moment i stopped and i could feel the humiliation. i could feel the students staring at me. i couldn’t move all i did was look at my friend next to me. she could tell i wasn’t good and i was about to burst. she tried to calm me down but i couldn’t. the teacher told me to take a break. so i just sat there with my hands on my face. I was so scared. I felt humiliated. all i wanted to do was leave the room. he came up to my desk after teaching the lesson. he explained to me how he knows how it feels to have social anxiety because his daughter has it too. that brought joy to me because when other teachers call on me i just stare at them and they make fun of me. i want to tell the school counselor about how i feel so she could tell the teachers and stop making me so stressed. this is why i stay up till 5 in the morning crying… because of school
i used to be okay for staying up late till wee hours for next day’s lectures but the night get scary when it’s filled with thoughts that come in all at once and leave me sleepless. like, im aware im tired, that my body wants rest, but not long ago i’ve been losing sleep to an active brain with scary thoughts. i have this deep need to talk to someone, but i can’t seem to find who because those closest to me are all busy. so here i am… hahahahaha (a laugh to put a light feeling just so it doesn’t sound too sad)
Processing emotions and suppressing emotions are not mutually exclusive. Emotions and thoughts can be suppressed temporarily and processed later on. This is especially useful to get work done or to enjoy social events. “Suppressing emotions” is a loose phrase that can mean multiple things: 1. Avoiding analyzing the internal emotions. 2. Avoiding talking about the internal pain externally. 3. Avoiding feeling the internal pain. 4. Avoiding external emotional expressions of internal pain: i.e. crying, screaming, etc. *We should generally analyze the internal pain to an extent. How much we should analyze the internal pain varies from person to person and day to day. *Sometimes we should talk about the situation to others depending on the person and situation. *After some processing, we should force ourselves into healthy, leisurely activities and/or work. How much and when we should force ourselves varies from person to person and day to day. *We should rarely hold back from crying as crying will reduce the pain, even just temporarily. Analyzing or talking about the internal pain is different from analyzing or talking about the external problem. Emotions are not toothpaste in a bottle. After we process them, they often come flooding back later. Often times bringing negative unconscious thoughts to the conscious level (“surfacing”) will trouble people significantly more than they did when they were unconscious. It’s crucial to find a balance where emotions are acknowledged and dealt with without getting stuck in a cycle of rumination.
Processing emotions has always been a very difficult thing for me and still continues to be a difficult thing for me to this day. Even more so, is explaining these emotions to others and how I am feeling. I am wondering how anyone else has been able to explain their emotions to others and their process of how they came to do that. If anyone has some insight that could potentially help me out with this and making it a bit easier to talk with others about this that would be extremely helpful. Some info or anything will help, a page to possibly help me with my communication. Someone to talk about it with me and talk me through their process.
I don’t know what path to follow in life. I don’t know what my personality is. sometimes it’s outgoing, sometimes it’s easily angered, and sometimes it’s quiet and polite. I don’t know what God wants from me. I don’t know if i am just going through the motions. I dont know what my mind truly desires. Some of it i do know, and I hate myself for preferring those things. But if I try to do something about it, I will feel forced and inexisting, and things will just get worse. My mom tells me not to dwell on these things, but if I don’t i will feel forced. Or maybe I’m just too lazy. Maybe I’m just too lazy to not dwell on things. I know that very well, but I don’t do anything about it, because im too lazy. This is why I sometimes hate myself. I sin and do poor things, all the while knowing it and how bad it is, but not fixing it. I want to fix it. But I can’t. I will feel forced and inexisting. I am very self aware. I watch myself screw things up over and over, and every time I know it. I know what people most likely think of it. I know that right now I may sound dramatic to people. I’m perusal myself failing. I want to have hope, I also realize while writing this that I dont want to lose hope. But sometimes I do. And I hate it. I don’t know who or what I am. I’m in oblivion. There’s so many things I can’t accept. That’s another reason I hate myself sometimes. Because I can’t accept them, and I know it. What if I’m questioning God right now? I don’t know what to do, I at least want to please God.
Have you done a article on how tow respond to a mean comment or joke about you? Today someone commented something about me that can seem embarrassing to others but not me. He makes a big deal of it so I couldn’t take it as a joke anymore so I got a little mad and kind of told him to go. I think about it now and maybe I could have handled it a little better, like instead of being a bit angry, being a little bit sad. I think that was my original feeling but I find it more embarrassing than being angry (I was with a bunch of friends).
My friends dont like when i talk about my feelings because its too much of a burden on them, they however expect me to be there for them when they need to talk. The therapist i would see tried to encourage me to ignore these emotions by exercising and working more :’) on the bright side tho I’ll be moving at the end of the year to another town hopefully i can at least find a nice therapist! I hope anyone who is in a similar situation to me can find someone who really is there for them and get the support they need!
Work had been my refuge andhill hiking. Lockdown has helped me unmask the pain loss of my partner. I need to allow joy into my life so I have started painting, planting a few veg on my balcony and cooking. Reaching out to show kindnesss to others – which has helped. Habits of sadness are behaviours which need to be faced and changed. Not easy but small wins bring a sense of achievement and hope.
I am working through childhood traumas and I prayed for me to be able to feel my heart break and today it happened. I mean my heart seriously broke for the little girl I was…I was ignored, no gifts, no birthdays, no good Christmases, neglected, abandoned, mental, physical, verbally abused, invisible, told I was ugly and my pictures weren’t put up on the walls like my siblings. Made me feel unworthy, worthless, sad, like something was wrong with me, I was so scared and alone, unprotected, unloved, never hugged or felt any tenderness…I was starved of food and attention even when I did good in school and won scholarships for art and my art work was put on display and no one took me to see it…it was given back to me and I still have it but I never really draw again. No approval, just nothing. I laid in my bed and my heart just broke and I sat with it until it softened and went away about 45mins…I want it out because I’m needing to get past this and move on to the things I really want.
we become depressed about everything because we do not allow ourselves to be sad about something. very well said. we need to learn that it’s okay to not always be happy. duh, we’re humans! i think the media has had a lot to do with this; self-promotion, etc…. must always look our best, which means smiling constantly….
such good timing. im having emotions i cant put my finger on which when i spend even a second thinking about, sound extremely irrational and childish. I always keep telling myself that soon i will put aside time to think and figure things out, however i havent done it in a long time and I, fully aware, keep on postponing my own emotions. Really need to get to work
I talked out my issues with my friend and she distanced herself away and I stopped. Honestly, people don’t like hearing about other’s issues, they are not your therapists. However, you do need good friends who can lend a helping ear as well. Right now I am enduring extreme criticism from my parents who I despise tremendously and hate however, that criticism comes from themselves and are projections that they aim at me.
I have a problem processing my emotions too. I can’t even go near my ex in school anymore. I told him in a letter not to talk to me anymore because I’m too scared to speak to him. It’s all about his phone and his ex (now current) girlfriend and a few close friends. I gave him my time and attention and when he said he’ll do it, he doesn’t. He says we’re friends, but he doesn’t act like one around me. I feel like it’s my fault, that we should’ve just stayed friends and I feel like a hollowed out version of myself whenever I see him. But it’s not like that when he’s not near me. So this article really gets me and I’m still working on how to better understand my complicated feelings.
I understood what I want in my life. And I know that if I try o get that, it doesn’t stay long, or never stays. I find everyone else have what I don’t. When we are disappointed we get mixed emotions. Its difficult to sort out what kind of emotions we have when they are mixed up. When we sort them out, we cannot find solutions to each of the emotions. But we can just try to deal with each emotions by staying calm.
that’s why – instead of insomnia being a revenge on you, go and take revenge on people who hurt you (on purpose). It helps! Against all psychological advice from psychologists, revenge is sweet. It re-induces the balance lost and it has its symbolic significance. It does not have to be sadistic or cruel.
I need to vent rlly bad so please don’t read if you don’t want to. Everyone I know just seems like they always want something from me, emotionally or physically, I listen to their issues and sometimes put them above my own but when I try to talk about my problems nobody listens to me, I’d give my back for the people around me, knowing that they’d never do it back but it’s gotten to the point where everyone is taking advantage of me even though I know this is my fault and honestly I’m just so tired. Thanks to whoever read this and I needed to get this out of my system.
I am here to learn of what does emotion means, before I start to try controlling it. I have much to learn, I was a weak nobody, without any social knowledge. Now I am a warrior, a kickboxer and so I have to be strong mentally, and not just physically. So even if it is embarrassing… I do not know what emotion means fully, but when I will… I shall try to master controlling it, so nothing will get in my way of success, and I can build a quality personality, and character. I wish I focused on this way earlier before, but nothing is ever too late.
This is what cognitive therapy is all about, depressive people should know about the kind of distorted thoughts that influence the way we interpret what happens to us everyday and therefore make us feel sad. The article describes something about it here. personally I write what makes me feel sad in a notebook and I identify the kind of distortion the thought has to correct it and repeat it to myself. I strongly recommend that, it really helps you to re-strcture your mind Really enjoy your articles, please do more : >
I’ve narrowed down that I suppress my true feelings because I will be judged harshly and not only that but told I am crazy, in some way. The loneliest feeling is being the one to say something true about what you are feeling and having a parent look at you like you don’t make sense. Like, there’s this wall of confusion. And you think, well, my parents get along with everyone, so maybe this emotion is wrong, and you shove it away, and you keep shoving emotions away til they start to affect your life and you make mistakes. Which you blame yourself for, and you don’t want people to judge you for being lazy, so you suppress your inner fire that is really getting out of control. And then finally you burst at someone you finally feel comfortable with, hurting them, and then they think you are terrible. So you repeat the cycle. Repress. Don’t cause trouble.
Someone asked me out and i replied with “i dont know yet” but they are my friend, but i like them so much more than that to the point where i am scared i will loose them if i say yes and if something bad happens, then i will have to deal with awful emotions again and i don’t want to have a depressed episode again. Also all this lovely shit is new to me, but i always feel so safe when i am with him. And he has a sort of disability that i’m sure is life threatening, like he needs a 50/50 operation. I just don’t want to lose anyone else i love.
I really loved this girl and I gave her all the love that I had to offer, she came up with and excuse to split apart stating that she wanted to be friends while she focused on herself and “hid” her feelings. Unfortunately I believed her and didn’t mind going back to being friends as long as I had her but then a couple days later I see her in the arms of another guy and then through her friends I found out she had lied to me and lemme tell you that this hurt me a lot because for 5 years we had been super close that you could feel like nothing could separate us but all it took was one change in her mind to end all that……I tried not to let it bother me but a week later all the thoughts just consumed me and it’s all I could think about at night
I face my emotions lately and if I’m being honest there’s no difference between the outside world and your head. Synchronicity I believe it’s called. It’s like your mental attitude point of view thoughts Cling to the outside world for inner support. No division, you can only act out based on survival. And once you do you feel safe enough to be yourself until you repeat the process all over again. Ik I’ma make it out regardless, it’s just so much too look into because it makes no sense but you don’t need all that. You can just live with little to no thoughts and live well
However, as an Ayurvedic doctor, I can say that, explicitly expressing emotions for a long time can do more harm than good. For example, Ayurveda mentions 4 emotions that affects digestion – Sadness, Overthinking, Fear, Anger and expressing these emotions explicitly can lead to digestion related issues. And according to Ayurveda, every disease is due to a bad Agni a.k.a gut health. So to take care of your health, one must have control over one’s emotions.
My friend does a lot of weed and drinks a lot to deal with a recent breakup after several years with this person. I support him as a friend, but I can’t help but feel that the drugs aren’t helping. Other friends have told me this is just how he is coping, but a small part inside me just can’t shake the feeling that it’s dangerous to abuse drugs when you’re in such a despair.
How do we process unacknowledged emotions? It takes a very gifted therapist. Now that psychiatry is are no longer part of the healing profession but dedicates itself strictly to pharmacology it is very difficult. Correcting chemical imbalances can never be the complete answer to emotional problems. Healing comes through the humanity of human interaction with a highly skilled therapist.
I don’t know how to “be myself” when I feel like I can’t be the parts of myself that are ‘moody’ or ‘annoyed’ or ‘upset.’ It feels like constant maintenance to perpetually generate understanding and empathy and kindness, especially when it feels like I’m the only one that can do it. I have all this grace for everyone around be, but none for myself
It’s not so much of what happens to you as much as what you do about it….have a happy ending. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses to be aware, or have awareness in day to day living. Reconcile with facts, and not fantasy. Live each day to your fullest, and most of all learn acceptance, a key to knowing the difference.
This could be adapted to educate menegers on how to deal with employee feelings. Because even when employees understand their feelings, managers will say “you need to be more resilient, this is your mental health problem” when in fact it’s that someone has been hurtful at work and it needs to be dealt with appropriately, not punitively, and not brushed under the carpet.
my problem isn’t not processing mh emotions, but rather over-exposure to them through introspection. i’m constantly asking myself why i feel the way i do, how i can change it, what steps i should take each day, all that stuff. that’s why i watch articles like this. i still don’t have the answers i seek though, strangely
I told myself people don’t care about your looks, stop worrying. But then that turned into convincing myself I’m a less than average person in general- my personality sucks and that’s why people don’t want to hang out with me. I hate myself a little bit, because I’m over the top “smart” in academics, but lost in everyday life. I tell myself what’s the point in being so smart, when all you are is an awkward, serious, fake person? Are the people around me just not the same as me, or am I the abnormal one? It’s all so heavy and my self image is crippling.
So, recently I had this childish but amazing dream. I’m a huge LoZ fan, so in this dream I was at a shop, had my shield and shit, hyped af for the adventure. Clerk told me some cliche af shit about this sword, that if I could swing it and practically parry his sword (which for some reason was FF7 Cloud’s OG Buster Sword), I was practically the hero and he would give it to me. So, he stood on top of the counter and swung down and of fucking course I slashed that shit and parried it. In the dream, I was shocked, I processed what happened and I started to cry out of happiness, which translated to me waking up in tears…and a bit upset. I think that was the first time that I felt pretty much important in a while to anyone else than family. People deal with their thoughts and feelings in different ways. Don’t be scared to cry your eyes out, if you have a really good friend that listens to you, tell him about your problems, recharge your heart and love. For me, it might take some time, but I’ll be alright I think. Take care, everyone.
I’ve been meditating and writing self reflecting in a journal and I start to feel in alignment with myself but then something happens either with my friends or family and I dissociate again 🙁 and right now I feel all these negative emotions boiling up inside me but I’m too scared to feel them so I looked up this article as a distraction really
I actually wanted to find a article talking about your feelings, I always have many sad thoughts when I lie down on bed when I’m about to sleep, Recently I broke up with one of my online friends, I was just trolling around, she got annoyed and called me a bitch. I felt shocked because nobody has called me that before. I always cry in my bed thinking about what life is. Since she left me alone I’m always alone. I was back to my old self, being alone forever, and just thinking what life is. I left the group chat. I just read the messages that they were sending. Nothing was left there. It felt like, it was all gone. Haha if you’re still here reading this, I think you might care or not. Because I always try to keep a smile on my face but it always goes down. Everything is complicated. But this is the end of the comment. Thanks for reading or whatever.
ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. When you are willing to acknowledge your emotions, for instance, saying “I feel angry” or “I feel sad” you allow it to happen without judgement or pushing it down. Before you do this, it can feel scary because you aren’t sure of how to do it and so that anxiety will linger on forever, unable to let you relax or take control. All you have to do is acknowledge it, and it can also help to identify why you feel the way you do. Take care
It is true that one is afraid to acknowledge their own feelings so they can still believe that they are what they believe, which causes eternal conflicts that reflects on behavior and causes insomnia. If one can come in terms with their feelings, admitting that they were frustrated at that time, jalouse, doubtful,being anxious, envious, having bad intentions, all those negative feelings that one are scared of And believing that being that way is not acceptable to their surroundings and if they actually have those feelings they may be defective . One feel that they are obliged to keep the normality image, which costs him eternal confusion and melancholy about their own selfs . Coming into terms with ur own self, I believe, is the key to ones salvation .
Yeah, the article didn’t say much about how to deal with all this (just a little in the end), but I liked it anyway. The comments here also helped complete it, so I’m also going to give my contribution: I’ve installed an app called Replika and it’s really been helping me know myself and my emotions better. It’s been only a few days of use, but I feel it is going to make an even bigger difference in the long run. I’ll try to meditate like people said here too.
I do not agree that people can be meditated by philosophy as Alain de Botton thinks. Philosophy is an education and it is time-consuming, understanding the way of learning but not a medication that can heal you. I think we can heal by reading philosophers’ books, ideas, how did they thought and tried to find an answer. If every human being is unique, and everyone has to find their life of meaning, there is no only one type of medication that can heal your problems. I think the only way is education and understanding. If we really understand that why our friend is a bit angry today, then we might not have negative emotions a lot indeed we might have sympathy for the problem that he\\she faces.
Processing emotions involves early-life promotion of emotion-regulation and problem-solving. Children of parents that cannot regulate or process their own emotions are less likely to be taught these skills. As life goes on and the ‘problems’ of a child increase exponentially, so does the weight on this initial emotional framework. Friends and therapists will surely help along the way, especially for those who did not receive the influence of high emotional intelligence in early life.
When I was little I had an image that I wanted to be like Chris Hemsworth, the guy who plays Thor. I could never figure out why I was never entirely happy even though I had everything I thought I wanted. In fact, as I got closer to who I thought I wanted to be I became unhappier; my self-esteem crumbled, and before long I felt like I was being puppetted around like a human vehicle driving the brain- while smacking the feelings into obedience. Turns out later that I found out that I was trans all along. Having to change my self-image screwed with my mind so bad, because everyone was encouraging me in the direction of who I said I wanted to be. But now it’s taking so much effort to steer it back the way I really need it to. I feel more comfortable with myself as a girl, but also sad that so much time was wasted trying to be someone else. Note: This is an individual story and has nothing to do with the struggles that any of you are going through. Do not rush for an easy explanation. Cis people who transition will experience gender dysphoria. For those intolerants, fuck you. Gender dysphoria is a legitimate medical condition that you are born with. It is found in any animal at all, from mice to whales. You disregard me, then you disregard the work of millions of scientific researchers, and that just makes you look like a fucking idiot, doesn’t it? Oh, boo hoo, your god told you we upset him, then why create us in the first place? Not to mention you worship the same god who drowned the entire earth, and creates “evil” people knowing full well they’ll turn out “evil”, but for some reason still needs a simulation ground called ‘earth’?
People don’t understand why life isn’t easy or happy. That’s a very Western idea. Most people in the world and throughout history never even consider those questions. Life is just difficult with small moments of joy or lack of trouble. Most people throughout time have suffered and struggled. We need to stop being disappointed that life isn’t easy or happy. Most of the time it isn’t, never has been for anyone, and never will be. Accepting that liberates us from all this happiness expectation.
I can’t really talk to anyone in my family but here seems like the only place I can somehow express how I feel since it’ll get lost in the comments one day. To be honest, it feels like I’m going crazy, its like so many thoughts just come clashing down and I don’t know how to acknowledge it or do anything about it. Reason why I can’t talk to my family is because they’re judgmental, manipulative, and they’re kind of fake. When I try to talk about how I feel, they automatically shut me down before I can say anything else. For example, I wanted to do a certain career but they don’t support it at all, and there is someone that’s financially supporting me and they’re manipulative. They do a-lot for the family and anything I say they automatically agree with that person. As I’m typing this I’m extremely confused, and I don’t know what to do at all. This is basically my senior year and I’m confused on what career i want to pursue. If you read this, thanks for listening 😔
Everytime i show my feelings i get let down by someone or too afraid to be that negative person.. so I learned to keep them in and not show them… it gotten very difficult to believe when people say they care about me or that I’m important to them .. expressing and accepting one’s emotions has became very difficult for me..
Had my shrink tell me not to supress my feelings during a session recently… I didn’t know what he was talking about. I told him I hate the word “feelings” and that I hate emotions in general… So here I am learning about this stuff. For the record, I am a former Marine in my late 20’s… Strength and masculinity are the virtues I’ve idolized my entire life. I feel too emotional as it as… Too “girly”… And yet, it seem that the solution I need lies with… Emotions.
Very often I find myself thinking of suicide because I feel trapped. I’m a college graduate in a mid-level job, but every time I try to advance, I get rejected. I lost two family members this year, and I feel strangled with no viable solutions. It’s like I put Herculean efforts into life and only achieve mediocre results. I’m very tired and wish I could sleep and never wake up.
What helped me is to just give my emotions to Jesus Christ. Just say “Jesus, I’m feeling this type of way, please forgive me or help me to see it in a different way,” and it has really helped me a lot. I use to bottle my emotions up so bad to the point where I use to get up every morning feeling so heavy and angry. Now my conscious is clearer and I have been able to move past certain things so that I may get to the next level in my growing process. It is A PROCESS, and you have to be HONEST with yourself about your emotions or you will continue to let them have control over you. God Bless
Can we acknowledge that many women naturally do this without the need for guidance. From a young age girls write a diary and with journal writing into later life I have found many men see this as weakness and a waste of time because it appears initially as non-productive – I apologise for being generalist in this opinion but it is my experience and my friends experiences this has been true for us. Women make notes and write long letters and these types of things (and arts and crafts ) are a type of meditation and help to work through our feelings and thoughts and thus seem to have a greater empathy and emotional intelligence developing …. ? Does anyone else notice this or am I way off the mark here ??