A Sensitive Soul

Chapter 9 Managing Negative Emotions “If you don’t manage your emotions, Then your emotions will manage you.” Deborah Rozman As a Sensitive Soul, you may become overwhelmed when experiencing negative emotions at times, due to a tendency to experience emotions more intensely and for longer periods of time than most other people. This can make your emotional experience more painful and thus harder to cope with. Although it is more than likely that you are biologically predisposed to feel emotions more intensely, your ability to manage emotional stress largely depends on how you react to situations. This is often determined by the beliefs that you have developed, mostly in your younger years, about negative emotions. These beliefs determine your reactions when under stress. If you view negative emotions as a bad thing and something to be feared, then you will struggle to cope with them. However, emotions serve a purpose in that they help to keep you safe when experiencing fear, motivate you to take action to stand up for yourself when angry and give your life meaning as a result of sadness. Your emotions often guide you as to what needs to be expressed or changed in your life. When you realise that negative emotions are a normal human experience and that they can be helpful there is no need for you to deny or suppress them. That said, it is natural for everyone to want to escape uncomfortable emotions. However, avoiding them only serves to magnify and prolong your discomfort and requires an enormous amount of energy in doing so. Often coping mechanisms are used in order to escape emotional stress but they are unhealthy as they do not resolve the issue at hand. These include the avoidance of stressful situations, withdrawal, denial and or suppression. Alternatively, you may try to numb your feelings by sleeping excessively, stuffing yourself with food, smoking, drinking excessively or even drug use or self-harm. Your escape methods are usually automatic habits that you quickly jump to when feeling distressed but they will only provide you with short-term relief. They are unhelpful in the long term and only serve to increase your distress and create more problems in which to deal with. According to The Centre for Clinical Intervention, the key to improving your emotional experience is to do the opposite to what you would normally do when under stress. For instance, instead of avoiding your feelings, allow yourself to experience them and express them appropriately. Doing so will process them quicker and you will feel better afterwards for having done so. You may also find it helpful to reflect on difficult times that you have got through in the past. You are stronger than you think you are, so trust in your ability to be able to handle negative emotions when they surface. There is an excellent free course on dealing with Distress Intolerance: Facing Your Feelings at www.cci.health.wa.gov.au that you may wish to have a look at. There will be instances that you know will create stress for you or evoke negative emotions within. These can include external influences such as particular situations or events, your environment, certain people and/or the news headlines. Alternatively, they can include internal influences such as your thoughts, memories or bodily sensations. You will often experience a warning sign that you are incurring stress on some level. It may relate to your feelings, thoughts, physical sensations or behaviour and can include such things as a headache, stomach discomfort, worry, an increase in smoking or drinking, low energy, trouble sleeping and/or frustration. Identifying your triggers and any warning signs that you are experiencing stress can help to create self-awareness. When you are aware of what is going on for you then you are in a position to do something about it before it escalates. You are also less likely to revert to unhealthy escape methods in an effort to avoid experiencing uncomfortable emotions. Learning to recognise and acknowledging negative emotions can often change the effect that they have on you. They also tend to subside a lot quicker so that you can get on with your life. Emotions, like passing clouds, will vary in intensity, strength and duration. They are forever changing, fluctuating and are temporary. Although it might not seem like it at the time, they will eventually pass, if not in the short term. In order to accept your negative emotions for what they are, try to avoid judging them as either good or bad and or right or wrong. Also, do not allow them to define you as a person. Just because you are feeling angry or sad, it does not mean that you are an angry or sad person. Wherever possible, try to distance yourself from your emotions by simply observing them. Expressing what you are currently experiencing can be extremely helpful in accepting and processing your emotions. When the emotion has passed, in order for you to return to a state of balance, engage in an activity that you find soothing or that focuses your attention on the present moment such as walking, a relaxation massage or a bubble bath.