When Emotions Feel Too Big, Here’s What You Can Do
Sometimes life feels so hard, and you're tired of feeling so angry or upset. Controlling these emotional states often seems impossible. It may even feel like your overwhelming emotions control your life.
You're not alone. Unrefined emotions can take a toll on your mental health, and they can exacerbate symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma, and compulsive behaviour.
That said, you are a whole person, which means you are vulnerable to the whole spectrum of emotions people experience. Having feelings doesn’t make you flawed or broken - it makes you real!
At Boreal Therapy Collective, we have therapists with years of experience supporting children, teens, and adults who struggle with emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and anger. Emotions are complicated, and we’re here to provide some strategies to help you navigate all the complexities that come with big feelings.
Name How You Feel
Labelling emotions allows you to better understand what happens inside your mind and body. In turn, this can help you better understand yourself and your patterns. When you can attune to yourself, your feelings often seem less catastrophic.
Take a few minutes and think about the automatic patterns you have in response to certain emotional states. Maybe you cut off another driver because you’re running late (and feel anxious). Perhaps you avoid doing homework (because you feel angry by something that happened at school) and then rush to complete it in the morning (causing you to feel even angrier).
When you can name how you feel, you can increase the pause between stimulus and reaction. This is especially true when you can name the feeling as it's happening.
This pause between stimulus and reaction is critical. When you pause, you allow yourself to be more creative in how you respond. Your behaviours don't feel as automatic. Ultimately, over time, that's how you change patterns.
If you don't know how to identify your feelings, consider asking yourself:
What physical sensations do I notice in my body right now?
What do I think I am feeling right now?
What emotions might someone else in this situation be feeling?
When I've had an experience like this in the past, how did I feel?
Ride the Wave of Emotion
'Riding the wave' is a mindfulness technique that can help when you feel overwhelmed. Imagine that you're on a surfboard riding out an emotional storm.
Name what you are feeling: Name the emotions you're experiencing. Remind yourself that any emotion is simply a part of you- it does not define your entire identity or life experience.
Experience the feeling: Embrace the feeling like a wave in the ocean. Know that you can't stop waves and that trying to resist them often makes them feel bigger. Instead, take a few deep breaths, and aim to ride it out.
Tolerate what is happening: It can be hard to stay calm when you feel overwhelmed, but as you practice acceptance, you learn that your feelings can and do pass. Stress is rarely stagnant, and you're fully capable of being with your own emotions.
Express the Emotion
Learning how to sit with emotions doesn’t mean succumbing to them entirely. Although emotions always pass, it can be beneficial to honour the need for intentionally expressing them.
Expressing doesn't mean suppressing, minimizing, or denying their reality. Feelings are always real, even if you don't always like them. Expressing does, however, mean you decide that you want to channel how you feel creatively. Many people find that creative expression is a key part of their emotion regulation.
You can practice expressing your emotions in many ways, including journaling, drawing, cooking, or dancing. Keep in mind that the goal shouldn't be performance-focused. It matters less about what you create and more about the process of creating itself.
Share the Emotion
Emotions can fester in isolation, and learning how to talk about how you feel can help strengthen your relationships with others. Connecting with others emotionally is a key component of self-compassion. Learning that you're not alone can help you feel validated and remind you that everyone, to some degree, faces distress.
If you're a parent, aim to keep communication open in the household. Help your child learn how to talk about their emotions. Kids learn by watching, so model sharing the times when you feel frustrated or angry. When you sense they might be struggling, ask directly, How are you feeling about this situation?
Ultimately, your goal is to help your child feel safe no matter how they feel. Avoid shaming your child for having emotions, and don't ask them to explain why they feel a certain way. Remember that nobody chooses how they feel- they only choose how they think and respond to those feelings.
Implement More Mindfulness
We've all heard the phrase, Take a deep breath.
This advice is cliched for a reason. It really works, and it can help you cope with strong emotions in real time. Slowing down your breathing doesn't make your emotions disappear, but it can offer a sense of grounding and peace.
Many people move through their days at a fast and rushed pace. They don't really know how they feel, and they often react impulsively. But the more you pause and stay present, the more clarity you will experience. It can also help put things in perspective and help you develop a calm-down plan for managing distress.
So, honour the gift of living in the moment. The next time you feel stressed, take a few breaths. Take in your surroundings and consider focusing on each of your five senses. Feel how the emotions sit and move within your body. Ground yourself to being exactly where you are.
Always remind yourself that you are human and you are built to experience and deal with different emotions. While it's completely normal to feel frustrated by them, the goal isn't to move through life always feeling happy.
Therapy for Emotional Regulation
There are no positive or negative emotions. Every emotion is normal when it comes to day-to-day life, and you are not a flawed person for having big feelings.
However, if big feelings affect your mental health, or you struggle to practice managing them in healthy ways, you might be perpetuating more emotional distress.
At Boreal Therapy Collective, we help people navigate these big emotions. Our therapists support children, teens, and adults by providing effective emotion regulation and distress tolerance strategies, and a safe place for processing how you feel, free from judgment and bias.
If you’re ready to start therapy with us, you can book your initial assessment here.
