We’ve all heard that silly little adage, “when I feel like working / going to gym / cleaning my home (etc), I lie down until the feeling passes”. It’s tongue in cheek, but it actually very aptly describes a profound and liberating psychological truth:
Emotions are just transient states, and we can wait for them to shift without any need to act on them. They usually shift.
Some people that I work with, who are perhaps wired to be quite feelings-driven, are almost scared of their emotional states. They feel so overwhelmed by them. They believe themselves to be somewhat powerless, when they hit, to do anything other than what the emotion demands… (If rage, RAGE. If, lust, INFIDELITY. If craving, RELAPSE. If a funk/rut, a WASTED DAY). I'm overstating this, in the main, but I suspect we could all find ourselves "there or thereabouts", depending on the circumstance.
Emotions are not the “Little Dictators” we often think they are. You don’t HAVE to DO SOMETHING just because you feel emotionally compelled to…(You don’t have to start a fight, cheat on your partner, binge eat, use drugs, spend the whole day on the couch, bunk work), just because you feel overcome by such a mood or desire… You are only a slave to your senses if you think you are.
And, to some extent, you are slave to your senses if you haven’t taught yourself not to be; if you haven’t, over time, flexed the muscle of:
- Noticing a feeling…(actually tuning in, and paying attention)
- Observing it… (“oh there it is again, that old familiar anger/sadness/jealousy/emptiness, etc”)
- Describing it…
- Being accepting and non-judgmental of it, and yourself…
Why do shrinks suggest this seemingly silly and superficial process? (NOTICE → OBSERVE → DESCRIBE → ACCEPT NON-JUDGMENTALLY)?
Because it buys you SPACE and DISTANCE from the feeling… It SEPARATES you from your emotional state. It gives you the ability to see YOURSELF and YOUR FEELING as two different things, and reinforces the idea that YOU can DECIDE what to DO with your FEELING. You can FEEL a compulsion, and CHOOSE not to act on it.
Eckhard Tolle says it beautifully, “Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them”.
My rule of thumb, for strong emotions: no matter what feeling has overwhelmed you, DO NOT RUSH IN… Do not act on it… Even LIE DOWN UNTIL IT PASSES, as the silly adage says! To see if it does pass… To see if it will pass… Or to see if the emotion is communicating a wisdom that needs to be connected with. If maybe there’s a truth being communicated that needs to be taken a little more seriously.
Emotions can be several things:
- They can just be neurological, hormonal impulses triggered by physiological states (low blood sugar / pain / exhaustion / inebriation, etc). Nurse them, and they will shift!
- They can be associations back to happy or traumatic memories; i.e. states ushered in by nostalgia or trauma, but not grounded at all in present time. I even speak to my clients about “cellular memory”; that smells, sights and sounds can trigger us back to various times (happy and sad) in our histories, and then usher in the associated feelings of that era… Music often does that… Tend to the memory, and what it means to you. But do not embrace the emotion as wholly accurate NOW.
- And emotions can be instinctive and intuitive guides, demonstrating what serves us, what brings us joy and peace, and what doesn’t.
Action Plan: What To Do When Powerful Feelings Hit:
- Feel the feeling… Don’t avoid it… Tune in. It’s OK.
- Name the feeling - what exactly is it? For some people, this can take some work… (Are you angry? Sad? Disappointed? Jealous? Anxious? Frustrated?)
- Describe what it feels like… Where in your body is it housed? What sensations does it cause in your heart and person?
- Don’t judge anything about yourself or what you are feeling, in that moment… Just notice that you feel that way… Don’t think, “I’m terrible to feel x”, or “It must mean I’m an awful person that I feel y”… Watch yourself, almost like your own shrink, and just notice what is going on in your emotional world. If you JUDGE yourself, you give more energy to the negative emotion…
If you do this, you will, in time, feel less FLOODED by the feeling. You will slowly start to feel a DETACHMENT from that feeling… And you will realize that YOU ARE NOT YOUR FEELING… And then you can DECIDE what your next course of action is.
TIP:
“Self-care” has become quite the catchphrase in contemporary psychology. And you know what? - I’ve learnt that SELF-CARE, at times, can mean JUST DOING SOMETHING THAT MIGHT SHIFT YOUR NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL STATE.
And to my point that these states are transient - sometimes activities as banal as washing your hands, or brushing your teeth, can move you a little out of the funk that you’re in. I use these highly simplistic acts on purpose, because if you attempt these now, you may realize what I mean.
My GOAL in this article has been to suggest and demonstrate to you how powerful we are, at dealing with overwhelming feelings… You don’t need to just surrender and drown. You are not your feeling. Your feeling is not a fact. Work it through, and feel the shifts!
