How To Allow A Difficult Feeling & Step Out Of Overwhelm

Feelings often come and go like waves - sometimes they show up as positive emotions and other times difficult. Just like rough waves, rough feelings can sometimes seem as if they’ll overpower us, knock us down and pull us under. It can be difficult to figure out how to manage when this happens. Let’s start with exploring how we might manage actual waves… and then connect with how we can feel challenging emotions.

If you were to wade into the ocean to stand and ‘catch waves’, swim in the water or even surf… you might find that trying to ‘fight’ the waves, hold them back and avoid them usually doesn’t work well. Resisting leads to quick exhaustion, frustration and then avoidance of even going into the water. However - riding or floating on the waves, recognizing and accepting the inevitable surges and decreasing our resistance to them allows us to stay in the ocean and cope with the turbulence. We might lose our footing a little or feel off balance briefly- but we can let the water carry us gently until the wave ebbs back out. This helps to endure and even harness the power of the water - and also can help us feel more confident in our ability to stay connected to our experience in nature and whatever it brings.

Managing difficult feelings or emotions can be much the same. When we can allow ourselves to experience hard feelings or emotions - rather than avoid them - we decrease our defense mechanisms and live a fuller life. We also don’t keep ‘hard to feel’ emotions from lingering around endlessly. Waves and feelings are natural parts of life - they’ll always be around, coming in for high or low tides. Feeling our emotions and letting them exist helps us gain clarity on unmet needs, boundaries we need to set, communication with others we need to improve, etc. Building the ability to tolerate, deal with and even grow ourselves through feeling a full range of emotions helps us become more complete and whole.

SOME STEPS FOR FEELING A FEELING #1:

1. An unpleasant feeling arises… the wave comes in.

2. Your mind automatically launches into whatever inner dialogue or narrative accompanies this feeling. (“I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do anything right”, “I can’t handle this”)

3. STOP here! — You are ‘thinking your feeling’! Trying to ‘think’ the feeling away is often an attempt to resist the emotion that’s occurring.

4. Redirect your mind away from these thoughts and stories… and focus on simply naming the emotion itself (sad, disappointed, frustrated, etc.) and noticing any sensations in your body.

5. Name those sensations and where in your body you are feeling them….( ie my chest is feeling tight, there’s a rumble in my belly, my head is aching.)

6. Breathe deeply into the feeling or sensation wherever you are feeling it in your body (ie - breathe into your chest, into your belly, into the achy part). Focus your breath on that part and continue - you are breathing into the wave.

7. As you focus in on the area of your body while breathing into it, you can also give the sensation or feeling a color - name that color to yourself. Or you can give yourself the visualization of an ocean wave coming into shore.

8. Continue to breathe into your body, into the feeling and even imagine yourself ‘holding’ the emotion / color or ‘floating’ with the wave… with your inhale breaths.

9. Your mind will really (really!) want to go back into its thinking & thought-narrative-story mode… when this happens, just keep redirecting your attention back to your emotion (without the story), breath, body, color, wave, somatic experience.

10. Continue taking deep breaths and feeling into your body…. letting the feeling exist and imagine that you are ‘holding it’, ‘embracing’ or ‘floating with’ it gently and compassionately with your breath.

11. Trust that the feeling will run its course and leave or ebb… trust that you can manage what is coming in with the tide of emotions.

12. Gently observe the changes with self-compassion and kind, supportive inner dialogue… finally, notice that you have survived and allowed the wave to roll in and then naturally recede.

Best, Jenn

Reference / Book Recommendation: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

*The information presented in this blog is intended for general knowledge and use only.  It should not take the place of medical, clinical advice or licensed therapy.  To find a licensed practitioner in your area, the Psychology Today Directory is an excellent resource.