Having strong emotions in response to events or situations is normal. We may not like them but they are part of the human experience.
There are a number of things you can do with strong negative emotions.
We may choose to distract, avoid, deny…but often the more you ignore emotions, the more they refuse to go away. They might disappear for a while, then they come back with a vengeance- demanding for you to pay attention to it.
Or we may try to solve the problem that is causing the emotion. That works IF there is a problem to solve. Sometimes problems aren’t easily solved or we feel bad about the way we solve the problem. So now we have a problem about our problem!
What can we do about strong emotions?
1. Identify
2. Understand
3. Resolve
1. What are you feeling?
The answer may be quite overwhelming. List down everything you are feeling (e.g. sad, frustrated, worried). While listing down, imagine that you are taking the feeling and putting it outside of you, just for a while. Keep doing this until you feel that inside is pretty peaceful and quiet. Feel free to refer to the list below to help you identify your feelings.
2. Look at the list you generated and identify which feelings are strongest or most important to you. Rate each one.
Now think about what this feeling is about?
For instance, what is this sad feeling about?3. Identify the need and resolve. What does this feeling need to feel better?
If your answer is: I need to get rid of my feelings.
Of course you don’t want to feel bad.. it’s unpleasant and may be stopping you from doing what you need to do. It may seem like this feeling is the barrier to your goals.
The feeling is there because you have an unmet need. To help yourself feel better, the need must be addressed.
Focus on the feeling and ask again what that feeling needs to feel better? You can also ask what can you do to help yourself feel better?
Some people might say: “I need support”, or “I need to rest”, or “I need to be assured that it’s ok to feel this way”.
Identifying your need will help you meet what you need in a deeper way and help you to make friends with your feelings. Doing this also allows you to let more positive emotions in and feel happier.
Once you have identified your needs, you can think about how you want your needs to be met. For instance, you may feel anger and the need is to protect yourself. It does not mean you need to be aggressive or violent in protecting yourself. It may mean being calmly assertive.
In this process you may discover that your emotions do not match the situation. This mismatch may happen when we have old experiences that trigger these emotions even though they don’t fit the current situation, or that we have other emotions we are not aware of. It is very helpful to explore what is going on with someone who can guide our exploration in a supportive and non-judgmental way.
The more we know and understand our emotions, the less likely we are to fear them and be overwhelmed by them.
Here is a list of emotions, situations that tend to cause these emotions, and actions driven by the emotions.
Universal Human Emotions (Greenberg & Paivo, 1997)
| Situation | Emotion | Actions |
| Psychological Injury | Emotional pain | Withdrawal into self |
| Violation, attack on self, family or possessions | Anger | Assert, protect, defend self |
| Loss, separation | Sadness | Seek support (e.g. crying) |
| Danger; Possible danger | Fear, anxiety | Monitor, escape, freeze; prepare |
| Exposure as having acted inappropriately | Shame | Correct or hide impropriety to protect social standing, connection with others |
| Harming a valued other | Guilt | Apologize, repair the damage |
| Offensive, dirty, indigestible object or person | Disgust | Expel or avoid object or person |
| Change, novel stimuli | Surprise, interest, curiosity | Attend, approach, explore, engage |
| Achievement of goal, task, need, or connection | Joy, happiness | Friendly interaction, future seeking of similar situations |
| Highly valued other | Love, affection, caring | Contact, express positive regard; strengthen attachment bonds |
| Suffering of a vulnerable other | Compassion | Offer support, validation, soothing |
