3 ways to handle intense emotions.
3 ways to handle intense emotions.
Intense emotions can be scary. When they happen it can feel like they are not going to go away and as though you have no options to get through them. They rise up in the form of bodily sensations and consume our attention. We fight against them and try desperately to make them stop. Sometimes that means reaching for unhealthy coping mechanisms, for some this can mean self harm and even suicidal ideations. We hear ourselves say “I can’t do this.”
Understanding why this happens may be helpful to start. Some people are more prone to intense emotional experiences. This can be because of personality traits, learned behaviors in childhood, traumatic experiences. These people are also people who are left to cope on their own and are not modeled or given tools to manage their emotions effectively. You may try and cope the only way you know how and sometimes it just makes matters worse.
When a person is experiencing intense emotions their fight or flight system gets triggered. Their body is responding to a threat that is not there even if it is an internal threat. This triggering of the fight or flight system continues to be the norm until we take steps to learn to cope differently.
What is happening?
Intense emotional responses can be influenced by rigid thinking patterns such as all or nothing thinking or dichotomous thinking. This is when we automatically put things into two categories, right or wrong, good or bad, etc. Dichotomous thinking is said to be a survival method in which a person is able to make a decision or draw a conclusion quickly in the moment and avoid ambiguity and vagueness (Mieda et. al, 2021). It actually causes a person to jump to conclusions that aren’t usually accurate, and the person will typically assume the worst in most situations. And the emotions that follow can be intense.
In some studies, dichotomous thinking is associated with some mood and personality disorders. But I believe everything falls on a spectrum, so it is possible to engage in dichotomous thinking and not meet criteria for these diagnoses. We all experience extreme emotions at times.
What are you feeling?
Assuming that you are calm at the moment, take a look back at moments where you were feeling intense emotions. Can you identify exactly what you were feeling?
You may feel intense guilt and shame, anger, rage, frustration, hopelessness and powerlessness. It could be despair, worthlessness, hurt, rejected, or humiliated. Depending on the situation, you may feel a combination of things.
The more information you can discover about these moments the more agency you will feel like you have.
What to do?
I am offering you 3 different therapeutic modalities and all of them are evidenced based, which means they are proven effective. All three of these methods are things that I have implemented myself and have in my tool box if necessary.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
The first is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I will be honest with you, when I was first introduced to CBT, I felt skeptical. I thought, “Really? Just change my thoughts?” But when I committed to trying it, it proved relief that I did not anticipate. And research shows that CBT reduced symptoms of many disorders and problems and proved effective in the short term and long term (Nakao, 2021).
So, the first thing is to identify what you are telling yourself in these moments and begin to change it. We are creating awareness here of your inner thoughts and beliefs. And this is important because these thoughts and beliefs direct your behavior in a lot of situations, but the crazy part is they are usually not true.
During a time when you are not experiencing intense emotions, it would be helpful to go back and think, “What was going on in my mind at the time?” And write it down. I recommend writing it down so that you can see and feel what is actually happening. You will also be creating new pathways and developing this as a skill if you take the time to write everything down and later it will be available to you when you need it. If you don’t go through the motions of walking through this exercise it will be harder to access.
In a previous blog post I talked about extreme thinking. We all engage in distorted or inaccurate thinking and usually if there are intense emotions there is an extreme thought attached. These thoughts could be something like, “I am no good.” “I don’t matter.” “I am a failure/screw up.” “I will never be able to…” “I can’t do this.”
Once you identify the thought you begin the process of investigating whether it is true or not. Ask yourself how is the thought or belief true? What evidence is there to disprove this thought or belief? There will be times when a thought “feels” true, but logically you know it is not. Over time your feelings will begin to align with your logic if you stick with it.
Then you want to reframe your thought or belief to a truer statement. For example, if you take the statement, “I am a failure,” a person may draw this conclusion after making a mistake. But if a person makes a mistake it doesn't automatically make them a failure. A truer statement would be, “Just because I made a mistake does not make me a failure.” In most cases if a person makes a mistake there is a lot that can be gained in those situations, that to me does not mean failure.
Once you have reframed your extreme thought, you will begin to use this during moments where the old thought would be likely to come up. And there will be moments where the old thought will come up and you will recognize it. In those moments, take a breath and remind yourself of the new reframe.
Getting into the practice of being aware of what you tell yourself and being able to reframe your thoughts can be a helpful tool during tough moments. It can also help you to be aware of just how untrue most of our thoughts are.
Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT Tapping
The emotional freedom technique is also evidenced based. It is a technique that you can use on yourself at any time to quickly relieve stress anxiety and intense emotions (Blacher, 2023).
EFT works by tapping on acupressure points while you think about what you are feeling or verbalizing your experience. The tapping disrupts the message your brain receives. Instead of your brain continuing to receive distress signals, the tapping works to calm the nervous system and send messages to your brain that you are ok. According to Bach (2019), EFT improves both physiological and psychological symptoms.
When using EFT tapping, you very clearly state what you are experiencing, shining a light on it. If you are fearful, you say, “I am feeling fearful.” If you are feeling like you can’t handle your emotions, you can say, “I can’t handle these emotions.”
You state what you are experiencing as you tap through the designated points and within a few minutes you may feel yourself calm down. In my experience I usually feel the need to take a deep breath or yawn. These are signs that something is letting go.
I am not providing all the information for EFT here. Here is a link if you are interested in learning more
https://www.thetappingsolution.com/
Mindfulness or Noticing.
I have been skeptical of mindfulness practices too. When I think of mindfulness activities and meditation I immediately feel a bit anxious, because I have not been great at meditation and that sort of thing.
But the way that I have come to think about mindfulness is just a noticing of what is
happening in your body. When I have had intense emotions in the past the first thing I want to do or try to do it will take the feelings away. And the harder I try to push them away the harder they seem to come back. What I had to start doing is to be curious about the sensations in my body, befriend these sensations, follow them. When I began to be curious about them, ironically they seemed to retreat. It was as though I was saying, “Ok feelings, WHAT? What do you want to show me?” When you become curious about them, notice exactly what and when you feel them in your body, it seems to decrease their intensity. It’s the craziest thing.
A good way to think about it is a ball on a string. When you hold a ball on a string in front of your face and push the ball away hard, how will the ball come back? Hard. But if you push it away soft, or even grab the ball and be curious about it, how does the ball behave? It will come back slow or be completely in your control.
If you can allow your emotions to exist and be curious about them, they seem to be less powerful. It is when we resist or try to control them that they seem to have the most power over us.
When it comes to intense emotions, the more tools you have in your tool box the better. We are not trying to make our feelings go away, we want to understand them, acknowledge them, and allow for them to be part of this experience.
The 3 methods above are just a few helpful ways to navigate these intense emotional situations. And maybe some don’t work for you, but they are all worth giving a shot because chances are at least one will provide some relief.
Conclusion
You do not have to feel powerless over intense emotions. Sometimes our thinking is the culprit of these experiences. Are you aware of what you are thinking in these moments? In addition to creating awareness of what you are telling yourself, EFT tapping and Mindfulness can help create more agency for you when it comes to these moments. If you are willing to put in the effort to try and give these methods a chance surely one will be a good fit for you if not all of them. The goal is not to eliminate your feelings, it is to learn how to interact with them differently.
Psychology today is a good place to find local therapist.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
You can refine your search using filter.
Suicide and crisis hotline
https://988lifeline.org/
Available 24 hours a day
References
Bach D, Groesbeck G, Stapleton P, Sims R, Blickheuser K, Church D. Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Improves Multiple Physiological Markers of Health. J Evid Based Integr Med. 2019 Jan-Dec;24:2515690X18823691. doi: 10.1177/2515690X18823691. PMID: 30777453; PMCID: PMC6381429.
Blacher S. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT): Tap to relieve stress and burnout. J Interprof Educ Pract. 2023 Mar;30:100599. doi: 10.1016/j.xjep.2023.100599. Epub 2023 Jan 14. PMID: 36687311; PMCID: PMC9840127.
Bondarchuk, O., Balakhtar, V., Pinchuk, N., Pustovalov, I., & Pavlenok, K. (2024). Coping with stressful situations using coping strategies and their impact on mental health. Multidisciplinary Reviews, 7, 2024spe034.https://doi.org/10.31893/multirev.2024spe034
Fischer AH, Kret ME, Broekens J. Gender differences in emotion perception and self-reported emotional intelligence: A test of the emotion sensitivity hypothesis. PLoS One. 2018 Jan 25;13(1):e0190712. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190712. PMID: 29370198; PMCID: PMC5784910.
Guendelman S, Medeiros S, Rampes H. Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: Insights from Neurobiological, Psychological, and Clinical Studies. Front Psychol. 2017 Mar 6;8:220. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00220. PMID: 28321194; PMCID: PMC5337506.
Nakao M, Shirotsuki K, Sugaya N. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for management of mental health and stress-related disorders: Recent advances in techniques and technologies. Biopsychosoc Med. 2021 Oct 3;15(1):16. doi: 10.1186/s13030-021-00219-w. PMID: 34602086; PMCID: PMC8489050.
Takahiro Mieda, Kanako Taku, Atsushi Oshio, Dichotomous thinking and cognitive ability, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 169, 2021,110008,ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110008. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920301975)
