How to throw out negative emotions?

Containing emotions and their consequences

CONTENT:

If you push all your experiences to the back burner and don’t express your emotions, then this will not lead to anything good. Negative emotions can accumulate . Many try to hide them for fear of being misunderstood and unaccepted. Postponing, not paying attention, enduring day after day is not the answer.

A person can get stuck with unprocessed grief inside themselves, and this leads to passive aggression and depression. Perhaps there will be a violent outburst, which is fraught with damaged relationships, emotional trauma to loved ones, problems with superiors, or later, a problem with one’s own health may appear.

10 FACTS about EMOTIONS part 1

The desire for self-control or denial: “without emotions”

With the second type of reaction, a person tends to deny his negative emotions or try to control his feelings. For example, man N.’s day did not go well in the morning: the alarm clock did not ring on time, someone stepped on his foot in the subway, his boss is annoying, everything around him is annoying, anger is raging inside. But the man tries to calm himself down, to take his feelings “under control”: “Be above these petty problems! What are you getting annoyed about? Take care of your nerves and breathe deeply. You’re not that upset at all, don’t act like a hysteric.”

The problem in this situation is that there are actually negative emotions that are not accepted. And self-control or denial will not help you get rid of them, and will not turn you into a person “without emotions” - just negative experiences will be better disguised.

What to do? First, you need to recognize the fact of the existence of negative emotions, figure out why they arose and why they acquired such strength and influence on you. And secondly, learn to accept yourself even with your negative emotions: they are part of you, and in order to get rid of negativity, you need to deal with the reasons that provoked their occurrence.

Negative emotions from the point of view of psychologists

There is such a science as psychosomatics, which tells us about the interaction and impact of negative experiences on human health. Thus, certain experiences are responsible for their area or organ in the human body. And if you are constantly offended or angry, this can produce “negative results.” In order for our health and our relationships not to suffer, we need to learn how to competently throw out negative emotions and free ourselves from them.

It is still necessary to understand what emotions are. Emotions are any internal experiences of a person, his reaction, response to external influences. They can be either positive: happiness, joy, delight, surprise, interest, pleasure, or negative: anger, rage, irritability, resentment, fear.

If a person tries to live positive emotions over and over again and keep them in his memory for as long as possible, then he tries to get rid of negative ones as quickly as possible, sometimes living them, sometimes hiding them behind a mask of calm and sending them far into the depths of himself. There is also another scenario when a person is deliberately in a state of resentment or anger, as if punishing himself and suffering. All this is very harmful.

How to get rid of negative emotions? A clinical psychologist speaks

“The fashion for “positive thinking”, stories like “thoughts are material”, esoteric trainings and marathons where they are taught that emotions destroy – all these are not the best guidelines,” says psychologist Denis Ivanov. – But, in addition to the informational context, the attitude towards our emotions is embedded in us from childhood, when “emotional schemes” are formed. “Girls should be kind”, “Boys don’t cry”, “No one will play with someone so angry” - such messages set a certain attitude towards one’s own emotional reactions. Now, having felt something “abnormal”, we rush to use a harmful strategy to “fix” the emotion.

Harmful strategies for regulating “wrong” emotions

“Forbid yourself from feeling” - such a rule is doomed to failure, since evolution cannot be argued against. Inhibitions don't work with an ironic brain: try not thinking about a polar bear for a minute.

“Avoid emotions” - switch your attention, go headlong into another activity, occupy your brain, be happy. So close to exhaustion.

“Freeze” - noticing that he is losing the battle with unpleasant emotions, a person admits defeat, turning to alcohol, taking pills, and falling asleep.

In fact, all emotions are needed - all emotions are important

“Emotions, like alarms, tell us about dangers,” explains the psychologist. – Some people have a sensitive alarm system, and then even a small threat triggers anxiety, sadness, and anger. Some people are more thick-skinned, but even in this case there are disadvantages. Emotions can be excessive and even pathological, so it is important not to tolerate them, but to learn to regulate them correctly.

There are several ways to regulate emotions

• Understand the “start buttons”. Keep track of who, what, when causes unpleasant emotions in you. If you cannot change your attitude towards such triggers, then try to minimize their presence in your life, at least temporarily. • Understand your thoughts. After all, our thoughts are the main cause of our excessive emotions. • Understand your harmful strategies for regulating “wrong” emotions. • Do not create secondary emotions. Imagine that someone threw a stone into a clean, calm lake and it sent ripples through the water. But what happens if you try to calm these waves? You will only create additional ones. When you try to prohibit yourself from emotions, you are doomed to failure, you begin to think: “I can’t calm down,” and cause “secondary” emotions: anger, anxiety, sadness. • Learn to accept emotions as important elements of our human nature. Be attentive to your experiences, pay attention to them, study them: when they appear, how long they last, what conditions they cause in the body. • Observe your emotions. Describe them, but don't fight them.

Reduce emotional vulnerability

To prevent your body from signaling you for no reason, reduce your emotional vulnerability. To do this, maintain regular sleep - 8 hours, go to bed and get up at the same time. Normalize your diet and physical activity. Make to-do lists and try to follow plans without self-criticism.

Be mindful of your thoughts

You can learn to control your emotions correctly. By exploring them, you will understand why something makes you angry, why emotions are so strong. You will learn to regulate them by changing the way you think about triggers and choosing caring strategies for your own behavior.

“Observe your thoughts, write down your thoughts, learn to operate with facts, making conclusions,” advises Denis Ivanov. – This skill does not develop immediately, and it is more effective to find a cognitive psychologist-psychotherapist for yourself.

How to cope with negative emotions?

In order to feel good and not accumulate negative experiences, you need to learn how to deal with them. There are several different techniques that can help in difficult stressful moments.

1. Speaking out emotions . This method is usually widely used by people, but they themselves may not realize it. So after a hard day at work or an unexpected stressful situation, we call our mother or friend, or husband to discuss everything that we have accumulated - to talk it out. We don’t think about how to throw out our emotions, but we do it successfully. There is a small but, we must not forget to talk specifically about your feelings (“I was so scared”, “I was very unpleasant” or “I was so angry that I could barely restrain myself”). If you have no one to talk to, you can talk it all out on your own, so to speak, “cry into your pillow.”

2. Cry . This is also a kind of “liberation” from accumulated negative emotions, but this method is not always suitable for everyone. So, for example, a man is unlikely to cry, but if a woman starts crying at work, she may be misunderstood. But at home alone with yourself - please. This way you can get rid of the tension accumulated inside and discharge, the main thing is not to get carried away for too long.

3. Diary of experiences . A very good and effective method. This is where imagination comes to the rescue. You can write a whole story describing your feelings, and the more detailed you write about your condition, the better, or you can just throw it all out on paper, and then, for example, crumple it up and throw it away. In this way we get rid of, “throw out” our aggression, all the negativity, splash out our anger.

4. Our voice . Emotions can be spoken, or they can be shouted. This method is quite controversial, although very effective. The main thing is that loved ones do not fall under the impact zone. Sometimes, you really just want to scream. But we will not consider this method of discharge. This paragraph indicates the voice, namely singing (karaoke will help you). By straining your vocal cords and putting emotion into your singing, you get rid of negativity.

Three Steps to Process Emotional Energy Stuck in Your Body

In order to process negative emotions and release them from our bodies, we need to learn to express them in healthy ways. But first, we need to understand how to recognize and accept our feelings.

Step 1: Recognition (Self-Analysis)

The task is to recognize the emotion and feel it in your body, that is, to become aware of it. We must understand and realize what is happening, and experience this feeling entirely, without judging ourselves for it.

If you have ever encountered the teachings of Tara Brah, then you are most likely familiar with the practice of RAIN, that is, recognize, allow, investigate, and nourish, which can be translated as recognition, permission, study and development . The use of this practice, according to Brach, is a condition for positive experience of negative emotions.

Buddhist teachings tell us that the cause of human suffering is rejection of what is happening and resistance to it . But acceptance, on the contrary, can free us from negativity, and the practice of RAIN teaches us to accept our current experience instead of trying to escape from it.

We must face any difficulty with self-compassion and the understanding that it will eventually pass.

We need to fully experience this feeling in order to internally process and integrate it into our experience.

But we must feel this emotion with our whole body. As Brach writes, “If the process of bringing difficult emotions into awareness stops at the level of cognitive understanding without fully embodied experience, the true acceptance, understanding, and inner freedom that is the essence of true healing will not be complete.”

Practice mindfulness to become more aware of your feelings and to be able to observe the bodily sensations associated with those feelings as they come and go throughout the day. As you go through difficult emotions, show yourself compassion.

Practice:

Sit quietly for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Be curious and listen to your body.

How is your body feeling right now? Do you feel pressure or tingling? In which place?

Do you feel heavy, hot, tight, warm or cold? What is the texture, weight and shape of the sensations you observe in your body?

What emotions are these sensations associated with? What are these parts of your body trying to tell you? What do they really need?

Step 2: Response (self-expression)

To process emotions, we must express them. Your job is to move the energy of the emotions through your body, allowing you to let them go.

It is important that this self-expression be authentic and embodied. Remember that true healing occurs only when the integration of body and mind occurs . Therefore, first of all, try to express emotions on a bodily level.

Ask yourself: how would you like to release the emotion you are experiencing?

Maybe you feel the need to cry, scream into your pillow, swim, walk, run or dance, hit a punching bag, garden, paint your feelings or just breathe deeply while looking at the sun - you can do whatever triggers you inside at that moment. catharsis for you.

Thanks to this, you will be able to unshackle yourself and free yourself from the toxic emotions that you have been carrying within yourself.

One of the best forms of emotional healing is journaling. It can be a wonderful therapeutic experience of self-discovery, reconnecting with our true selves and processing our deepest feelings and emotions.

In this way, we allow our inner world to find a voice.

Writing is a wonderful way to process and understand what is happening within and around us. By writing about our fears and pains, we have the opportunity to look at them from a distance and, ultimately, let them go.

This release can be truly healing.

To better express and process your feelings, try to write down notes every day. Don't judge or censor yourself by putting all your emotions on paper in a completely unfiltered form. Over time, your journal will become your safe haven, allowing you to get unstuck and move forward.

We often don't have the time or space to process the emotions we experience, and daily journaling will be your opportunity to feel the emotions you experienced throughout the day.

Write a request

What is happening in your life right now that you would like to change? What is your biggest source of frustration?

As you write, pay attention to the sensations you experience in your body.

Focus on areas that are numb or in pain. What is your body trying to tell you in this way?

What exactly do you need to work on to heal or change it?

Step 3: Reset (self care)

We are used to neglecting our bodies and ignoring our feelings. But the time has finally come to take care of yourself.

Take a moment to take a break and be alone, take a walk in nature, get creative, listen to music, cook your favorite meal, meditate to clear your mind and relax your body, take a bubble bath, or simply take a nap.

Take care of yourself so you can rediscover the joy of life and simple pleasures that will nourish your body, mind and soul.

Methods for dealing with negative emotions

If an active fight against negativity has been carried out, but it has not been possible to calm down, or it has been possible, but not completely, you can also use several effective methods. So, how to throw out negative emotions?

Easily available control methods

1. Wash with cold water . Try to “wash away” all the negativity. It will definitely get easier.

2. A cup of hot tea or coffee . You need to drink slowly, calmly, in a position that is comfortable for you, with a bar of dark chocolate (it activates the brain and is an active antidepressant). But everything is good in moderation.

3. Antics . Stand in front of a mirror and actively make faces. Make all sorts of “faces” and tense your face for a few seconds: eyes, forehead, mouth, and then relax. This will help relieve tension in the facial area and simply lift your spirits.

4. Favorite hobby . This could be: knitting, painting by numbers, anti-stress coloring, wood burning, sawing something out, or modeling from plasticine (dough). This method shifts attention well and helps you relax.

5. Massage . It relieves muscle tension well and relieves fatigue. It will be quite useful after difficult emotional experiences.

6. Breathing exercises and meditation . Turn on calm music, take a comfortable position and do a few breathing exercises. It is important to concentrate on yourself, your movements and proper breathing. These exercises will help normalize your heart rate and “saturate” the body with oxygen, thus relieving the burden of difficult experiences.

7. Self-analysis . When the emotional experiences go away, alone with yourself, you need to calmly analyze what made you lose your temper, why specific words or actions hooked you, how next time you need to react in order to be caught off guard.

8. Sleep . At least eight hours of good sleep. Don't forget to ventilate the bedroom. This will help you relax and gain strength in order to confront new negative experiences and learn to cope with them.

What happens when we hold in negative emotions

We live in a world where not every expression of oneself is welcomed. And when it comes to negative or unpleasant emotions for us, society is even less ready to perceive them. Few people like tears, few people know what to do with hysteria and how not to drown in waves of anger and anger.

Not knowing what to do pushes us not to show these emotions at all. Close your mouth in time, swallow your tears and contain the anger boiling inside. On the one hand, this is a regulatory mechanism, thanks to which we did not kill each other in impulses. On the other hand, it is a direct path to diseases and disorders of the nervous system, as well as to a decrease in the degree of all emotions, including positive ones.

This is what we get when we hold back negative emotions for a long time:

Blocking all emotions in general.

Positive and negative emotions have the same nature, and if we begin to block the negative ones, we lose sensitivity to emotions altogether. “Blocked emotions lead to a loss of natural emotionality,” wrote the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. “How can one understand what joy is if sadness as a function is blocked in a person?”

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Take your gifts!

Formation of diseases of the body and “soul”.

We need every emotion for something. Yes, most often emotions are born as a reaction to an external stimulus. And if something really irritates us, then it’s better to figure out the reasons for this irritation. Reich's contemporary Carl Gustav Jung argued that if you constantly suppress the same emotion, such as anger, it will find its way out through the body in the form of depression, panic attack or any other psychosomatic illness.

This is explained by the fact that different hormones are involved in the formation of emotions and different chemical reactions are included, which, in turn, activate various processes in the body.

Doctors have noticed that patients who are afraid of surgery have a higher risk of complications, more blood loss, and recovery is more difficult. This is explained simply: when we are afraid, we produce norepinephrine and adrenaline. Norepinephrine increases blood pressure, and swollen veins bleed more when cut.

Explosion of emotions: how to share experiences environmentally

We all get upset from time to time—some more, some less. When we are sad about the loss of a loved one, angry at friends or family, or fearful about the state of the world, we often feel better by letting it out.

When we share emotions with other people, we feel closer to them and experience a sense of belonging. By opening up to our inner selves and receiving affection in return, we feel seen, understood, and supported.

But “sharing emotions” can be done in different ways. Are some practices healthier than others in the long run? Science suggests it partly depends on how you behave and how people react to you. Expressing our emotions to others too often can make things worse, especially if we don't look for ways to understand why we feel the way we do and take steps to comfort ourselves.

Why do we share emotions?

Emotions are valuable sources of information that warn us that something is wrong in the environment and requires attention. Whether we need to confront a bully, hide from danger, or seek comfort from friends, feelings like anger, fear, and sadness help prepare us for that moment.

But if feelings are internal signals, why do we share them with other people?

“It's about wanting to connect with others who can validate what we're experiencing, and emotional outbursts do a really good job of doing that,” says researcher Ethan Kross. “It’s nice to know there’s someone we can rely on who cares enough about us to listen.”

By sharing with others, it is easier to understand what is causing difficult feelings and prevent them from occurring in the future. Sometimes simply saying in words what is bothering us helps us clarify the situation and name the emotions we are faced with. Or, if we find ourselves in a whirlwind of emotions, people we trust can offer a new perspective and sound advice, Cross says.

“By focusing on the release of emotions, in a particular moment we feel good because we are connecting with other people,” he says. “But if we’re just making noise, we’re not meeting our cognitive needs.” We cannot understand and comprehend what we are experiencing.”

Thus, venting emotions can be helpful for building supportive relationships and feeling good in the moment, but it is not enough for coping. Simply listening and empathizing can inadvertently increase emotional distress.

The dark side of emotional outburst

For many years, psychologists believed that dark emotions such as anger needed to be released physically. This is how the “blow off steam” movement was born, where psychologists encouraged people to hit pillows or punching bags to release pent-up feelings.

However, it turned out that this type of emotional release does not so much calm anger as intensify it. This is because acting out anger causes a person to relive it in the body, strengthening the corresponding neural pathways and making it easier to transition into a state of anger the next time. Research on expressing anger (without effective feedback), both online and verbally, has also shown that it is generally unhelpful.

The same can be said for grief or anxiety after trauma. We certainly need the support of those around us during difficult times of loss and pain, but reliving the experience without finding a way to comfort ourselves or find meaning can prolong the suffering.

There was a time when people who worked with trauma victims encouraged them to “take stock”, to talk about what happened to them, in order to avoid post-traumatic stress. But a randomized controlled trial found that it has little benefit because it does not help distance people from their trauma. Similarly, students who shared their anxiety after 9/11 experienced more anxiety four months later than those who did not. As the study authors write, their “focus on emotions and how to deal with them strongly predicts long-term anxiety.”

The same applies to posts on social networks. One study surveyed students at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University after mass shootings on campus to see whether sharing their pain on social media helped them recover. Although students believed that sharing emotions was helpful, their scores for PTSD and depression actually increased the more they disclosed on social media.

Speak and listen carefully

In addition to the fact that talking about our emotions can hurt us more, it can also have a negative impact on the listeners.

While supportive friends and family are hopefully caring enough to listen and sympathize with you, it can be difficult to be around someone who is constantly venting their emotions without learning from their experiences. If someone is dwelling on anger, fear or sadness, the person nearby may also be affected by these emotions.

“Speaking up repeatedly, over and over again, can create friction in social relationships,” Cross says. “There is often a limit to how much the people you care about can really listen to you.”

I know that when I'm upset, I want to be listened to - and I don't need advice. If I'm in pain, attempts to distract me from these feelings or offer solutions to the problem seem insensitive or even condescending.

According to Cross, there is an art to being a listener. It requires a combination of empathy or affection—and the ability to wait for the right moment to offer perspective.

“People behave differently depending on what they're dealing with and how intense the experience is,” he says. “It’s important to be aware of the fact that some people may need more time before they are ready to move from expressing emotions to thinking.”

Skillful expression of emotions

According to Cross, there's a healthier way to let off steam. Here's what he offers:

Be selective about when to share experiences. There are many ways to cope with difficult emotions, and not all of them involve other people. Some people can do this on their own by writing down their thoughts or stepping away from them through meditation. Cross recommends a change of scenery to help you cope with your emotions and quell the rumination that otherwise leads to getting caught up in an emotional whirlwind.
When you share with others, encourage them to express their opinions. If you find that emotions don't subside (or perhaps get even stronger) when you share with someone, you may be falling into a cycle of "co-rumination"—paraphrasing that leads to dead ends. To get out of it, ask the person to help you reframe your experience: “How can I look at this differently?” or “What should I do in this situation?” This will encourage the listener to express his point of view and reassure him that you need more than just free ears.
Think about who you are sharing with. Before you vent to someone, ask yourself, “Did this person help me the last time I talked to them, or did they make me feel worse?” If someone is just around you but doesn't try to expand your point of view, it can unsettle you even more. Being mindful in choosing who to trust will help you in the long run.
Be careful with expressing emotions online. While this may provide relief in the current moment and help you find supportive allies, the results may be mixed. Negative emotions spread easily online, which can lead to a herd mentality—and bullying or trolling, especially if you hold a specific person responsible for your feelings. Statements on the Internet do not always give an idea of how to move forward.

However, in general, Cross believes that sharing emotions is good because it helps to cope with them. Letting our emotions out can help us feel better in the long run and keep our relationships strong.

“Releasing steam serves a purpose,” he says. “It benefits the person in terms of meeting social and emotional needs. You just have to figure out what the right dosage is and be sure to supplement it with cognitive reframing.”

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