There is no right way. If sitting with an emotion is not to your liking, and, if you are tired of verbal self-expression via journing, maybe you can draw your emotions or paint just for the sake of doing it without aiming at producing a neat picture. I think I saw watercolor markers at a store once; they would be far less messy than pain for starters.

I am not writing to suggest that non-verbal expressiveness is better than verbal, or vice versa. I am just suggezting that you not listen to dogmatic advice (do a, b, and c and you will .aster e.otional regulation ), but rather to offer yet another approach and suggest that you look into yet more to find something you like.