Welcome to Coping with Emotions

i am new to this page so i am sorry if i do anything wrong.......but what is your thinking on the feeling of being lost ....sad...confussed.
anything would help ty

Going up and down with emotion has caused havoc in my relationshops with others. I would welcome adult responses to overwhelming emotions. Sometimes I revert to child like behaviour which only furthers my distance from people.

crying sucks. Crying makes me feel like a big baby. Crying is so effing uncontrollable most of the time for me.....and trying to hold back crying is so difficult to do. Especially when u are hurting reaaaalllly bad. I sometimes hide, sometimes keep it all sucked inside myself. It doesn't help, it doesn't do jack, but stay there relentlessly always in my heart. And people think I am weak.

i would just like to share this post by jexa, which i found to be so very helpful and insightful.

Last week, we looked at ‘expansion’- opening up and making room for emotions, feelings and sensations in your body; allowing them to flow through you, without fighting with them or getting pushed around by them. And I asked you to practice the N and the A of the NAME technique:

N – Notice the emotion

A – Acknowledge the emotion by name

M – Make room for the emotion

E – Expand awareness

I asked you to pause for a few seconds and do a check-in, whenever you’re feeling stressed, and Notice what is happening in your body: where are you feeling it? What is happening in your forehead, jaws, throat, neck and shoulders, chest, and tummy (the areas of your body most commonly affected by strong emotions). And to do so with curiosity; to observe these sensations as if you are a curious scientist who has never encountered anything like it before, noticing the location, size, shape, temperature, pulsation, vibration, pressure, tingling, movement etc. And to then acknowledge the feeling by name, silently saying to yourself, ‘Here’s anger’ or ‘I’m noticing anxiety’.

Did you try this at all? If so, what difference did it make, if any? Hopefully, you started to notice a bit of detachment from your emotion; a sense of unhooking yourself or disentangling yourself from it, at least a little bit. If you didn’t, no worries; when you add in the M and the E of the NAME technique, it becomes much more powerful.

The M stands for Make room. How do you make room for a painful emotion? There are many different ways, but here are three of the most useful. I invite you to experiment with them, and find the one that works best for you – and of course, feel free to use any combination of them that you like.

1. Breathe and Open
Breathe slowly and deeply, and imagine your breath flowing into and around the part of your body where you’re feeling it most intensely. Imagine that as you breathe into the feeling, all this space opens up inside you, around the feeling. See if you can cultivate some sense of opening up inside, expanding around the feeling.

2. Create an Object
Imagine this feeling is an object. What is its shape, size, colour, weight consistency? Is it liquid, solid or gaseous? Is it moving or still? What temperature is it? Is it transparent or opaque? Light or heavy? Is there any sound, vibration, pulsation within it? If you could touch the surface, what would it feel like; rough, smooth, wet, dry, hot, cold, sticky, spiky? Try breathing into and around this object, and see if you can get a sense of opening up and making space for it.

3. A Compassionate Hand
Take one hand, and imagine that it is the hand of someone very kind and caring. Gently place this hand on the area of your body where you’re feeling this most intensely. Let your hand rest there, and feel the warmth flowing from your hand into and around the feeling. Most people find this instantly soothing. Leave your hand there for a while, and see if you can get a sense of softening up or loosening up around the feeling.

NOTE: With practice, you will reach a point where you can do this very quickly; in the space of a few seconds, you can notice, acknowledge and make room for the emotion.

And then what? Well then you need to Expand awareness – to engage with the world around you. Life is like a stage show, and on that stage are all your thoughts, all your feelings, and everything that you can see, hear, touch, taste and smell. What you have been doing above is like dimming the lights on the stage, and shining a spotlight on a painful feeling. Now, keeping that feeling in the spotlight, you simultaneously bring up the lights on your body. Push your feet into the floor, straighten up your spine, adjust your posture – notice both your body and your emotion.

Next, you want to bring up the lights on the world around you. So open your eyes and ears, look around and notice what you can hear and see. And notice what you’re touching. And notice where you are and what you’re doing. And whatever it is that you happen to be doing, engage in it fully; give it your full attention, while allowing your emotions to be exactly as they are.

NOTE: this takes a lot longer to write or read about than it does to actually do it. In practice, expanding awareness as above takes a few seconds at most.
***
Like any skill, the NAME technique takes practice in order to develop competence. And like any skill, every little bit of practice makes a difference. If you do this once a week, that’s better than not doing it at all. Initially, it’s easiest to practice NAME in less-challenging situations where your emotions are less intense. This will help you develop your expansion skills, so that over time, you can apply them in more challenging situations where your emotions are very intense. So why not try this when you’re stuck in a queue or a traffic jam, or waiting for your date to arrive, and you’re feeling frustrated or impatient? Why not try it when someone has pushed your buttons and you’re feeling disappointed or upset or annoyed?

REMEMBER: the aim is not to get rid of the emotion, but to stop struggling with it; stop amplifying it; stop letting it push you around or overwhelm you. The thing is, when you drop the struggle and make room for the feeling and engage fully in whatever you are doing, you will often find that the emotion does reduce or disappear. When this happens, enjoy it, but please look on it as a lucky bonus, rather than the desired outcome. Certainly, don’t start looking at expansion as a way to control your feelings, or you’ll soon be disappointed!

Hi KystalBella,

Dont' feel bad about crying, cos I read, that is okay to cry, as it brings one healing. Don't you feel sometimes you feel better after a good cry? Don't know why people have a problem with poeple crying, Plus its not good to hold all the pain it oneself.

Hi Susan, (is that right, ur name?)

I haven't been here for awhile~ I think I got frustrated last time I was here cos' I have yet to figure how to navigate, and also, I had posted but nobody would reply. That led me to think the threads/forums were dead. Not so? You are *the* only one (that I am aware of that is) that replied to me here. Although I didnt expect reply with this post. I was upset and blew steam. But, thank you I appreciate it.
The meds have been wack lately...sometimes I feel like I ought to just slowly wean off them cos' I can't tell if they're truly helping for the past few months it seems. I don't even like being on all these meds, but apparently I need to be. I don't even know anymore.
Yes, a good cry sometimes is wonderful, but now it's to the point where I feel like crying, but then cant. (again, is it the drugs)? kwim? Arrrrrggghhh...Calgon, take me away. (LOL)

thanks again....Hope I can find this again if u reply, cos' i have no idea how I did manage to get back here. Heck, I don't even recall writing that post. Geez...

I can so relate to what you are saying and could use some techniques for coping with emotions myself. I too often feel that I respond in a childlike way instead of bringing to a situation the strength and stability of a grown woman. The things that come to mind for me that would be helpful (which I often fail to recognize or put into action at the time) are things like having pre-determined standards for ways in which it is acceptable for others to treat me. Resisting the intrigue of curiosity so that I don't feed an issue and keep it going. Knowing when to stop trying to defend myself, my actions, what I think, etc. Realizing when it is time to let go. Taking responsibility for my own self-preservation. Doing or saying less when someone is signaling that I am too much, too intense, too dramatic, too sensitive, too emotional and accepting that they do not have the ability to relate to, understand or accept certain aspects of who I am. Wanting approval when it is not there to be offered seems to lead to frustration and ultimately creates distance where we are seeking closeness. Being there for ourselves in the way that we want others to be.
Responding to your post has given me food for thought that would be good for me to apply to myself. The vulnerability that steers us to respond in a childlike way to situations probably comes from fragility that has always been a part of us due to life experience. I think it's important to not feel that we have to act in such a way that rejects that part of us. But, at the same time it is a private part of who we are that we need to recognize is not appropriate to bring into most social situations or relationship problems. It is our personal responsibility to find balance in the ways that we communicate with others, while assuring the fragile child in us that we are capable of addressing any situation as the adult we are now. I tend to ramble. Thank you for indulging my thoughts in response to your post.