Welcome to Coping with Emotions

Many people have questions about emotions and how to better deal with them... this forum will allow individuals to help one another learn to recognize emotions, and learn to better cope with them in a positive manner in their lives.

DocJohn

Thanks DocJohn! This will surely help members --and others who read here-- to assess how their feelings are orchestrating their lives, and if they are. It will also be easier to give support along these lines because, by posting here, they would have already realized their emotions are getting "in the way" of their lives. It's always been an iffy posting for me to try and give support in some of the other forums, noting less than healthy feelings, but being unsure if the member is ready to hear what, imo, needs to be said.

This is going to help many members heal faster I think!

DocJohn, Thanks for starting this forum.

Emotions are/were a mystery to me.
Recently found out that my emotions serve a purpose and not something to avoid at all costs. And the cost was my health. (Depression)

I look forward to meeting others and together we can help each other with our emotional life.

Is there a Smilie for gratitude?

I too struggle with naming my emotions. I grew up in a house where it wasn't safe to express any emotions and then when I got to college I was but on such a high dose of Paxil that I felt numb to everything. Since then I am now off the Paxil (4 months) and now on Pristiq. So I am still trying to figure out the names of emotions as I have them.

Thanks for this Doc

Thank You!

Thankyou Physician there is need of this place; anger seems to be one emotion that most people feel but work on the least

Morgana

Thank you ~ you seemed to answer my wish! A lot of times, I am overwhelmed by feelings and just don't know what to do what to do. I do have some techniques to make it through...but they don't always work, and I don't know they're real healthy ways of going about it. Perhaps this will help me develop better ways to cope with my emotions.

So, thank you very much Doc John!

Last night, I had such overwhelming feelings of anger towards everyone. I believe that stress has caused this anger, however this anger dissolved into tears. I did feel better after I had a cry though. But today I still feel like crying I think I'm feeling despair. Does anyone have any advice for me?

My problem is very much to do with emotions, I find it most frustrating when people ask 'how are you', if I knew the answer to that I wouldn't really have a problem

I am very grateful for the Coping with Emotions forum! Thanks, Doctor John. I am often overwhelmed with many feelings, all seemingly flowing forth at once from a never-ending gusher within me, and I do not know how to turn this flood off. At other times, I am quite calm and able to cope very well. It is the roller-coaster ride that is so difficult to handle. Although I am grateful for the peaceful times, when situations arise in which I feel out-of-control, I wonder if I will ever know stability, or if my life will be made up of endless cycles defined by "stable-instablity"... over and over and over again. For me, I believe a huge part of my growth lies in understanding and accepting my own emotional states and leaving judgment far behind. It is important for me in this acceptance process to learn to just be with myself, no matter what I am feeling, and not run frantically from those emotions that are so intensely painful.

Thanks again, Doctor John. I am really looking forward to learning and growing through this forum.

BAPearl

Agreed. I never know how to answer "how are you", mostly because I have multiple emotions at one time. I'm bipolar and rapid cycle a lot. In fact, sometimes I rapid cycle every few minutes.

But also is the problem, why do people ask "how are you" if they really don't want to hear how you really are?

Yet it seems one can't talk about anger in the emotions section.

I wonder why?

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!

I am new to this site, but i beleive i am already in the right place.. thank you

Welcome, Mosie. Hope you find what you are looking for.

I can't sleep I feel like I'm losing my mind

I think emotions are very dangerous. For the most part, in my life, I have been very even-keeled. Unknown to me, I had been suppressing my emotions and when they exploded one day, it almost ruined my life. It's a fine line, I believe, between indulging in emotions and allowing oneself to feel them authentically. I'm still learning about this.

I think this will be very helpful to me. Especially me because one minute I am fine the next minute im crying for no reason at all. I am starting to figure out some of my emotions but its one i am still struggling with. My medicine really seems to help and others have said they have seen a change which is good. I still have a lot to work on.

this is wonderful..I have been battling emotions so long. I recognize that they are just that, emotions, and I can control and steer their reality by my thought life but I know emotions have a purpose too but I struggle with the balance.

If you are a teenager it may just be part of puberty. Hope you feel better soon.
-Kabilo

Emotional Intelligence is the one thing everyone should strive for in their lives. Being able to name them, feel them, monitor, and cope with emotions is key to self awareness and growth.

Isn't it possible that someone might be better off taking their own life? If one is tired and has no hope and has tried therapy and has lived and has nothing to which to look forward and life is just drudgery - worse: constant, unremitting pain?

Personally - I think that taking your own life is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I would suggest talking to your T and/or pdoc and letting them know just how you feel.