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Options
for emotional emergencies
28
possible actions to deal with hard personal states
Emotions are very powerful energies and deserve respect. They are like volcanoes: sometimes one erupts and we may react to it with thoughts or choices that are not always the best ones. Having done this, we need to reestablish our emotional axis or center, possibly making the best of the existing situation. If you are feeling uncomfortable or unpleasant emotions and want quick access to a better emotional state without fighting against them or repressing energies, try one or more of the options below. Humans are complex beings which makes it difficult to foresee which options will be better for you, its up to you to choose and execute one, two or more of the possibilities and find out what works better for you. 1. Brainstorm - Grab paper and pen and write everything, I mean everything that comes to your mind. Then simply throw it away. It may be even better to burn the paper, safety of course. Sometimes it is enough to simply express emotions. 2) Pay attention to the present - Direct your attention to the space around you for a few minutes. Verify if everything is in order there. Sometimes we get restless with regard to the future, and if everything is all right at the present it is still possible to do something. In fact, we can only worry about the future if present is allowing it! 3. Give yourself pleasure - Think about something that gives you a sense of pleasure. This pleasure should be immediately doable, you should also be comfortable doing it. This pleasure can be: ice cream, a hot bath, a sauna, enjoying a sunset or the stars, the feel of smell a flower, whatever gives you pleasure. Feel as much pleasure as you can and enjoy that pleasure as much as possible for a minute or so. 4. Believe - Sometimes we don’t move because we do not believe that it is
possible to find a solution. To deal with that you have the option of, for
some moments, act as if it was possible, just to direct your mind. You already know
how to do that, like, for example, to answer the question "What would you
do if you were the president?" To make decisions you also need to act as if
something was happening, like to get married or to travel: what will happen?
Will it be nice? To create fantasies is also an
evidence of this skill. It will also work the attitude of
being open to believe.
6. Self-consciousness - Turn on the "camera" in your mind’s eyes to look for clues about what you are doing internally. Ask yourself: “What am I thinking about?”, “What am I imagining?”, “Am I repeating a certain behavior?”. Merely being conscious of the thinking processes can solve the problem in a few seconds or provide important information about what to do next. For
example, verify if there is some "internal voice" telling you that you
did something wrong and criticizing or condemning you for this. It may be also
that the voice's source is some internal character (father, mother, etc., that is,
representations of father, mother, etc.). Another
possibility is that you in fact are reacting to a projected future. We use this
in general to make decisions, as to travel and planning (as described in option
4), but sometimes we do
this in an unproductive manner. In
one of these situations, I discovered how I stay in doubt: with two options for
an important decision, my attention, my focus, remained alternating quickly
between internal images of the two alternatives, without stabilizing. The
inconvenient was that I still continued doing this even after the decision! That
discover by itself was already a relief, and I have made improvements in this
strategy, like deliberately staying more time in one possibility so to deep its
analysis and evaluation. If you stay in doubt with these almost 30 options,
remember that not to decide can be worse than the risk of some choice. 7) Something good? - Ask yourself: "What can this emotion be bringing
of beneficial for me?" Just listen to the answer. If one comes and you
agree with it, do the hint below: relax the body and surrender your mind, to
allow the emotion's action while you do nothing more than observe.
9) Wait it to pass - There are things that happen with which we don't need to
do anything, just wait, as a temporal. 10) Interpret it better - We sometimes interpret what we are feeling giving names, descriptions and meanings. We can feel not much well due to a wrong or distorted interpretation of what is happening: "I'm lost", "I did bad, so I'm a bad person". Try
to give a better name to the emotion, anything better than, for example,
"bad feeling". Is it anger, fear, frustration, deception? Another
possibility is that a combination of emotions may be happening. Ask yourself: is
there some other associated emotion? It has occurred to me once to judge myself as "feeling bad" during some time,
to discover that what was happening was a growth process, something good was on
the way, and I just interpreted those feelings like bad. In many, many times
some insights had come, some light about myself or about some matter. It
can be also that what you are feeling is something new. Consider, for example, a
teenager in phase of first menstruation, with the body going through many
changes: there must be potentially several new sensations. Another
possibility of interpretation is that something old and not useful anymore in
your mind is going away, and it can provoke internal "movement", with correspondent
sensations (have you already felt something for occasion of some change, as of a
belief?). To become attached and resist can mean the obstruction of your
evolution, your own growth. 11) Expectations – Is it that you are having expectations that your life
should be (like a) a straight line? Typically a normal human being goes through
several different states during a single day: he laughs and has fun, he angers,
he calms, warms, cools, he gets excited and animated. A person with exacerbated
expectations of stability can feel bad just because of the state variation and
his unreal expectation of stability. To deal with this, try to imagine how could
it
be to live a
life that is equal, the same, day by day, every moment, nothing changes… 12) Chunk down - A person with emotional difficulties can be fighting against
what he or she is, against life and other big and abstract things. But our life,
actually, is impelled by small behaviors, small actions. Each thing we
build is made inch by inch, step by step, moment to moment. A phrase that has
inspired me very much was "The sage does small things". If there are
40 e-mails to check, it is only possible to read the next, unless you have
somebody to do it for you. If there is a
building to build, put the next brick (within the project, of course). If
something like this is happening to you, decide what to do just for the next minute, or less,
if this is the case. Take it easy! And if you’re trying to “resolve your
life”, think about resolving one single aspect of it, or at least the next
small step to it. 13) Breathing control - Direct your attention to your breathing. Gradually go
deepening it, expanding it, and turning it slower. Breathe with abdomen. I have
already applied this option to calm a child. 14) Meditate - Stay some minutes paying attention to the air sensations leaving and entering your nose. "Some" minutes, yes, it is indefinite so that you don't need to mark time. I have already used this option, among other situations, to "cool" mind between two difficult meetings and to make transitions work-to-house, in particular at the end of those hard days. 15) Change your posture - Our body and mind are so
interlinked that at times only a physiology change already impels a difference
and an
improvement. 16) Turn yourself off - Sleep or lie in bed and rest a little. Some processes
go away just for we don't remain thinking about them. 17) Forget about yourself - Go take care of someone who needs. Many times, we can get ourselves disconnected from a problem, and stop feeding it, directing our attention to someone external to us. For example, if you have to take care of a child in trouble, naturally you will shift your attention to her. For some moments, what you feel will not be the most important thing. 18) Relax in posture - How tense is your brow? Loosen it whatever possible. This is a principle of Yoga: in a certain posture, loosen muscles the way it is possible. Look for and release a tense part of your body, the best way possible, in the same posture you are. Then look for another. If you have practice in relaxing entire parts of your body, use it, otherwise chunk down to an arm, a hand or a finger, whatever works. You can combine this option with others, doing it before other practices and even in many situations of common life, like when in elevators and cars or even when walking.
20) Apply your experience - Search in your memory for a similar situation that was
solved by you and apply a similar strategy. 21) Other's strategy - Do you know someone that has already solved similar
matter? Do what he or she has done. 22) Another ear - Call a friend, asks if he or she can lend you his ears for a few
minutes and talk all that comes to your mind. This is another form of
expressing. 23) Sensorial check - Dedicate some time to investigate how the emotion
is manifesting in your body: sensations, tensions, location, intensity,
extension. This is a meditation form, besides it enriches your self-perception of your own body 24) Surrender - An idea, an attitude suggested by Isabel Allende,
the writer: relax and simply
surrender, allow whatever is happening flows, in the best possible way. 25) Work with a metaphor - You work with metaphors
since you were a little child. If the emotion was a lake or a volcano, or in it,
how would it be? If it is turbulent, try to calm it down and do other changes in
the scenery.
27) Spiritual option - according to your beliefs, ask for help. If you
choose this option, look for adopting an attitude of openness, receptivity,
permission and acceptance of the help. Permission is important, because we
sometimes want to change something and at the same time we fear the
change. This is much as pushing simultaneously accelerator and brake. 28)
Doctor - You can be with some organic problem whose symptoms you don't know, think
about seeing a doctor. The essence
ConclusionTo
finalize, I transcribe some thoughts told in a forum to
a person who did not want very much to live (now he's
fine): "I
really hope that you decide to live, because: 1)
I believe deeply in the capacity of every human being of doing small and great
things, overcome obstacles and to grow with them ("do lemonades with the
lemons"). More than believe - for all that I've seen, knew and learned, I know. 2) We are making differences and changing the world in each choice we make,
due to the future unfoldings of small acts (see the story of the dog that
changed the world). 3)
You are still going to help many people, either inspirating them by counting your history and how you
defeated your difficult moments, or by being present at moments when they will
only have you as a support." V. V. Vilela Editor
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5.
Smile - Watch a funny movie, read a book of jokes, do something
with humor.
8)
Spend energy - Take a walk, run, swim, dance, go to the academy or
practice a sport, to spend the accumulated energy.
19)
Read a good book and/or watch a good film - Who said that to escape
cannot be sometimes a good option?
26)
Change the environment - Many times we create associations with and
response to the
environment or its elements (the so-called anchors). We see an image or hear a
sound and have a reaction or feeling, like the “our-song” phenomenon. A good
option can be to get out of your normal environment. Think about going to the
woods, be near to nature. It might be a good idea to stay away from TV and any advertising,
they know these capacity of ours and that sometimes we don’t have choices with
it.
