What to Do with Emotions
Not knowing what to do with emotions is a significant cause of suffering. When we don’t know how to identify, process, comfort, or soothe emotions, we’re often overwhelmed by them. Emotions can feel like a jumbled ball of knotted yarn—overwhelming and impossible to unravel. Learning how to identify, accept, understand, and nurture emotions is one of the most foundational skills for emotional well-being.
What Is an Emotion?
An emotion is a feeling. These feelings can be categorized into six primary types: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame*, and joy. (*While shame is often debated as an emotion, we’ll leave that discussion for another time.) Each of these emotions comes with physical sensations: a clenching gut, a racing heart, heat flushing through the body, muscle tension, or a knot in the throat.
What Is the Point of an Emotion?
Emotions act as signals from the body, reacting to environmental situations. For example, if you’re walking on a trail and encounter a mother bear and her cubs, you feel fear. Your stomach drops, your body grows cold, and your legs tremble in preparation to flee. In this instance, fear’s purpose is to prompt you to run.
From the bear’s perspective, anger arises. She sees you as a threat to her cubs and prepares to fight to protect them. Through this lens, emotions are warnings and directives to help us survive and thrive. In essence, emotions are life’s way of communicating what we need to respond to in order to navigate the world effectively.
Why Are Emotions So Threatening?
Everyone is born knowing how to feel and express emotions. A newborn baby, for example, cries to signal anger, hunger, or fear. The baby’s survival depends on others responding to these emotions. But when emotional expression threatens attachment—such as when a parent ignores, punishes, or withdraws in response—the child faces a painful choice: suppress their emotions to preserve the attachment or risk losing the connection entirely.
This is not a real choice. Children suppress emotions like anger, sadness, or fear to maintain vital attachments. Over time, they learn that expressing emotions makes them unsafe, unworthy, or “too much.” This survival strategy persists into adulthood, where emotions, now exiled or ignored, become overwhelming and threatening. The longer emotions are suppressed, the louder their signals become, sometimes manifesting as physical illness—the body’s way of saying, “No more.”
What Can We Do with Emotions?
Learning to identify, process, express, and soothe emotions is a crucial step in healing and self-development. Here are some steps to begin working with emotions:
1. Recognize the Emotion
Ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” Is it fear, anger, sadness, shame, disgust, or joy? Notice the physical sensations associated with these feelings. For example:
A clenching gut might signal fear.
Heat and muscle tension may indicate anger.
A knot in the throat could suggest shame.
Identify any beliefs tied to the emotion, such as, “If I’m angry, I’ll be too much for others to handle” or “If I’m sad, I’ll seem weak.” These beliefs often stem from deeper fears of unworthiness.
2. Accept the Emotion
Instead of battling or exiling the emotion, try to make space for it. Ask yourself: How much energy do I spend suppressing this emotion? What would it feel like to stop resisting and simply let it be?
3. Get Curious
Explore the emotion. Ask:
How long have I been feeling this?
How often do I feel this emotion?
What circumstances brought it about?
What needs or unmet desires might this emotion be pointing to?
4. Comfort the Emotion
Once you’ve identified and understood the emotion, try fulfilling the needs it signals. If the emotion stems from loneliness, offer yourself compassion and presence. If it arises from anger, explore what boundary or action might bring relief. By meeting your needs, you’re telling yourself: “I matter.”
Building a Relationship with Your Emotions
Learning to identify, accept, understand, and comfort emotions helps you navigate life’s difficulties and savor its joys. Suppressing emotions—using energy to bury or battle them—leads to disconnection and exhaustion. Over time, this habit often manifests as depression, which literally means to push down or deplete.
If you’ve been overwhelmed or confused by emotions, you don’t have to stay that way. With consistent practice, you can learn to build a healthy relationship with your emotions. This effort is a profound act of self-love and the antidote to feeling unworthy or “not enough.”
You are worth it.
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