What follows are a set of quick, straight-forward strategies you can use to get overwhelming emotions under control.
You can consider what follows your emergency tool kit for getting yourself into a better head space.
Breath
In virtually every society the world over, there are schools that concentrate on breathing. In western psychology, breath retraining is a part of several treatments used for people suffering with anxiety disorders.
When you feel like you are about to be pulled under the tidal wave of your emotions, concentrating on your breathing can be a powerful way to step back from that feeling and let it go.
- Try it now; take a few minutes, and close your eyes.
- Put one or both of your hands on your abdomen.
- Take a deep breathe with your abdomen so your hand rises with the intake, and then let it out slowly, feeling your hand lowered as the air leaves your abdomen.
- If you can, breathe in through your nose, and breathe out through your mouth.
- Focus on the air as it comes into your body – think about what it feels like as it passes your nostrils.
- As the breath comes out, let go of your muscles and the tension throughout your body and focus on what the breath feels like as it passes out of your mouth. You might even say the word “relax” to yourself as you exhale.
- Take long, slow breaths with your abdomen for three to five minutes. If you get dizzy or lightheaded, stop immediately, and breathe normally again.
- When you are finished with your breathing exercise, breathe normally for a few minutes before getting up.
- When you do get up, get up slowly.
After an exercise like this, you may notice that the negative feeling you were struggling with before has completely disappeared. If it isn’t gone entirely, it is usually at least reduced.
Distract Yourself
Constantly trying to distract yourself from your feelings isn’t a healthy behavior. However, if you are incapable of acting because your emotions have such a strong hold over you, some distraction can give you a temporary reprieve from all those bad feelings.
Take a time out from life, and do something that you enjoy and that will keep you from thinking about the dreaded emotion you were just coping with. Let yourself become completely involved in the activity to the degree that you forget what was going on for you before.
This is a particularly effective strategy to use if you run into one of the roadblocks we discussed earlier. Anything you can do to pass that roadblock is an effective action.
Take Care of Yourself
This one is a little different than distraction. It isn’t built so much on the idea of doing something you love in order to escape the emotion you are feeling. Instead, it is about making sure that you are doing the basics, such as eating and sleeping and exercising.
Taking care of yourself also means sometimes going beyond the basics and spoiling yourself a little to remind yourself that you are a worthwhile person.
If you are feeling shame or guilt, it might be even more difficult for you to think about taking care of yourself, but if you can overcome your initial reluctance, this can be a great way to counteract these negative emotions. Do a little something you wouldn’t normally do to spoil yourself. Perhaps you love lighting incense and candles and taking a bath, but you never find the time in your busy life. Instead of looking for all the reasons not to do it, just take the time to take the bath. It could make all the difference in the world.
Perhaps you are a music lover, and you haven’t bought yourself a new CD in some time. Go out and do it. You deserve it. This isn’t about shopping to numb the pain; it’s about treating yourself because you are a worthy person.
Talk It out with a Friend
I mentioned this earlier when discussing the four roadblocks to healing. This is a good strategy to institute anytime you are feeling caught up in the emotional riptide. You have friends and family around you. Taking advantage of this support group can be invaluable at a time like this.
If you feel like you can’t take it anymore, call a friend. Don’t worry. They will listen. If they don’t, if they try to tell you what to do or they make the situation worse, try and explain what you need from them. This might be something like this:
“Alice, thanks for listening. I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. I know you have my best intentions at heart when you tell me what you think I should do, but I don’t know, yet, what I want to do. When you do this, it makes it harder for me to figure out what I want for myself out of this situation. So please, when I talk to you about Bill, the most helpful thing you can do is listen and help me work out my feelings, not criticize my actions or tell me what you think I should be doing.”
If that doesn’t work, try a different friend. But do not continue to engage in conversations about the affair with people that do not respect your needs or do not support you in a positive fashion. This will only make your healing process that much more difficult.
Get out of the House or Office
A lot of people tend to hole up in their houses or bury themselves in work to keep from feeling pain. This isn’t helpful. You are only postponing the inevitable, and you might be stuffing the feelings away in a manner that could be harmful to your health. You also run the risk of developing this as a behavioral trend. That is not something you want to do.
Get out of the house. Put down the pen, log off the computer, and get out of the office. Take a walk; go to the mall; go to the zoo.
Go anywhere you like to go, but get out!
Physical Activity
One of the most effective ways to work out powerful emotions is to use your physical body to do it. This is particularly effective if you are feeling overwhelming stress or anger. Experts universally agree that exercise reduces stress, while promoting your overall physical and psychological health.
When you exercise, you release chemicals into your bloodstream called endorphins. These chemicals are similar in structure to morphine, and promote a sense of relaxation and well-being. When you don’t exercise, you deprive yourself of this vitally refreshing chemical release.
In addition, exercise tends to have a positive effect on your heart and lungs, the two organs that suffer the greatest impact from stress and anger.
If you don’t have a regular exercise regimen, you shouldn’t start out running a marathon or joining a boxing club (even though you might feel like you could). Start out small. Go for a walk or a hike instead.
If you are in reasonable health, you could work towards 15-30 minutes of aerobic activity three to four times a week as a goal for your exercise program. This level of exercise gives you physical and psychological health benefits while protecting your body from the stress that can come from excessive exercise. Take your time, and work up to this level of exercise slowly. Of course, if you are an athlete, you already know how to manage your exercise, and some of this might not pertain to you.
If you do have a regular exercise regimen, make use of it. You should already know what it’s like to work out your feelings through your body.
One last reminder: All things pass.
What you are feeling right now won’t last forever. It is going to go away, maybe not as soon as you would like, but it will pass. Remember this when you feel bogged down in the pain you feel from the affair.