By in Mindfulness, Other Therapies

Why Emotions Can Be Overwhelming

We all have experienced emotions that are so strong and uncomfortable, that they literally overwhelm us. We may have been so afraid, so angry or so happy that we felt no longer in control of ourselves. We may have found ourselves “checking out” from our body as a last resort or we turned to pure instinct and lost control. 

Often we learn from these experiences that emotions can be dangerous. We may start to try to control or avoid them further. We suppress them when we feel it is not a good time for us to get overtaken by them and we begin to bottle up, manage and suppress them further. 

Unfortunately, emotions do not like being managed or suppressed. They simply fester deep inside, waiting for any excuse to erupt, and the longer we manage and suppress them the more intense and threatening they feel when they try to burst to the surface. And so we can get into a vicious cycle. 

Anger and sadness are very typical emotions where this happens. Many of us become very conflicted when we experience anger. Sensing our anger can confront us with a narrative that we have learned growing up, which often boils down to an equivalent of a message of rejection and abandonment: “When you are angry I do not like you. – When you are angry you are unlikeable.” 

Most of us learn as children that most of the time it is not appropriate to get angry or sad. Unless we have a really good reason we are not supposed to “make a fuss”. And even if we do have a good reason we are still expected to manage our feelings so that they do not upset anyone else and we do not act unreasonably. 

Of course, we all can understand how easily this happens. When we are with our 4-year-old family member in the shop and they are kicking off because they can not have the chocolate bar, it really makes perfect sense to let them know that in life they can not throw tantrums like that. And yet it is this kind of learning that over time plays a big part in our inability to actually work with and process our emotions, particularly the supposedly ‘negative ones’. 

The thing is that there is no negative emotion. All emotions have a very useful job in helping us navigate and process life. Children are not so able to contain their emotions just yet, so what they sometimes need is an empathetic witness and caregiver who sees their turmoil and helps them navigate through it in a way that they can learn how to move through and process strong emotions. 

Of course, this is easier said than done. And it is not all down to parents either. Trauma at any point in life can also make it difficult for us to be with our emotions. Trauma has a tendency to not just deliver powerful emotions left right and center, it can push us straight into instinct because of the high alert state the nervous system is constantly in. 

So when we experience a trigger we do not sense fear, we instantly become overwhelmed with terror. Instinct states like terror or rage can not be processed or negotiated. They are designed to completely take us over in very extreme situations. Unfortunately, that makes it even harder to deal with these chemicals in our bodies. Often our only option in this situation appears to be, to shut right down again and dissociate from our feelings and our body. 

Unfortunately, this keeps us in a cycle of overwhelm and numbness. 

Whether we are dealing with trauma or simply a well installed belief that certain emotions are bad, it can be helpful to consider the following:

  1. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. 

Anger for example has a bad name, because of the reasons mentioned earlier. No one likes being around someone who is angry. However, anger can be very appropriate in certain situations. If someone treats you or a family member badly, you are allowed to be angry and you are allowed to act upon this. Of course, you can not take revenge or take other inappropriate actions from your anger, but this is exactly the issue with anger. When people think about acting out their anger they instantly think about violence. While that can be an outlet of anger, anger can be expressed in many more subtle and very useful ways, even when no one has treated you badly. 

Perhaps it is because we already grow up conflicted with this emotion, that we see it as a mainly destructive one. However, anger is an important component in boundary setting, self-care, and ambition. Think about it, if we are not able to stand up for ourselves by sometimes saying ‘no’ to things, we become overwhelmed and exhausted quickly. In fact, many people struggle with saying ‘no’ and setting boundaries because they can subconsciously identify the relationship between such an action and anger. 

Ditte Marcher, an international conflict negotiator, therapist, and human rights activist once told me, that if we all had a healthy relationship with our own anger we would all set clear and healthy boundaries with each other, which would mean that we would have better relationships because when we know our own and each other’s boundaries we can truly meet. This really changed my perspective and I became more intrigued about the non-violent side of anger and how beneficial it can be for us all. 

  1. Emotions are physical

Another thing that can make it hard for us to experience and work with our emotions is that they have meaning attached to them. And what are emotions anyway? We talk about emotions like this mystery experience we all share. Feelings have meanings for us, good and bad, dangerous, pathetic, etc. As soon as we feel a certain emotion we will look for meaning. Let’s say we suddenly realise we are anxious, but we can not identify a reason why. There is nothing here to be scared of…. and yet we feel anxious. The fact that we do not seem to see a reason for it is making the emotion scarier, because how can we calm ourselves down if we can not identify the trigger? Before we know it we are experiencing fear of the fear and everything becomes overwhelming once again. 

Emotions are chemicals. When you have a strong emotion like fear and you do not know why you might take a moment to remind yourself. Whatever this fear is about, it is a chemical cocktail in your body and it comes with physical sensations as it creates temporary changes in your nervous system. 

Sometimes it is very useful to simply put the label of “emotion” or “feeling” and its meanings aside and connect to the sensations underneath. The label and meaning are completely made up by humans. In reality, all there is, is a cocktail of chemicals, creating sensations in the body that we then identify as fear or joy and give context and meaning to.

When we just deal with sensations of tension, warmth, tingling, etc the emotion can sometimes appear more neutral and we can be with it and allow it to work its way through our body or give us impulses to act out without our brain becoming conflicted or over-complicating things. 

And sometimes connecting on this deeper physical level to an emotion gives us a clearer sense of what the emotion actually is and what it relates to. 

  1. The titration of strong emotions is key. 

If you are dealing with a difficult emotion that has been pushed down inside of you for a while and that keeps emerging with all its intensity and power, you can not process it in all its full force. 

Many years ago catharsis was a much-loved therapeutic tool where people would let loose with their emotions by screaming and punishing pillows. While this often had a very satisfying effect in the short term, it seems that it rarely created lasting change because ultimately the emotions were so strong as they erupted, that we can not stay present on a deeper level and truly process what is happening. The emotion takes us over and we go into instinct again, which is not a present embodied state but a survival mechanism. 

So while this can be challenging to do, what we need when emotions have become powerful beasts inside of us is to use tools that allow us to get in touch with only a tiny bit of it at a time. Allow it to emerge in portions we can stay present with. You could imagine a water tap that has a lot of water pressure on it. You slowly turn the tap just a tiny bit for a little bit of water to dribble out. Then you turn it shut again for a while before coming back once again. It takes some time but after doing this regularly the water pressure will reduce and you can open the tap a bit further until all the water has been released. In most cases, however, this may require working with a somatic trauma therapist to help you stay in control of the tap so to speak. 

Whatever your issue with emotions may be, your starting point should be one of self-compassion and self-respect. No emotion is there for no reason. Whatever the emotion is, it needs acknowledgment and validation. You are in charge of how you deal with the emotion and the impulses that may come with it, but your body has a right to its chemicals and never does anything for no reason, even if your brain can not make sense of it. 

If you would like support to work through your emotions on a physical level or if you need somatic support with trauma, you can contact Kristin at The Body Matters on 01702 714968 for more information.

Kristin Loeer
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