Dealing With Our Feelings Under Stress

The other day my best friend and I were talking and we revisited this idea that we’ve gone over and over since March about how the pandemic has intensified everyone’s shit. No matter what it was that you were dealing with pre-corona chances are corona made it worse. This is what stress does especially chronic, traumatic stress that feels bigger than our ability to manage.

Times of stress inevitably intensifies our emotions as well (and if we don’t manage those appropriately, they can cause even more stress creating a cycle of stress and overreaction.) Recent studies are documenting the sharp increases in depression, anxiety, and suicidality since the pandemic began. (If you are experiencing extreme emotions or symptoms that feel unmanageable, please reach out for crisis services. This website is a great place to start.)

Even for those of us who aren’t experiencing severe symptoms, it’s important to cultivate emotional intelligence if we are going to stay healthy and sane during this stressful period. It’s something important during normal times but becomes critical for resilience during stressful ones. Here are some statements that will hopefully challenge how you think about your emotions and can help you to seem them in more helpful ways.

1. Emotions are neither good or bad, right or wrong.

I see this first one trip a lot of people up because it’s so easy to judge ourselves for our own emotions, especially the painful ones. We can also begin to feel guilty for our emotions as if they are reflective of our inner goodness.

The truth is emotions are not good or bad, right or wrong. When you remember that emotions are created by your brain which is simply an electrified piece of meat that sits in a bone bowl between your ears, you can accept that your thoughts and feelings won’t always make sense or have a deeper meaning. Sometimes they’ll be irrational or illogical or go against who you are at your core.

Emotions, however, can be helpful or unhelpful and there are strategies you can take to reduce or better manage the ones that are causing you grief. In fact, getting caught up shaming yourself for your feelings will only prevent you from engaging in the process of figuring out how to manage them better.

2. Emotions don’t last forever.

This one is going to be hard to believe if you are currently in the throes of intense negative emotions but it is true. Even in the depths of hardcore depression, there are changes in your emotions. They might be subtle or fleeting but they are there.

Most emotions, especially the intense ones, come up like a wave, peak, and then go back down again. This process might repeat fast or slow but if you look close enough you will probably find that wave like process in your own emotional life.

I don’t bring this up to minimize at all how terribly difficult intense, negative emotions can be or how horribly painful they are. I only say it so that we can bring some perspective to ourselves when in their depths. As the old saying goes, this too shall pass.

(Disclaimer: Strong, intense negative emotions that have little variation over a long period of time and feel difficult to manage is often a sign that you might need professional support including medication. This can help us to get to a more manageable baseline and develop the skills we need to manage our emotions over the long-term.)

3. When a strong emotion comes, you do not have to (and probably shouldn’t) act on it.

To maintain emotional perspective, its important to remember the difference between emotions and behavior. I know it sounds obvious but its another common trap that trips people up. As we said, emotions are neither right or wrong, good or bad. BUT the actions we take because of those emotions can be. And if we’re experiencing intense emotions - if on a scale of 1 to 10 we’re above a 7 or 8 - then the actions we take will definitely be colored by those emotions and can lead to regret down the road.

It’s natural to feel some sense of urgency to act when experiencing intense feelings, often with the hopes that it will reduce our suffering. It’s wise to identify healthy activities that you can engage in to dispel your emotional energy while not causing yourself stress or regret down the line.

You can also try just sitting with your emotions. Yes, the painful ones, especially those, actually. Tolerating painful emotions is an advanced emotional intelligence skill that helps us to stay centered when being buffeted about by life. Learning to do that will help you to make life affirming decisions even when under duress.

(Disclaimer: Please note that this skill might be too much for some folks early on in their journey. If sitting with your feelings causes you distress, worsening symptoms, or suicidal ideations please reach out for professional support.)

4. Emotions are not facts.

This is another one that sounds obvious but is a very common pitfall. It’s easy to think that because we feel strongly about something that means its true. But there is no connection between our feelings about something and the facts of that same thing.

It can be helpful to remind yourself of this if you find yourself having intense feelings about something, whether those feelings are good or bad. Whatever it is, it probably isn’t as bad or good as how you’re feeling right now. Waiting for our feelings to naturally come down a bit can help us to see things more clearly.

5. You cannot get rid of your emotions.

You cannot stuff, deny, avoid, forget, push, or wipe your feelings away. Whatever you’re doing to deny those feelings isn’t getting rid of them. They’re just building up inside of you and will eventually come out sideways in things like problematic substance use, compulsive behaviors, anger, irritability, or other problematic patterns that wreak havoc in our lives.

Thats why its so important to process and deal with our emotions in healthy ways. This includes things like self-care, social support, catharsis, validation, and self-reflection. Everyone has different needs so its up to you to engage in the process of figuring out what works best for you.

Also, if you think about it for a second, you really don’t want to get rid of your emotions. Our emotions provide us with important clues to the health of our environments and relationships. This can be easy to forget when our emotions are out of whack but when in balance they are a critical part of our threat response system. Just like our physical pain system warns us of danger (like when it hurts to put our hand on fire) so does our emotional pain system.

Reminding ourselves of these statements about our emotions can help us to engage with them in a healthier way. Emotions are there to help us and they are the seasoning of life. They are not, however, the all powerful being that we might be making them out to be in our minds. They are manageable and can be modified with the right practice and frame of mind.

It’ll be important for all of us to give some time and attention to our emotions as we continue to manage anxiety from living through a global pandemic. It’ll make it better for ourselves and our families as we go into the winter. Fill out our new client inquiry to get started if you are having trouble managing stress or contact us with any questions and concerns.