Not all emotional responses give us a clear message or call to action. This is because emotions triggered now are arising in quite contrasting lives and society from when it was evolved to be useful.
Fear when you were about to be eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger gave a clear message (get out of there!), anxiety about not having found food for a while delivered a clear motivation (go hunting!), shame for behaviour that offended another tribe member had a clear message (don’t do that behaviour again or you’ll risk being ostracised) and becoming angry and using force to protect yourself when physically attacked by another tribe made sense (fight to protect yourself and your tribe!).
These emotions, that evolved ultimately for survival, are still regularly triggered, but our lives are far more complex now such that immediate responses or perpetual focus on what is triggering the emotion are no longer always helpful. We are often scared of things that can’t actually harm us, we worry ourselves senseless and feel anxious about something that our ancestors would never have faced, a mistake we make can trigger crippling shame that lingers for some time without resolution, or we get angry and it’s rarely appropriate to use physical force to protect ourselves, even if our impulses are urging us to.
That’s not to say that you need to just suppress emotions to adapt to modern living. That’s also unhelpful. (Suppressed emotions leach out somewhere and certainly not in a way we are in control of!) More helpful is ‘reading’ what the emotion could be telling you and working out a more suitable response. Fear and anxiety about a future event might mean we need to gather more information so we feel more secure, crippling shame might mean we need to work out if the shame was warranted and if so, modify our behaviour appropriately, and anger can often mean we need to be assertive and talk to someone about what happened so that it doesn’t happen again.
But despite this, there are still not overly serious situations where, after we have done everything we can to address the issue that triggered an emotion, an unenjoyable emotion just sticks around and causes us to feel really uncomfortable. Humans have evolved the capacity to recall the past and speculate about the future and this can mean our thoughts can trigger uncomfortable emotions on a loop. So what can help with such situations?
When you are left with a lingering uncomfortable emotion like anxiety, shame, regret or anger about something that’s happened and/or something that’s going to happen, finding ways of shifting your perspective to look at whatever triggered or is triggering the emotion can often help. Here are some ideas – some suitable for children to use too – for how you could do this:
Visualise the event in your mind
This comes straight from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). It involves closing your eyes and visually recalling the event that is triggering strong emotions. Once recalled, you play around with the image that you have in your mind. You can step outside the memory (if you’re in it) and move to recalling it as if it was on a TV screen with you watching it. You can put a ‘feel good’ or silly piece of music as a soundtrack. You can change the picture from colour to black and white (if your recollection is in colour). You can turn the volume down. You can make the image move further and further away so that it becomes a tiny dot in the distance. When I have used this, it has definitely taken the sting out of a negative memory.
Face the worst case scenario
Another, slightly counter-intuitive way of shifting perspective about a future event or the impact of a previous occurrence is to imagine and consider the worst case scenario and ask yourself, ‘how terrible would that really be?’ This is what the Stoics recommended and I think there’s truth in what they suggest! So, for example, if you were worrying about giving a performance and your deep-rooted fear was of messing up, go ahead and imagine that unfolding. Next try and laugh about it and realise how little negative impact things going wrong would actually have. It’s also helpful to know that when people ‘mess up’ and show their fallibility in a performance type situation, others tend to feel a warmth towards them rather than judge harshly!
Know you will almost definitely cope
Our brain’s negativity bias (our brain notices and imagines negative things happening with a far louder ‘volume’ than positive ones) tends to catastrophise and assume that what can go wrong, will go wrong. The reality is, most things turn out just fine and even if they don’t go as planned, we nearly always still manage just fine! It can be helpful to remember your brain’s tendency to assume the worst and remind yourself that it is just your brain bringing such panic, doom and negativity!
It could be worse!
OK so maybe there are situations that don’t seem like they could possibly be worse but a bit of creative thinking and we can usually think of a list! If we’re lucky, it can make us laugh too.
Don’t torture yourself!
It would be extraordinary if we managed to get through life with nothing bad ever happening. Holding an acceptance of this and labelling negative events and tricky situations as, ‘just one of life’s rubbish or difficult things’ can bring about a degree of calm resignation to unpleasant events. We can learn to accept that a fraction of our life will inevitably be spent dealing with the more rubbish aspects. This can help compartmentalise them and ‘let them go’ more quickly than if we torture ourselves with any idea that we could have avoided the situation.
An opportunity to learn
With inevitable negative life incidents, we can sometimes find solace in the idea that they will probably have taught us something that could make a repeat of the incident less likely. These little life lessons are definitely a positive and focusing on these ‘gifts’ as a back-handed positive can help!
Others will be or would feel the same too
In some circumstances we can be wallowing in uncomfortable emotions in a way that can make us feel isolated. It can sometimes be comforting to know, realise or remember others will be feeling, or will have felt, a similar way.
This too will pass
Some emotions can be overpowering and all-consuming such that we can’t imagine ever being free of them again. It’s quite bizarre considering the huge amount of evidence we can draw upon that emotions do nearly always pass. I find the simple phrase, ‘this too will pass’ can help detach you a little from the tight grip an emotion can have on you and give you a healthier perspective.
Forgive yourself
A big part of rumination (letting an unhelpful thought go round on a loop triggering uncomfortable emotions again and again) occurs because we are not being very forgiving of ourselves. We can torture ourselves with thoughts like, ‘if I had only done this, or said that, or had listened to this etc.’ If and when this happens, it really is time to employ some self-forgiveness. We all mess up, we all make mistakes, we all find ourselves doing things, that with hindsight, we realise we could have done better. Nobody gets things right all of the time and most people make huge clangers at some point! These realisations can shift our perspective to a position of greater self-compassion and release us from such self-torture.
Find the funny side
Now I appreciate this might sometimes seem just too difficult but there is often humour to be found in disaster – as a sort of laugh or I’ll cry approach! If you manage to find the humour and manage to laugh, it can diminish the impact of the incident that triggered your uncomfortable emotion.
Have a good cry
The opposite can also be true. If you can have a good cry and squeeze out as much emotion as you can during that cry, you will feel better afterwards. There are theories, but it is not known for certain why this is the case.
A change of scene
This is really obvious but when our focus is narrowed (like it is with some strong emotions and their associated thoughts) we can totally overlook taking any action as we stew. We almost need to force ourselves to remember that a walk outside, a visit to a friend or playing some music loudly (which in NLP terms is called using an ‘anchor’) will almost definitely flavour our state beneficially!
Meditation
This is far from a ‘quick fix’ but one eventual outcome of regular meditation is a shift in perspective. With mindfulness and meditation we can develop the ability to be more ‘present’ and able to be more of an observer of what is happening to us emotionally. This can prevent us from impulsive responses as we learn to detach from any immediate urges enough to delay our response and also see how transient, and sometimes, unnecessarily all-consuming emotions often are.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
I learnt EFT many years ago. It’s what I have heard people refer to as ‘that hippy tapping thing!’ I think it works but its benefits for me were not just about the possibility that the acupuncture points actually released the emotion. I have mentioned this many times elsewhere but the benefits for me were
1) making me far more aware of my emotions and their associated thoughts in the moment they arrived as I was perpetually on the lookout for opportunities to tap. 2) It possibly distracted me. 3) It gave me ‘time-out’ to reflect upon my emotions and their triggers which helped me see if and when my responses had been distorted or exaggerated by sensitivities or unhelpful thinking so I could more consciously challenge them.
The deathbed perspective
And finally, it might sound a little sombre but the idea of death can give us a huge shift in perspective. When you’re gripped by an uncomfortable emotion over something that happened simply ask yourself, ‘Will I be thinking about this on my deathbed?’ Very, very, very unlikely!