Emotional crises are common in life, but many people are often at a loss.
When we encounter rejection, failure, sudden loss, and fall into loneliness, guilt, and unstoppable thinking rumination... negative emotions will be unstoppable. may not be severe enough to require professional intervention, but the pain at the moment is unbearable.
When emotions get stronger and cannot be managed in a healthy and effective way, trouble comes - we may do impulsive, bad things (such as eating and venting, calling exes, and hurting people close to us).
or you can only let yourself be overwhelmed by emotions and cannot work and live normally.
Most people have a medicine box at home, filled with bandages, bandages, and painkillers to treat physical pain - but we do not prepare a medicine box for psychological harm, so when we encounter psychological harm, we have to endure it.
Today, has prepared some small methods of emotional first aid for (simple and easy to operate) for , which can help you take better care of yourself when you fall into an emotional vortex and avoid destructive consequences.
Let’s take a look~
(Tip: Emotional first aid cannot replace the help of mental health professionals. If you experience serious psychological harm and mental disorders, you still need to receive professional treatment.)
01 Stop what you are at hand, take ten deep breaths
We are breathing every moment, But the focus of emotional first aid is to "consciously" breathe - thereby activate our parasympathetic nervous system and help us feel calmer.
You can stop what you are doing and focus on your breathing, allowing the inhalation and exhalation to last longer than usual. is accompanied by counting, from one to ten. Then count from the beginning and repeat this several times.
In this process, gradually feel the changes in emotions.
02 Move your body
Sometimes under the strong emotional impact, our body will experience a series of reactions, such as stiffness, chest tightness , etc.
At this time, you can try to move your body, , such as standing up and stretching your arms, walking for two steps, turning around, or touching your body.
psychologist Noam Shpancer believes that the connection between emotions and actions is mutual. Usually our actions are driven by emotions. Sometimes emotions are driven by actions. Usually, the fastest way to change your feelings is to change your actions.
If you feel better, you can also get up and do housework, even if it’s just a trivial thing like wiping the table and stacking clothes. Or go downstairs and take a walk to change to a more open environment.
Once the body moves, it will become more powerful. In this process, emotions will also be relaxed.
03
as specifically as possible "write down" or "speak out" your emotional feelings at the moment
When there is an emotional crisis, we usually cannot explain clearly what we feel, but just feel "uneasy, bad, uncomfortable" and don't know what is going on. We feel out of control and helpless—much like falling into a vortex.
At this time, it may be useful to stop and check them and try to turn emotions into words. That is, names emotions, try to "write down" or "speak" out" your emotions at this moment to your good friend.
You can ask yourself:
◍ What is your inner feeling in ? Try to describe it, such as sadness, anger, and feeling that you are terrible?
◍ What is the trigger for this feeling of ?
◍ What desire have you noticed? Do you yell, throw things, or do you want to escape and don’t want to communicate with others?
"When we tag an emotion, it may be easier to control." Hand, a clinical assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that “even if it doesn’t change emotions, it makes it possible for us to choose our own reactions.”
and just identifying emotions can give us a sense of certainty and control—it will make us feel better.
study also found that people who can distinguish their emotions can better regulate their emotions and reduce negative emotions more effectively (Daphne Y Liu, 2020).
How to improve your emotional discrimination ability and name your own emotions? You can read our previous article 👉154 "hard to describe" emotions: Re-know yourself, start by nameing the emotions
04 Stop confrontation with emotions can reduce the intensity of emotions
There is an emotional crisis, which is a large part of it related to people's resistance to emotions - denies it, or tries to do something to eliminate it, but often the result is that the emotions become more and more intense.
Opposition is futile, just as unwise as swimming in a torrent, and it will make you more and more tired. Many times, mental pain usually comes not from the emotional experience itself, but from the error of emotional regulation (Noam Shpancer, 2022).
So it is important to stop and resist, accept it. Emotions are the inner weather, just like accepting the fact that I am depressed and depressed at this moment.
acceptance will bring many benefits. First of all, this reflects your honesty and courage to face pain and will enhance your sense of strength.
Secondly, accepting negative emotions will reduce its destructiveness. No matter how strong the emotions are, they will always disappear, as long as you no longer exacerbate it.
It's like falling into a torrent. Your best move is not to resist, but to let the water flow take you out of the sea. Soon, the current will weaken and dissipate, and you will be able to swim around it and return to shore safely.
Image source:
pexels
05 Feeling pain, most of the time you are "kicking" yourself
Cognitive therapy believes that evaluating cognition plays an important role in the experience of emotional activities. When feels painful, most of the time it is us who are negatively evaluating ourselves.
emotions may be caused by various reasons, such as being rejected by others, failing a project, or wanting to go out to play but not finding a partner..., but the final destination is that we feel bad: "I'm not working hard enough, too stupid, and no one likes it." This evaluation of is like we are "kicking" ourselves hard - of course it will hurt.
What you have to do is to try to stop this negative review. You can try the following methods:
1. Accept emotions, but don't believe it
In fact, our emotions often provide distorted, one-sided and biased information. If someone keeps saying to you, "You are a purple pig, you are a purple pig." You may find it ridiculous, otherwise you just feel it's annoying, but of course you won't take this sentence seriously.
This is the essence of what you think "I am a garbage, no one will like me". Most of them are outrageous and unreal.
2. Replace evaluation with fact description
Without evaluation means removing prejudice and using fact description instead of evaluation.
Feel the difference between these two ways of expression: "I haven't accomplished what I want to do today, I feel a little guilty and depressed" and "I'm so lazy, so useless, and destined to achieve nothing."
3. Change the perspective, imagine what the person you love will say to you
You can sit there and imagine what the person you love will say to you in difficult times? Will he blame you? Or do you think you have tried your best? Maybe he will take you out for some good food or have a good sleep.
Through continuous practice, we will experience the feeling of "self-care" and gradually reduce the voice of negative criticism.
Image source: pexels
As the book "Handle 7 Reconstruction of Life " says: "There are many ways to love yourself, but you must start with never criticizing yourself for anything." at least, not so harsh criticism.
06 Prepare your own "self-soothing package" in your daily life
Sometimes bad emotions come in full force, and you may not have time to do anything.At this time, it is very useful to take out the "self-soothing bag" you usually prepare.
The "self-soothing package" refers to things that have a soothing effect on you, which can make you feel calm, warm, and help improve your self-esteem, just like the role of a safe base.
For example, it can be a book, a blogger's video, an American drama that I have watched countless times, a small blanket or doll, or a call to a specific friend.
is my self-satisfied package, which is recorded in the mobile phone memo. When you need first aid, you will take it out and use it 👇
to share the "Happy Treasure Library Book". Simply put, it is to prepare a notebook to record your "highlight moments": moments of being happy, moments of being loved, moments of being affirmed... Just like a happy savings bank, these precious moments will give you warmth and energy when you fall into an emotional vortex.
You can also consider adopting a pet. "pet therapy" is also a good way to effectively alleviate emotional crisis by many studies.
Image source:
After waiting for the emotions to calm down, you can further explore what happened and why you are like this?
Emotion is just a signal. Deeper reasons may be damage from the external environment, trauma that has not been solved for a long time, or your inner suppressed needs, etc.
In addition, these emotional first aid therapies may not necessarily apply to everyone. You may find that some are more effective in you, while others are not very suitable. It is recommended to find more effective methods that suit you based on your understanding of yourself.
Finally, I hope everyone can create their own emotional first aid kit to better care and take care of themselves when needed❤️～
😫 😢 😭 😠
If you also have your own effective emotional first aid method
Welcome to share with more friends in the message area ～
References
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[US] Guy Wenqi, translated by Sun Lu, "Emotional First Aid", August 2015, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press
[US] Louise Hai, translated by Xie Mingxian, "Reconstruction of Life", December 2017, Nanhai Publishing Company
Daphne Y Liu, Kirsten E Gilbert, Renee J Thompson, Differentiation Moderates the Effects of Rumination on Depression, DOI: 10.1037/emo0000627
Elizabeth T Kneeland, John F Dovidio, Jutta Joormann, Margaret S Clark,Emotion malleability beliefs, emotion regulation, and psychology: Integrating affective and clinical science, DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2016.03.008
Noam Shpancer Ph.D, Laws of Emotional Mastery, 2021
Author: Hanbing
Editor: kumah
Cover image Source: Eddie Guy
