When We Feel Overwhelmed By Emotion - Now What?

We are amazing beings: physically, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, and yes, emotionally. Without emotion, we could not find the kindness, compassion, patience, tolerance, and love to nurture ourselves and others and the collective.

As a therapist and executive coach to highly successful people, however, I cringe whenever I hear the phrase: “just take the emotion out of it.” If it were that easy. We’re emotional beings and we are going to experience and become affected by emotion. Trying to deny or stuff our feelings, and holding them in and down takes an enormous amount of energy. We are working against physics and we are inevitably going to lose. Repressed and depressed emotions eventually show themselves in the form of abrupt and extreme explosions or internal dis-ease, and sometimes both.

It is common in the therapy world and, more recently, the enlightened business world to encourage people to feel and accept their emotions, rather than try to control or overcome them. This is sound, practical advice. But what do we do when our emotions feel like they are overwhelming us and we feel stuck, especially during times of high stress, change, and chaos or in the wake of undesirable and unpleasant scenarios?

There are other, less direct ways of reducing and even neutralizing the effects of persistent strong emotion and the disabling thoughts they tend to produce. And these strategies are often simple, causing us to forget they are right at hand.

Action is a quick and simple interruptor of the emotional roller coaster. Action distracts the obsessing mind from distressing and hopeless thinking and requires the mind to focus on something more productive—a physical task at hand. When we have become hooked by strong emotions and the fears and worries they can generate, taking even a small action re-directs our attention which in turn has us experience new thoughts and emotions and the more positive feelings they tend to produce. Action also restores confidence in our ability to effect change and get things done and reminds us that we are not helpless or powerless no matter what we are experiencing.

In my most difficult moments I tend to start very small, like cleaning or organizing something, or knocking out the grocery list or that online errand I had been putting off. Physical exercise or movement is also very impactful, and even a brief walk, stretching, yoga, meditating or breathing can be restorative. Engaging these activities in a group or classroom setting or with a friend can also help normalize our experience and remind us that we are not in it alone. Once I feel grounded again, I tend to build from there to meeting the bigger challenges, which never feel so big anymore.

Todd R. Schwartz is a somatic therapist and Certified Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner and executive coach with offices in Denver and Boulder, Colorado. My work is not a form of, or a substitute for, medical or mental health diagnosis, care and treatment. My work is, however, a fine complement to these and all other health and wellness approaches. Feel free to phone me at 303.704.8331 for more information and to learn how this work might benefit You, especially if You are feeling ‘stuck.’