Intense Feelings
In the last post, we talked about working through an unmoored feeling, one whose origin is not immediately related to an environmental trigger. In this post, we will discuss managing a triggered feeling where the intensity of the emotion you experience seems out of proportion to the provocation.
We’ve all been there and in fact this is a normal part of the human condition, captured in aphorisms such as ‘No use crying over spilt milk.’ and ‘The straw that broke the camel’s back.’
Fast
One thing about this kind of feeling is it is very fast. It’s so fast that you may find yourself neck deep in action before you really realize anything about your thoughts and feelings. The reason this (thought)-feeling-action cascade is so fast is that it is an old and well work path in your psyche. When you start paying attention to your triggers and noticing when a feeling seems intense in proportion to the provocation, you will be closer to discovering thoughts and beliefs which are not creating the results you want in your life.
Initial Steps
But first, we have to get through the feeling without 1. Taking actions which won’t give us the results we want. 2. Buffering the intense feeling with food/alcohol/work/etc. 3. Repressing the feeling with toxic positivity. or 4. Shaming ourselves into repressing the feeling.
Actions
When you find yourself writing an angry email, threatening your partner with a breakup, threatening your toddler/teenager with bring grounded for 10 years, or doing some other very serious action in response to a relatively minimal provocation, you may be able to notice that your action seems out of proportion to the situation. Now, it is important to note that if you have spend years tolerating abusive behaviour from a partner, there may come a day when a relatively minor infraction may tip you over into taking action. However, in most cases, if you find yourself in an action which you can’t quite justify, your best bet is to stop.
STOP….RIGHT…NOW
Take a breath and tell whoever you are speaking to that you need to take a break from the interaction. Then take the break. If your toddler is under your sole care, you may need to put them in a child safe spot while you sit nearby. Stop directly interacting with anyone and focus on breathing and being in your body.
Buffering
Buffering are actions too and arguably, yelling at people, whether in person or through email, is a form of buffering but I separate it because buffering typically mostly harms only you while yelling causes interpersonal relationship harm. You find yourself eating cookies and ice cream, having a few more drinks than you planned, cruising the MLS, the shopping sites, the fabric stores or whatever your vice is. In more extreme circumstances, you may find yourself cutting or self harming in some more serious way in order to buffer intense feelings.
When you notice you are buffering, stop. Spit out the food. Pour out the drink. Cancel the order. The best time to stop buffering is as soon as you notice you are doing it. Nothing will get worse by stopping.
STOP…RIGHT…NOW.
Take a breath and tell yourself you need to take a break from the buffering. Promise yourself you can return to buffering if you need to, but first you need to take a break. Focus on breathing and being in your body.
Denial
Denial of the emotion is trickier to notice, because many of us are very good at not noticing when we are having intense negative emotions, particularly those which are not coded as acceptable for the gender we are socialized as. So people socialized as women may have trouble acknowledging anger in themselves and people socialized as men may have trouble acknowledging fear in themselves. Recognizing emotions in yourself is a skill built by spending time in mindfulness and meditation. If you notice that you have a flash of a negative emotion and then it seems to have totally dissipated, consider that you may be repressing/denying this emotion. Stop and breathe. Take some time to yourself and get curious. Ask yourself ‘What if I were still scared/mad/ashamed?” Check in if there are any clues in your body about this.
Shaming
Shaming is denial’s close cousin. If you hear the word ‘should’ you can be sure that shame is not far behind. Thoughts like ‘First world problem.’ ‘I know I should be grateful…’ ‘I shouldn’t care but…’ The truth is that in this moment, right now, you do care, you aren’t grateful and you are upset about a problem in your life in the first world. Telling yourself you shouldn’t feel the way you do paves the way for denial (so you don’t have to feel the shame) and especially the action of buffering. Bonus, you can shame yourself for buffering and acting out interpersonally after you do so. Shame is a really special layering emotion to increase suffering.
Next Steps
So you have experienced a rush of emotion, successfully headed off the fours unproductive reactions detailed above, or at least stopped part way through! What are the next steps. The RAIN of self compassion provides just such a method. Tara Brach has written extensively about this, but here is a quick primer.
Recognize
Name the feeling. Try to be specific. Is it rage, irritation, frustration, righteous anger, fury, indignation? Is it worry, fear, panic, anxiety, nervousness? Notice where it is in your body. Is it in your chest, throat, shoulders, stomach? Is it moving or static? Is the movement fast or slow. Does it radiate across your shoulders, up into your face, down into your gut? Is it hot or cold? Sharp or dull? Hard or soft? Really spend some time with this feeling so that you can recognize it more quickly next time.
Allow
Allow the feeling with shame, without repression, without buffering and without acting. All feelings are totally acceptable. All humans experience all feelings and there are no feelings which are unacceptable. Speak to yourself as you would to a young child in your care who was struggling with big feelings. Imaging yourself at your wisest and most compassionate, speaking lovingly and gently to the child having an intense emotion. Allow yourself to feel the feeling as long as you need to and as intensely as you need to. You may notice that the physical sensations become more intense in your body during this phase. It is important to take as much time as you need to in this step.
Investigate
If you can see where the connection is to old wounds, you can spend a little time in the phase. You may know, for example. that you are sensitive to rejection because you moved a lot as a child and so you never quite fit in. You may be vulnerable to comments about your appearance because you had a critical grandmother when growing up. It is not critically important to figure out a story for where a feeling comes from. Sometimes, it’s just an old strong feeling without a good story. It’s important to allow the feeling to be present for long enough before you investigate. Stay curious and kind. Really wonder what was going on for you when you found yourself very angry after your boss emailed you, or your partner failed to wish you happy anniversary.
Nurture
The final step is to nurture yourself. This will depend a little on what your investigation has turned up. If nothing, you may just speak kind words to yourself to neutralize shame – something like: Everyone feels angry or jealous sometimes. These are normal human emotions. Just like other human beings, I feel angry and jealous at times. If you have been able to identify a specific lack, you may choose to take an action to address that gap, for example reaching out to a friend if you were feeling unlovable, or dressing up if you were feeling unattractive. And you may just choose to nurture yourself with a warm blanket, a cup of tea and some light entertainment. Doing the work of processing an intense feeling is draining and it deserves to be noticed and attended to.
TL;DR
Intense feelings are linked to old neural pathways. Avoid short-circuiting to the action step and use the RAIN of self-compassion to allow intense feelings to pass through you.