How to Deal with Overwhelming Emotions & Live a Happier Life

Our philosophy here at Munday is to take as much care of your mind and internal body as your external body. 

Self-love is as much an inside job as an outside one. No amount of pampering is going to wash away heavy emotions that lie stagnant beneath the surface. 

We tend to embrace happy, peaceful emotions because they make us feel good, but then turn our backs on other, less pleasant sensations. Too many of us tend to avoid and run away from heavy emotions as a coping mechanism, and we certainly aren’t judging. However, this only creates inner turmoil that you shouldn’t have to bear. 

Research has shown that our emotional and psychological processes not only affect our emotional health, but our physical health too. When our emotions are poorly regulated or managed, we also suppress our body’s immunity, making us more vulnerable to illness.

While having an optimistic outlook is great, forcing ourselves to be positive all the time can be draining and stressful. It takes a lot of energy to ignore and bottle up thoughts and feelings that are happening on a deeper level.

Critical analysis of our emotions is important because it leads to reflection, letting us know what’s making us feel certain ways. We can use this as motivation for change and improvement.

In this article, we will show you how to embrace and welcome any emotion, positive or negative, and show you how this can start to turn things in a more positive direction for you. 

Let the emotion in and allow it to wash over you
Next time you feel angry or sad or when any other heavy emotion rises to the surface, try welcoming it in instead of putting up your walls to try and block it out.

You have to move through something first in order to overcome it, otherwise it becomes something that just sits stagnant until you are ready to address it. It won’t go away by blocking it out, it will still be there, like a heavy load on your shoulders, so why not let it come so you can say goodbye to it a little faster? 

Chances are you may not feel too comfortable welcoming in negative emotions. These emotions may feel scary and unpleasant but let them know they can come. Feel them all.

Observe without judgment
Don’t judge the emotions that come up. If you are angry, feel angry. If you are sad, allow yourself to feel sad. If you need a good cry, let yourself do that.

Observe your emotions as if they are clouds gently floating on by, with no judgment, just pure curiosity. Introspection give us space to investigate our feelings and honour every part of ourselves.

You aren’t here to judge yourself. You are here to accept and observe so you can move through difficult emotions a little easier. 

Ask questions
We often feel certain ways for reasons that aren’t always obvious. By allowing our emotions to wash over us, it opens up a narrative where we can start sifting through how we feel and asking questions that may allow things to become clearer. 

Perhaps that small argument stemmed from something a lot bigger that was never addressed, yet those emotions are rising up now. Or maybe you are realizing that you want to take a whole new direction in your life, even though you thought you were happy.

Your body will always communicate with you, through gut instinct and emotions that are simply there to try and help you. By allowing your emotions to come in, by observing, and just paying attention, some answers may start to become clear to you.

A great way to keep track of your emotions and reflect is to keep a journal on hand and write down whatever naturally comes to mind. Looking back on entries, you may start to see patterns in how you react to certain people or circumstances. You can then use this to decide if you need to make changes in your life.

In the end, life is all about balance! When we stop avoiding or blocking out our feelings and emotions, we start to take back our power. You are stronger and more powerful than you know, even when you feel those unpleasant emotions!

We hope this article has inspired you to approach negative emotions from a new angle, one that will benefit you and help to release some of the burden, rather than add to it. 

Accepting all types of emotions, whether positive or negative, will allow us to live life more fully and with a greater appreciation for the positives in life.