I didn’t know if I was going to write this post or not, but as I’m going through my own emotional hell right now, I also know that I’m not the only one in the world. There are millions of people going through their own emotional challenges every day, and if you’re going through some challenging emotional times right now, you might want to know how you could best deal with it, so you can go through it and see the light on the other side of the tunnel.
There are millions of people going through their own emotional challenges every day, and if you’re going through some challenging emotional times right now, you might want to know how you could best deal with it, so you can go through it and see the light on the other side of the tunnel.
Now I know that everyone is different, and the way I may react to an event might not be the same way you may be reacting to it, but this said, we all are going through some overwhelming type emotions at times. The kind of strong emotions where we start praying for help because we feel that we can’t handle it on our own.
So as I’m going through my own overwhelming emotions right now, I wanted to share with you some of the things that I’ve learned and experienced, so maybe it could be useful to you.
But first…
What can Cause us Emotional Turmoil?
As I said above, while each individual is different and may be reacting to things differently, overwhelming emotions for most people can be induced by the following type events:
- Loss of a loved one (family member, close relative, friend)
- Loss of a loved pet
- Not being loved back by someone you love
- Betrayed by a close friend, relative or family member
- Sudden news of a serious illness (your own or someone you love)
- Someone you love moving far away
And maybe a few more reasons out there.
Unfortunately, if you are an average normal adult, you might have experienced at least one of these, and most probably more than one. So to start with, know that you’re not alone. Not by any mean.
No matter how positive and strong of a person you are, any of the above situations can derail your wagons for a while, because of the overwhelming emotions that can overtake us at times.
If you are one of my good friends, you know that right now I’m going through my share of overwhelming emotions, if not, you probably don’t know that, but that’s not the point.
The point is that since this blog is meant to help people with deep personal development matter, I thought I’d used my own present emotional turmoil to try to help you deal with yours or those of your friends if you know someone in need of this information.
Why it’s Not Easy to Just Switch off a Strong Emotion?
In his book Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins says that we can get rid of any such overwhelming emotion in an instant. Well, while it’s nice to know, it’s certainly easier said than done, isn’t it? Even though I don’t doubt that it’s possible, I do know that it’s not easy.
The reason why it’s not easy to just switch off the emotional button as Tony Robbins states, it’s because we ARE emotions.
When we’re happy, when we’re sad, when we’re angry, when we’re calm, when we’re fearful, when we’re peaceful, when we’re anxious, when we’re giddy, etc, it’s all emotions.
Our emotions inhabit us because we ARE emotions. Emotions are what make us alive. That’s why when we teach people about visualization to attract what they want; we say visualize it as you put emotions in it, so you can attract what you’re visualizing much better and faster.
But yet again, we’re told, you can just cut out an overwhelming emotion just like that?
While I may understand the practical actions that I would have to take with my head to make that possible, my heart doesn’t want anything to do with it.
This is because emotions don’t come from the head, they come from the heart. And emotions will always win over logical thinking, no matter how logical, better, more productive, smarter and whatever other adjectives you may one to add to the list.
Emotion is such a strong asset of ours that a good copywriter who knows how to use the right emotional keywords on a sales copy can expect to be paid thousands of dollars for it because sellers know that emotions sell better than anything else under the sun.
So, no matter what some may be saying, emotions, and especially strong overwhelming extremely sad emotions are not easy to deal with, no matter what, but even though that may be true, there are some steps you can take in order to make it more bearable.
Here are some steps you can take in order to help you during a time of overwhelming and sad emotions.
Don’t Keep it to Yourself
While you might have noticed that I’m not giving any details on this blog, because I don’t want the public at large know personal stuff about me, I’ve communicated it to people that I hold in high esteem. The ones who would not try to hurt my feelings or send me bad vibes. The ones who I know to be my friends.
When you share your grief with people you trust, it helps you alleviate the pain. However, it’s very important that you share your pain only to people you trust and who wouldn’t hurt you more. When I lost one of my kitties almost 3 years ago, I made the mistake of crying at work for a few days, and the next thing I knew is that some people had criticized me for crying, in my back, which actually added to my pain.
So, if you have not managed to get away from people like these in your life yet, like I didn’t, make sure you do not share your pain with them. Share your pain only with true friends that will support you, not stab you in the back.
Don’t’ By Pass the Grieving Process
Our Universe is a world of contrast. If there is joy, there is sadness, if there is light, there is darkness, if there is up, there is down, if there is day, there is night, and so on. So, it’s only natural to feel sad when you lose someone you love.
Don’t deny that pain and sadness. Don’t feel bad for feeling that way, and don’t keep yourself from crying if you need to cry. Grieving is a natural process when one loses a loved one, and it shouldn’t be denied.
Trying to deny emotions doesn’t help to eliminate them, they actually stay in your body, and can become the cause for health issues and even diseases, so take your time to grieve as much as you need to. The best and probably only true remedy for grieving is time. Time is not good for everything, but it’s definitely good at healing things.
Meditate
When going through strong emotional turmoil it’s a great time to meditate. There are some specific meditations that you can find on youtube for almost any specific situation you might find yourself.
Meditation will help you go beyond your simple body and become more aware that there is more to it, and more than just what meets the eyes. This can greatly help you with overwhelming feelings of sadness and emotional pain.
Meditation gives us a different perspective of things while it calms and soothes are emotions.
Pray
When you are going through emotional pain, praying is something you should not disregard. So if you have faith in God, in a higher forth than your own, you should definitely pray for help and relief when you’re going through emotional pain.
Take a Trip
If you can afford it, take a trip, go to the beach, go someplace that could help you take your mind off your routine and off of things in general.
If you live not too far from the ocean, this is a good place to go to. Watching the ocean has a calming effect and helps us meditate.
I hope these tips can help you with overwhelming emotions that we all have to go through at some point in our lives. Please, leave you input and comments below.
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Hi Sylviane,
There are so many reasons like you mentioned where emotions play a big part of our lives. Loss of a loved one is so high on the list. When we loose a loved one, we need to take time out to grieve. I know there are seven stages of the grieving process and it does take time. We need to give ourselves the time to do so.
It also helps to reach out and talk to someone, a friend, family member, or a professional. Talking is a great way to relieve those kinds of emotions.
In life, we are all going to experience this. There is no running away from it. If we keep things locked up inside, it will have a physical effect. I know…I used to do that a long time ago and developed bleeding ulcers.
So it is important to release these emotions and then get on the road to healing.
For me, when things like this happen or I have the emotion of hopelessness, I pray. Not traditionally, but have a good talk with God. I just say “Please lift me up and be by my side for this too shall pass.”
Great advice!
-Donna
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Hi Donna,
So true, grieving is a process, and on my side I heard that such process takes about a year, so that’s no instant recovery, so to speak, but that’s to expect.
Actually, the death of a loved one, went it is a sudden thing can provoke breast cancer and I’ve known of a couple of women who did have develop breast cancer after the sudden death of someone they loved, thus the need to take the pain out of the body and talk, even to a professional if necessary as you’re saying.
What would we do without prayer. Prayers do help so much indeed.
Thank you for coming, Donna.
HI Sylviane,
I agree with you that having a “emotion button” to switch it ON or OFF, seems so dramatic. I don’t know how it can be done although I haven’t read that book yet.
The tips you shared about Meditation, Prayer, going through the process are excellent. These things can surely and practically guide us through emotional turmoil which happens to all of us from time to time.
Thank you for sharing these and may God give you the strength to come out victorious of your current emotional challenge.
Regards,
Kumar
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Hi Kumar,
Tony Robbins’ book doesn’t really give a step by step as to HOW to switch that emotional button off, or I missed it 🙂 Anyways, I’m not sure I would want to do that either. I think that in this regards things need to take their course naturally.
Thank you Kumar, and I appreciate you coming.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Deal With Overwhelming Emotions
Hi Sylviane
I am glad your wrote this post my friend knowing what you are going through. Tony Robbins wrote that book many years ago and I wonder if he still would say what he said. Anyway yes we need to go through the grieving process. I know when I lost my Dad last year there were layers of pain. Losing my beloved dog was also so painful. and i sure did not get rid of that pain in an instant.
I know that some people get stuck in overwhelming pain for too long and do not move on. Hey and what is the right amount of time to be there? Of course it is different for all of us.
Good friends are important and crying is good too.
I love Donna’s suggestion of talking to God. I have one a friend told me when Dad died – “I pray to be stronger than my circumstances”. That helped me.
Blessings Sylviane. I am thinking one day in the future you will use all that has happened to you now as stories to help other people just like Wayne Dyer and many others have.
Take care
Sue
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Hi Sue,
In her comment Donna says that there are 7 levels of griefs so that’s probably why you went through different “layers” of pain. As for me I’ve heard that grieving takes about a year, which goes hand in hand with what Donna and you are saying. When I lost my kitty, Tony, the first year was definitely the most difficult where I couldn’t think of him without crying.
You bet, I’m going to use my story for my coaching and public speaking career. I know it. Because my family situation is not one of the most common good one oout there, right? But one that’s got to help people though.
Thanks for coming by, Sue.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Deal With Overwhelming Emotions
You are spot on with this Sylviane
Our emotional health is so incredibly important, yet interestingly it is one of the first things to be neglected. It’s not like a broken leg that you can see, our emotions are all inside us. But unless you can manage these well, it can have a huge outcome on your every day life without even realizing it.
Spending some time in quiet reflection and actually acknowledging your feelings is a good place to start. If you fail to even acknowledge what is going on, it is going to be pretty hard to move on, and very detrimental for you in the long run.
Great share!
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Hi Catherine,
That’s right, it’s not healthy to just ignore such strong feelings. We need to acknowledge them and deal with them the best way we can.
Thank you for coming and for your input.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Deal With Overwhelming Emotions
Hey Sylviane,
I’m sure that Tony is right saying that you can get rid of any overwhelming emotion in an instant. I would think though that perhaps a death of a loved one would be a much harder one though to control. Our minds are wondrous things but our hearts are a whole different story.
As you know I’m immediately thinking of the death of Scott last year when I was so devastated that the emotions just overtook me at times. It’s not planned, they never are but when you lose a loved one it’s just so darn hard. Even when our minds know they’re in a better place like you said it’s our hearts that are grieving the loss. The finality of it all is what hurts and never having them here with us again. We are the ones that are lost now without them.
We do need to reach out to our friends and family at times like this. It’s just like blogging, we can’t do this alone. I think that retrieving into ourselves does more harm then good although at times we know they would probably love for us to speed up this process.
It’s really sad that your co-workers were so insensitive to treat you that way after you lost Tony. It’s obvious to me that they don’t have pets nor feel the emotions when they pass since to us they are our children. I’m sorry you even have to be around people like that Sylviane, that’s just unsettling.
I wish none of us had to deal with these types of emotions but they’re part of life. Life, death, love, loss, they just happen and we have to learn how to deal with them as they are presented to us. Your suggestions here are wonderful and I’m glad you were able to put your feelings into words for us today.
Your friends are here for you Sylviane and I hope others have as many wonderful people in their lives as you do yours!
~Adrienne
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Hi Adrienne,
Yes, no matter what those things aren’t easy, and we can only learn how do deal with them the best we can.
Yes, I am still around some people are truly do not like at all, but just for a little while longer. I will eliminate that from my life very soon. I can really feel it now.
Thank you for coming, Adrienne.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Deal With Overwhelming Emotions
Hey Sylviane,
The one problem that I have is reaching out to someone to talk to. I guess you can say that I still have the mindset of “men don’t talk about their feelings”, but I’ve read many times that this isn’t healthy at all.
I usually go for a walk or work out vigorously at the gym. Is it just as good? At times it is for me because my mind turns to something else I can look forward to. Believe or not, it sometimes is blogging. Although I talk about marketing online, google, etc.., It can be a pain reliever.
I hope that you get through these tough emotional times soon! I know it can be difficult but you laid out some great suggestions! Thanks for sharing!
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Hi Sherman,
You said it. I feel that you might have grown up around adults telling you, boys don’t cry, you’re too big to cry, boys are strong… and all that BS 🙂 Unfortunately for anyone being older than 30 years old, chances are they’ve heard those things from their parents. At least many of them.
Back then there wasn’t the type of easy to reach information that we have now, and also people in general where still not quite at the level of awareness that we are now. Most of them anyway.
I think that the gym and walking is excellent too, because they are great stress relievers, and blogging, I know what you mean 🙂
Maybe you could challenge yourself next time you need to talk and feel that you shouldn’t. Try it and see how it goes for you.
Thank you for your honest share here 🙂
Hi Sylviane,
First thing that I want to say, is that I hope that you are able to deal with whatever hardships you are facing in your life right now. I know that we do not know each other, but overwhelming emotions are one thing that I can relate to. I have basically dealt with every single one of those examples that you have on your list at one time or another in my life. Not to mention that I have suffered from debilitating OCD (which has kept me inside my house for the better part of 7 years).
I think that you are right, no matter how irrational an emotion is, it will always defeat the brain. There have been times that I have been sitting in tears because of the irrational fear of going to the grocery store… I knew it was irrational but there was NO convincing my brain of that.
I love the suggestions that you put forth in your post on how to help deal with overwhelming emotions. I believe that a combination of all those should help majority of people with these emotional issues. In fact, there are a few that I would like to try myself!
Thank you for sharing this insight and reassuring people that it is totally normal to be overwhelmed by emotion, but you do not have to be a slave to it!
All the best,
Jeff Sollee
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Hi Jeff, and welcome to my blog.
I’m so sorry that you’ve gone through all such list, but except for the illness one, I’ve also gone through each one of them at one point in my life as well.
Those are things that can make life difficult at times, even though I truly believe in learning how to align ourselves with the universe for true happiness. There’s always going to be some rough patches, and we need to learn to deal with them as best as we can.
I’m so glad that the universe led you to this post and I hope this info can help you somehow.
Thank you for your input.
Hi Sylviane,
I am so sorry for your loss….and I know no words seem to comfort at this time because certain losses can never be replaced. But I guess we learn to live with the good memories of our loved ones – I can say that after having lost my Mom a few years back.
However, emotions play a major part as you mentioned and you are right…you should let them come as and when because things take time, and you need to give yourself time. Yes, meditation and prayers are things that helped me, and so did being with my loved ones, talk therapy, that also helps, though only with the ones who would care and matter, like good friends or family.
I wish people were more sensitive, especially at such times, but most of them aren’t – such is life, it must carry on. Prayers with you dear friend…time heals and everything will be well.
Thanks for sharing and reminding us to care too. 🙂
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Hi Harleena,
Yes, indeed, I know yo know about this. I remember very well the post you wrote about your mom a couple of years back and she was so young when she died on top of that.
Yes, prayer, meditation, support and time heal, fortunately, even though we always miss our dear ones.
Thank you for coming.
Hi Sylviane,
First I want to express my gratitude to you for your courage and bravery and opening yourself up so publicly. It takes a special and strong person to do such a heroic thing!
As an Army Chaplain, I learned that grieving is its own unique process for everyone; and each circumstance is unique and different unto itself.
Your suggestions are excellent and I know that you are using each one to the best of your abilities. I would add that an important element during this moment in your life is to not forget those people who are your friends and family that are nearby. Don’t isolate yourself from them. Yet, be clear about what you need and want from them so that they don’t become a pest. I don’t mean that negatively but it does happen.
If you have a church or community that you are close with I would also encourage your regular interaction there.
Sylviane, I can tell you are a strong woman. This too shall come to pass. Your post is already encouraging and helping someone else who is going through a challenging time in their life. What a gift you have given them!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!!!!
~ Don Purdum
Don Purdum invites you to read..Rewind Saturday – Top Bloggers The Week of 8/2/14 – 8/8/14
Hi Don,
Thank you so much for your kind words and for such a wonderful input here.
Yes, I agree, grieving is very personal and each person needs to grieve on their own terms and let people know if they become too much, so to speak.
Wow, I didn’t know that you were an army chaplain. Tough thing to do, so you must be very strong as well 🙂
Thanks for coming.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Deal With Overwhelming Emotions
You’re welcome!
Yep, from 1997 – 2002. It was an interesting time, especially after 911. I was trained to specifically work with combat soldiers and their families. I learned a lot about psychology and human nature. I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world!
Don Purdum invites you to read..Rewind Saturday – Top Bloggers The Week of 8/2/14 – 8/8/14
Wow, I’m sure you did, Don. Nothing could take that knowledge away from you now. I’m sure it’s an asset in your everyday life.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How Can Toastmasters Help You In Your Personal Life And Business
Hello Sylviane,
I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while. I hope you are doing well. I am so sorry to know that you’re going through some trying times. You are right, it’s easy to say we can get over such pain but it’s just so hard to do because the human part of us takes over.
You gave some great tips for dealing with pain. I did the total opposite and I can tell you it doesn’t work at all. When my grandmother passed away I held it in and never shared my feelings. That was 18 years ago and it is still as fresh today as it was then. I didn’t attend the funeral and that has been my biggest regret but at that time it was how I was dealing with my emotions.
I hope things are getting better for you. I am keeping you in my prayers and asking God to give you strength.
Take care Sylviane,
~cori
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Hi Corina,
Yes, I haven’t seen you around much lately and I’ve missed you 🙂
I understand how you can feel some regrets about the way you handled your grandmother’s death, but that’s because we are not even taught how to deal with those things in life. That’s why I love this internet, at least now we can learn how to deal with such emotions just by reading a blog post 🙂
I have my ups and down still and my furry daughter is not well, so I take it one day at the time for now.
Thank you so much for coming.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How Can Toastmasters Help You In Your Personal Life And Business
Hello,
Well written article here 🙂
Emotions are a most important part of our life. We can control our emotions with the help of meditation, prayer etc.
Thanks for this great sharing..
~Dr. Diana Hardy
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