How to Actually Feel Your Feelings (Without Losing Control)

I was flipping through old journals last week.

It was stark – the difference between how I experienced emotions in the past and how I experience them now.

It seemed like every time something happened, I landed in an emotional spiral. Overwhelmed by feelings, barely able to keep my head above water – and sometimes not able to at all.

Emotions felt so huge.

I was so tired of always feeling them. I didn’t know how to not let them grab hold and drag me this way and that, always making decisions for me before I had a chance to think. It felt like my whole life was spent just reacting to emotions.

I barely had time to live.

I wish I could hug that version of me and let her know there is a better way. That it doesn’t have to feel like that. Save her from spending so many years at the mercy of feelings she couldn’t cope with.

The Emotional Cyclone

It was a cyclone that felt out of control.

Emotion upon emotion – so many I couldn’t even tell you what I was feeling, just that it was too much and I was certain I couldn’t handle it much longer. That’s what emotional overwhelm feels like – just a constant weight of “this is too much.” A fear that it would never stop. That I would feel that way forever.

And I knew I couldn’t handle that.

And then there was the shame. Because from my vantage point, it seemed like everyone else had it all figured out. That they didn’t feel these same massive emotions that I did. That other people weren’t constantly held hostage by their feelings.

And that made me feel like there was something inherently wrong with me. That I’d never be as strong as other people. That no one could ever find out how overwhelmed I felt. Because if they did, what would they think?

Here’s what emotional overwhelm felt like for me:

• Physical pain, like a weight on my chest so heavy I could barely breathe, tension in my neck and temples, and heart pounding
• A strong pull to withdraw and isolate
• Crying. So much crying. And trying not to show it
• A deep desire to escape – which I eventually started doing with alcohol
• Something akin to panic, intense fear that this would be the time the emotions lasted forever
• Persistent ruminating (the same thoughts spinning round and round for hours, sometimes days)
• A sort of paralysis, where I could barely drag myself from bed and couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do

At that point in my life, I did everything I could to avoid feeling hard emotions, because hard emotions felt like danger. And all I wanted was to feel safe.

It took learning a lot of new skills to realize that emotions aren’t dangerous when you know how to navigate them. That’s just something most people have never learned to do. I certainly hadn’t.

New Skills Take Practice

At some point, most of us realize we’re going to need to learn to navigate our emotions differently if we want to achieve goals, reach our potential… or even just to feel mostly good.

For me, that realization came when I stopped using alcohol to cope with the overwhelm.

So I started learning… and it was messy. Learning how to navigate emotions is not a graceful, controlled process. It’s hard, and it takes trying a lot of things before you find what works.

This is where the journaling I’d done all my life helped so much. As I started digging into the feelings (instead of trying to run away from them) my journal let me reflect on what was happening in each situation.

Over time, that built up into a skillset that gave me a sense of safety and control.

I spent time reading and researching, learning everything I could about emotions and emotional responses, and then I experimented with what worked (and what definitely didn’t.) And as I learned, I practiced. Because no matter how much you read, it takes practice to get better at doing something.

You could read fifteen books about playing the flute, but you’re not going to learn to play the flute until you start at the beginning and learn how to play one note at a time. The same goes with learning emotional skills. You can read fifteen books on emotional intelligence, but you’re not going to get better until you start trying, failing, trying again, and practicing what works.

Here’s What Processing Emotions Actually Looks Like

After years of trial and error, and a whole lot of practice (because life is constantly giving us opportunities to practice, isn’t it?) this is what my process for navigating emotions looks like in real time.

Sit With the Emotion Instead of Trying to Make It Go Away

I sit with what I’m feeling. I just let it be what it is. In the thick of it, there is nothing that needs to be done to try to make it go away. It’s all about allowing the emotion to exist, and knowing that it will pass. For me, this looks like going somewhere that I can be alone and letting myself cry if needed. As I feel the emotion wash over me, I do the following:

• Name the emotion as specifically as I can.

• Remind myself that it makes sense why I feel this way, and that it’s okay to feel the way I feel.

• Acknowledge that I don’t like it, that it’s hard, and that I can do hard things.

That’s it. That’s what sitting with emotions looks like. And everyone does this a little differently, but most people fall somewhere close to this. And it’s the hardest part – because it’s the place we all want to escape from. But this part always, always ends. It comes in and goes out like a wave. And you never stay under the wave forever. Longer than you want to, yes. But not forever.

Get the Feelings Out of Your Head and Into the Open

I reach out to someone. Just to get the words out. To tell the story of what happened and how I feel about it. Having a person who can respond with empathy and compassion is gold here. It can be a close friend or family member, a coach, a therapist, or anyone else that feels safe. And if you don’t have a person who feels safe, at the very least take some time to write about it in your journal.

Take a Break From the Emotion When You Need To

Sometimes, if it’s holding on for a long time, I distract myself for a while. This doesn’t mean run from the emotion and avoid it. It means give yourself a break if needed. For me, picking up a book with a great, easy-to-read story is perfect. I’ll read a few chapters and give my nervous system a rest.

Let Sleep Do Some of the Work

If possible, and if needed, I take a nap or even go to bed for the night. Something magical happens when you sleep. Things that seemed impossible feel a little bit smaller when you wake up. It feels like a fresh start.

Revisit the Situation With a Calmer Mind

Once things are a bit more settled and I can think clearly, after the big emotions have passed and the wave is going back out to sea, I take out my journal and start holding different lenses up to the situation in order to see it more clearly. Some of the ways I look at it:

Play the Grand Scheme Game. Step back and look at it as one small thing in the grand scheme of life. How much will this thing matter in 10 years? 20 years?

Place a historical lens on it. Take out the loneliness, the terminal uniqueness. Think of all the other people who have been through something similar. It helps to remember I’m not the only one feeling the way I feel, that other people have felt it and indeed survived it. And maybe even become better for having been through it.

Look at it through curiosity. What are all the possibilities? How could this situation actually turn out? What have I not even considered? We can only imagine what we’ve experienced or are familiar with. There are infinite possibilities that we can’t even imagine because we simply don’t know they exist. 

Look at it through growth and learning. What can I gain here? How can I grow? How can I use this whole experience to become better? This isn’t to ignore the pain, but to recognize that there is purpose in it.

Give it a chance to speak. Emotions are messengers. They always have something to tell us. Whether it’s anger that comes to tell us we need different boundaries, or shame that tells us we need to reflect on an old false belief, or grief that tells us something was very important to us. All emotions have messages, and when we take the time to sit with them and then reflect on them, we give ourselves a chance to hear the message. And then, often, we can figure out what action to take. Not as an out of control reaction, but as an intentional response.

And after all that, I name all the emotions I’m feeling and validate them again. After all this perspective, they still exist, and they are still valid. But they feel far less overwhelming.

What Emotional Maturity Looks Like Now

Even with all the work I’ve done and all the practice I’ve put into it, handling hard emotions still isn’t this perfect, systematized experience.

That’s just not how it works.

Sometimes I still crash. Hard. Sometimes I still say or do things I wish I hadn’t. But these aren’t signs of failure. They’re just signs that I’m still human.

The goal isn’t to get it perfect.

The goal is to feel less terrified of hard emotions. To build up trust in yourself that even if it’s hard, even if it’s messy, you can handle the way you feel without fear of drowning.

The goal is to get to the other side, believing all the while that you are safe and that you will be okay. Believing that you don’t need to try to escape.

There will come a time – like what happened with me when I looked back at my journal – where you think, “Oh my goodness. I’ve come so far!” You’ll realize that the things that would have previously held you hostage are now not really that big of a deal. And the big things – they are hard, but they don’t paralyze you anymore.

Life will always continue to lifey. That doesn’t stop. But your capacity to handle the challenges will increase.

The sense of dread diminishes.

Here’s What I Want You To Remember:

It’s not going to be perfect. I don’t know a single person that doesn’t occasionally get thrown for a loop when life gets hard and emotions get heavy. That’s okay.

This is about practicing. It’s about staying aware of what you’re experiencing and learning to walk yourself through it with a sense of safety. You’ll do it over and over again, and it will start to feel easier.

The skills will become stronger.

Because all of this can absolutely be learned.

It’s okay if you didn’t learn it when you were young. Most of us didn’t. You can just start where you are.

---

Keep reading:

Quitting Drinking Is A Major Life Transition

4 Ways to Reflect (When You Have No Idea How To Do Self Reflection)