Three Effective Ways To Manage Your Emotions Often individuals who struggle with depression, anxiety or have difficulty to regulate emotions hear from others that they need to be less sensitive or have control over emotions. But is it that easy to stop being emotional? Well, the fact is that learning to manage emotions is a complex set of skills which must be learned very much like learning to ride a bike. Yes, one has to master the emotions! There is a difference between mastering a bike and that of emotions. In the previous, you get an expert to guide you and in the latter case many times you are left to self. Facing intense circumstances like loss of an important relationship, having a child, or developing anxiety and depression can challenge the emotion management skills that are innate to us and make us more vulnerable and we fail to manage emotions. Researcher and psychologist, Marsha Linehan, designed a series of steps with the help of which we can lessen our vulnerability to intense emotions. Dr. Linehan mentions them as the ‘ABCs’ of emotion regulation. Gather Positive Emotions Make doors for positive emotions. One must purposely engage in activities which yield positive emotions and if you are aware of these emotions, it would help to balance the difficult and painful emotions you are experiencing. Stop avoiding! When situations go bitter, we tend to avoid engaging in activities which bring positive emotions. Accumulating Positive Emotions needs you to avoid avoiding and do things which make you feel good. Embrace positive emotions. While experiencing positive emotions you need to embrace the positive consequences and enjoy them wholeheartedly. Always remember, while experiencing positive emotions, you have to avoid worrying. Master your situation. Create a feeling of being accomplished.
When we face negative emotions or tough circumstances, our self-confidence is quickly lost unless we desperately work to build activities into each day which would create a sense of accomplishment. Make your goals achievable. Activities of any size are small or big size, rather, attainable activities which you should involve. For instance, if you are a new mom, instead of attempting to clean the entire home, you might choose only to clean the toilet by putting cleaner in it after and once you do it, you will feel accomplished. It is essential to do things difficult but not impossible. • • •
Credit yourself. Always appreciate yourself. Adapt ahead of time
Analyze ahead the challenging situations. Owing to some changes around, if you can analyze that you are going to face some bad situations, work on your emotions to handle that phase. Life will become easy. Make a plan to adapt. After you have analyzed the potential situation, you need to create a plan. Think about how to cope with the situation and also the emotions that would be the consequence. If you can’t decide or get stuck while making your plan, you need to take an outside help maybe you discuss with your best friend. Imagine success for yourself. Once you have made your plans, you need to visualize yourself utilizing the plan successfully. Handle the situations skillfully and enjoy success with confidence. Always keep habit to respond feared situations. As you visualize handling a situation, try to cope it well and also address skillfully the situations you are afraid might occur. Every problem comes with a multitude of solutions, only we need to change our focus from where we kept it longer. Hope this article helps you in any mid-life crisis! Keep visiting our website forummatra.org and remain connected by liking our Facebook page @ForumMantra.