Five Creative Ways To Navigate Difficult Emotions

We feel emotions every day, sometimes more intensely than others, but at times we over-identify with them to the point they end up controlling us. If the emotions are pleasant, it feels like a wonderful rush. But if they are unpleasant, we do everything we can to avoid feeling them. The problem with this approach is that the more we distract ourselves from the unpleasant emotion, the stronger it gets. When we push it down to hide it, it’s like we’re shoving a million things in a bag until, eventually, the bag breaks. The emotion always comes back in one way or another until we’re forced to work through it. So, what can we do to avoid this impending disaster? Manage our emotions regularly. We need to remember we are not our emotions. Our emotions live in us and not the other way around. The following tools are excellent not just to acknowledge this rationally but also to experience it. 1. Turn the emotion into something tangible. Think of the emotion you want to work with an...