Resilience: Accepting Your Negative Emotions During a Crisis

During times of crisis, it's common for people to experience negative emotions (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Negative Emotions, Allowing Yoursel fto Feel Your Feelings So You Can Heal and Developing a More Resilient Self in Therapy).

Resilience: Accepting Your Negative Emotions Duirng a Crisis

These negative emotions include:

• Anxiety
• Fear
• Panic 
• Sadness
• Depression
• Grief
• Self doubt  
• Anger
• A sense of foreboding about the future
• Confusion
• And other negative emotions

Although it's not pleasant to experience these emotions, acknowledging and accepting these emotions is an important step to working through them and getting to the other side to develop a more resilient self (see my article: Changing Maladaptive Coping Strategies That No Longer Work For You: Avoidance).

When you resist feeling your negative emotions, these emotions intensify and become stronger.  They also have a way of surfacing in other ways that you might be unaware of, including:

• Headaches
• Muscle aches
• Back problems
• Gastrointestinal problems
• Insomnia
• Diabetes
• Obesity
• Heart problems
• Asthma
• Premature aging
• Other stress-related health problems

How to Cope With Negative Emotions

• Rather than trying to avoid feeling your negative emotions, acknowledge them.  
• Recognize that your emotions aren't facts and that they might be fleeting, especially if you don't try to ignore them.
• Recognize that everyone has negative emotions at some point.  Don't judge yourself for your emotions.  
• Rather than struggling against your negative emotions, accept your emotions as being an experience that you're having at the moment.
• Write down your emotions in a journal so that these emotions don't overwhelm you (see my article: Journal Writing Can Help to Relieve Stress and Anxiety).
• If you find you can't manage your negative emotions on your own, seek help from a licensed psychotherapist who can help you to work through your feelings (see my article: Therapy Can Help You to Stop Avoiding Negative Emotions).

Resilience: Accepting Your Negative Emotions During an Emotional Crisis
The following vignette illustrates the benefit of accepting and acknowledging negative emotions:

Tom
After his wife, Carol, told him that she was unhappy in their marriage and she might want a divorce, Tom tried to persuade Carol to try to work through their issues.  He tried to reason with her that they had invested 10 years into their marriage and their divorce would be devastating for their two young children.

Although he knew they had been having problems, especially when he had to work long hours at his job and Carol felt unsupported at home, Tom assumed that he and Carol would eventually work things out.  But she expressed doubt about working out their issues.

Initially, he was shocked.  He felt like he was living through a nightmare and he would wake up at any moment from this bad dream.

After a week, he felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety and sadness.  So, he tried to distract himself by getting more involved in his work.  He spent even more time in his office than usual, which only annoyed Carol even more.

But late at night, he had problems falling asleep.  In the morning, he was exhausted and he developed digestive problems.  He also developed headaches that were so debilitating that he had to stay home from work, which left him a lot of time to think about his marital problems.

When Tom could no longer tolerate his health problems, he saw his medical doctor, who ruled out any physical problems.  He suggested that Tom seek help in therapy to deal with the stress and anxiety related to his problems with Carol.

At first, Tom told his medical doctor that he didn't want to "dwell" on his problems--he wanted to distract himself from them.

But his medical doctor, who was knowledgeable about the mind-body connection, told Tom that he was having all of these physical symptoms precisely because he was trying to avoid feeling them, and the only way for Tom to get a handle on his emotions was to work through them in therapy, "Your mind and your body are connected.  When you try to suppress feeling your emotions, they're going to come out in some other way--including getting you physically sick."

So, somewhat reluctantly, Tom sought help in therapy.  Even though it was painful to talk about his anxiety and sadness about his marriage, he realized that he also felt better after his therapy sessions.

Tom felt a positive connection with his therapist.  He also felt emotionally supported by her so that he no longer felt alone and that he had to carry these feelings by himself.  She suggested that he keep a journal to write down his feelings between therapy sessions, which he found helpful.

Shotly after he began therapy, Tom realized that he worked long hours on his job to avoid Carol and how inadequate he felt as a husband and a father. He also realized that he no longer wanted to distract himself with work.  He preferred to deal with his emotions as they came up and talk to his therapist about them in their sessions.

So, Tom stopped volunteering to do extra projects at work and spent more time at home.  Since he was home more, he spent more time with his children and helping Carol around the house, which she appreciated.  This resulted in their getting along better, and Tom realized that he could be a good husband and father.

Tom realized that Carol was no longer talking to him about the possibility of getting a divorce, so he asked her if she would like to go out for dinner at her favorite restaurant.  To his surprise, she accepted his invitation and they had a good time--something they had not experienced together in several years.

Soon after that, Carol suggested that she take the children to her mother's house for the weekend so she and Tom could spend quiet time together.  It was the first time in a long time that they were sexually intimate and enjoyed being together.

Throughout this period, Tom continued to go to his individual therapy sessions, and he was starting to feel hopeful again.  Whenever anxiety, sadness or self doubt surfaced for him, he followed his therapist's recommendation to acknowledge his feelings, accept them and to recognize that they were just feelings and "feelings aren't facts."

Tom also continued to write in his journal between therapy sessions and felt a sense of relief each time that he poured his feelings out in writing.

At his therapist's suggestion, he spoke to Carol about attending couples therapy to work through issues that still remained, including Carol's concern that Tom's workaholism would become a problem again.  To his surprise, Carol agreed to give it a try.

Tom's therapist recommended an Emotionally Focused Couples therapist to work through their issues, and within a few weeks, they were making progress (see my article: What is Emotionally Focused Therapy For Couples?).

Although Tom regretted that he had wasted so much time trying to avoid his negative emotions, he was also relieved that he had learned to accept them.  He felt himself becoming more resilient to deal with his marital problems as well as other problems that came up in his family.

Attending Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT) gave Tom and Carol the necessary tools to work through their problems and, over time, it strengthened their relationship.

During his individual therapy sessions, Tom began to feel much more hopeful that his marriage with Carol would work out.

Resilience: Accepting Your Negative Emotions Duirng a Crisis

Tom's increased sense of hopefulness and resilience created an upward spiral for him as an individual as well as in his relationship with Carol.

Conclusion
Even though this article focused on relationship issues, the strategies recommended in this article can apply to any situation where you feel inundated by negative emotions and you're tempted to try to avoid them (see my article: Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Ups and Downs).

Getting Help in Therapy
We all need help sometimes.

If you're negative emotions are overwhelming you, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed therapist, who can help you to develop the necessary tools to deal with your emotions and become more resilient to cope with your problems.

Rather than suffering on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional in your area.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples (EFT couples therapy).

During the current health crisis, phone sessions or online therapy sessions are available for clients in New York State.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming Your Fear of Your So-Called "Negative" Emotions

In a prior article, Overcoming Fear of Anger, I discussed fear of anger and how psychotherapy can help.  But anger isn't the only so-called "negative" emotion that people often fear.  Aside from anger, many people fear sadness and grief.  There are also people who fear any strong emotion, including joy and happiness because of their history (see my article: Are You Afraid to Allow Yourself to Be Happy?).

Overcoming Your Fear of Your So-Called "Negative" Emotions

Why Are People Afraid of Experiencing "Negative" Emotions?
First, let me clarify that there's really no such thing as a "negative emotion," which is why I put quotes around the word "negative."  All emotions are normal.  It's what you do with your emotions that makes the difference.

So, I'm distinguishing feeling emotions vs. behavior.  If you get angry and you get violent, that's obviously a big problem.  But there's nothing wrong with feeling angry.  As I mentioned, it's what you do with it that matters.  Aside from getting violent, if you hold onto anger and resentment and, over time, you're unable to let go of these feelings, then this is a problem (see my article: Holding Onto Anger is Like Drinking Poison and Expecting the Other Person to Die and Letting Go of Resentment).

There is no one reason why people have fear of experiencing anger, sadness or grief, but for many people, it's about a fear of being engulfed or shattered by the emotion.  So, people with this fear often use various defense mechanisms to ward off what they consider unpleasant emotions.

Under optimal circumstances, children learn from their parents at a young age, in an age-appropriate way, how to deal with emotions that are uncomfortable for them.  If a child's parents are able to remain relatively calm when a child has a temper tantrum and help the child to calm down, the child learns that he can be angry; his parents aren't going to be angry with him because he's angry; and his parents will help him to calm down.

Conversely, if a child gets angry and the parents' reaction is to get angry too, then the child internalizes that his anger is "bad."  If the parents scold the child for having a temper tantrum and then isolate him in his room, this also gives the child the message that being angry is "bad" and he doesn't learn how to express his emotions in a healthy way.

Instead, the child learns that he has to hide his anger and not show it.  As a result, he grows up to be an adult who uses various defense mechanisms to defend against his anger and hide it from others and from himself.

Common Defense Mechanisms:

• Denial: "I'm not angry." or "I never get angry."
• Acting out: extreme behavior to express thoughts or feelings
• Dissociation: zoning out and disconnecting from feelings
• Projection: "I'm not angry--you're angry."
• Rationalization: "Getting angry won't help me."
• Intellectualization: Using intellect to disconnect from feelings
• Regression: Going back to an earlier stage of development
• Reaction Formation: Converting uncomfortable and unwanted feelings into the opposite feelings

and so on.

Temporarily Compartmentalizing Emotions vs Repressing Emotions
Warding off uncomfortable feelings indefinitely by using defense mechanisms is different from temporarily compartmentalizing feelings under particular circumstances.

For instance, if a manager is giving a presentation to senior managers and a thought crosses his mind about his father who recently died, he would want to wait until he had privacy to experience his emotions, so he would probably compartmentalize his grief and sadness temporarily until he had privacy to express them.  This would be a healthy coping strategy, and it's different from pushing down emotions indefinitely (How Compartmentalization Can Be Used as a Healthy Short Term Coping Strategy).

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: Overcoming Your Fear of So-Called "Negative" Emotions
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how psychotherapy can help a client to overcome fear of uncomfortable emotions:

Nina
Immediately after Nina's mother died unexpectedly, Nina got involved in a whirlwind of activities so that she almost always had something planned.  She feared that if she wasn't busy all the time that she would be engulfed by grief (see my article: Coping With the Loss of a Loved One: Common Reactions).

A few months later, Nina began getting headaches and she felt fatigued.  Her doctor ruled out any medical reasons.  When he asked her about what had been going on in her life in the last few months, Nina mentioned that her mother died unexpectedly.  She also mentioned that she was dealing with her grief by "keeping busy" most of the time (see my article: Are You Keeping Busy to Avoid Uncomfortable Emotions?).

When her doctor asked Nina if she allowed herself time to experience her grief, Nina was confused because she didn't understand why she would do that.  So, her doctor explained that grief is a normal reaction to losing a loved one and continuing to suppress her grief would be emotionally and physically unhealthy for her.

Overcoming Your Fear of Your So-Called "Negative" Emotions

He also told her that her headaches and fatigue might be the result of all this pent up emotion that she was suppressing.  Her fatigue might also be related to keeping herself constantly busy.  He recommended that Nina seek help from a psychotherapist.

Reluctantly, Nina began seeing a psychotherapist, who provided Nina with psychoeducation about grief being a normal and common reaction to the loss of her mother, and how psychotherapy could help her (see my article: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation About How Psychotherapy Works).

When her psychotherapist asked Nina about her family background, including how family members dealt with so-called "negative" emotions, like anger, sadness and grief, Nina told her that her parents would discourage her from being upset when she was a child.  They didn't like when Nina was sad and cried or got angry.  They would punish her.  So, Nina learned to suppress her emotions.

As they talked about Nina's discomfort with her feelings, Nina said, "I don't see how it would help me to allow myself to feel sad.  That won't bring my mother back."

Her psychotherapist explained defense mechanisms to Nina, and she spoke to her specifically about the defense mechanism of rationalization, which is the defense that Nina was using.  Then, she asked Nina if she was afraid of allowing herself to feel grief about her mother's death.

Nina thought about it for a few seconds, and then she said, "I guess I am afraid of feeling grief.  Sometimes, I can't help it--I just think about losing my mother and I cry, but I hate to cry and find some way to distract myself."

Over time, Nina and her psychotherapist worked to help Nina feel more comfortable with her emotions in a gradual way so that she didn't feel overwhelmed by them.  As Nina developed more of a tolerance for these emotions, she was able to allow herself to feel her grief (How Psychotherapy Helps You to Expand Your Window of Tolerance).

As Nina's ability to experience her emotions expanded, she felt relieved to experience her emotions rather than suppress them.  Her headaches and fatigue disappeared and, overall, she felt better.  She realized that emotions came in "waves" and her fear that she would be engulfed by her grief, as if it was a tsunami, was unfounded.

Conclusion
All emotions are normal.  What you do with your emotions is the real issue.

People who have a fear of experiencing their "negative" emotions usually don't learn as a child how to feel their emotions.  As adults, they continue to suppress what they consider to be uncomfortable emotions, these emotions are often somatized (i.e., the experiencing or expressing psychological problems in a physical way) with headaches, stomachaches, back pain, and so on.

Some people "medicate" their emotional pain by drinking excessively, abusing drugs, gambling compulsively and so on, in an attempt to shut down these emotions.

Even if someone didn't learn as a child how to experience uncomfortable emotions, she can learn how to cope with emotions in a healthy way in psychotherapy.

Getting Help in Psychotherapy
If you're struggling with emotions that make you feel uncomfortable, you can learn to experience your emotions in a healthy way in psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A licensed mental health professional can help you to deal with emotions that make you feel uncomfortable so that you're no longer using defense mechanisms or somatizing to ward off these emotions (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Allowing yourself to experience a full range of emotions can help you to feel alive, and it can add meaning to your life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome trauma and their fear of experiencing uncomfortable emotions.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW -NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.