Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 4: Change Your Emotional Approach
• Part 2 of 4: Maintain Your Emotional Health
• Part 3 of 4: Communicating with Others
• Part 4 of 4: Make a Positive Connection with Emotions

Being overly emotional is a quick reaction to feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear when a person does not allow their mind to intervene in a situation. If you are overly emotional, it is likely that your connection with your own emotions is not always constructive. But you need to listen to your emotions in a way that will benefit you, not harm you.

Steps

Part 1 of 4: Change Your Emotional Approach

1. 1 Practice breathing techniques. Breathing will help you calm down when you are feeling intense emotions such as rage, endless tears, or deep frustration.If you feel overwhelmed by emotional stress, pause to focus on your breathing. Breathing techniques can help you manage your emotions more effectively and better deal with intense feelings. You may have noticed that when you are experiencing strong emotions, the feeling of yourself and your own body escapes you. Breathing will help you get back into your own body, to the present moment.
   • Learn to control your emotions using your breath. To begin with, slow down your inhalation and exhalation. Notice how this makes you more and more relaxed. Inhale deeply into your lungs, feel the belly rise and fall. Count slowly as you exhale and feel your body and mind relax and your emotions subside.
   • To learn more about breathing exercises, read our article How to Breathe Deeply.
2. 2 Don't dwell on past events. If you spend too much time thinking about the past, thinking “What if…”, you begin to feel sad, negative, and depressed. Of course, learning from past mistakes and reflecting on your behavior is good, but if your thoughts and feelings live more in the past than in the present, this can make you depressed. When a person constantly thinks about the same thing, it becomes more difficult for him to forgive himself or others, he begins to cherish negative feelings in himself.
   • If you find yourself starting to think about an unpleasant situation from the past again, try to distract your mind and emotions from it. Exercise, read a book, or call a friend (but don't talk to him about this unpleasant situation!).
   • Use the past to learn and grow, but still know when to let it go. If thinking about the past hurts you, or you find yourself returning over and over to the situation you “spoiled”, learn to let go if you know nothing can be changed. Just let the experience allow you to behave differently in the future.
   • Reflecting on the past is associated with depression. Depression can make it difficult for you to forget your traumatic past and move on. Psychotherapy is often helpful for depression. If you think you are depressed, read our articles: How to understand that you are depressed and How to overcome depression.
3. 3 Don't jump to conclusions about the future. If you are feeling anxious, you may find that you are burning up a lot of emotional energy due to anxiety. You can experience all sorts of fears. For example, you are afraid that you will not be able to cope with the task correctly or that you will get sick from exposure to germs. You may even realize that your fears are irrational, but there is nothing you can do about it, you are still worried or afraid. Perhaps you are afraid of disasters and expect the worst outcome of the situation. If this sounds familiar to you, learn more about how to calm your anxiety. You can, for example, use relaxation techniques (in particular, visualization) and practice cognitive approaches (in particular, accepting uncertainty).
   • For more information, see How to Control Anxiety.
4. 4 Learn to react differently. If you are trying to deal with unpleasant emotions but find it difficult to distance yourself from the situation, try a different approach. You may not be able to eliminate emotional experiences, but you can deal with them more effectively. For example, if you're trying to cope with anger, but you still feel angry after distancing yourself from the situation, try drawing, coloring, or doing some exercise.
   • Try to distract yourself with music or a walk. Play with your pet, read a book, or take care of gardening.
5. 5 Use a stress diary. Throughout the day, write in your diary about stressors, how you deal with them, how you react to them.Analyze which events you reacted well to and which ones were harder for you. Find ways to consistently deal with your emotions that will help you move away from them quickly.
   • A journal will help you keep track of which methods work well, which situations trigger violent emotional reactions, and how you deal with each situation.

Part 2 of 4: Maintain Your Emotional Health

1. 1 Be mindful of your expectations. Sometimes our feelings can be mediated by what feelings we expect. For example, if you expect that watching a movie might make you feel sad, it’s probably what you will feel in the end. If you find yourself placing expectations about how you “should” feel, take your time to judge until you have lived through the situation ahead. Perhaps you are considering in advance the situations that you would like to get into.
2. 2 Control what you can control. Think about what events trigger strong emotions in you and decide how you can avoid them or how you can contain your reaction. For example, if you tend to feel anxious about being late for work, adjust your morning routine so that you are not in a rush and allow for extra time for traffic jams or other surprises. If there is a certain group of people who make you feel a lot of unpleasant emotions, shorten the time you spend with them. If you can control the situation, control it.
3. 3 Change the situation. If you are constantly disappointed with yourself or your abilities, change your expectations. Perhaps you are a perfectionist, and you think that if something is not 100% done, then it should not be shared with other people. Especially if you have tight deadlines, there is nothing wrong with adjusting the situation to better manage your own emotions. You might, for example, say to yourself, "Although my project is not 100% perfect, I am proud of it and I know I did a good job."
   • If you tend to have high ideas and expectations, start changing the way you achieve them. You can, for example, ask for help from other people or choose a less high, but achievable goal.
4. 4 Remind yourself that feelings are powerful, but not always "true." Of course, you can feel your feelings, but remember that feeling is not the same as truth. The same goes for thoughts. When you want to react to something, remind yourself that you may not have all the information yet, and your thoughts and feelings may change.
   • Thoughts and feelings are constantly changing and do not define you at all.

Part 3 of 4: Communicating with Others

1. 1 Ask before you judge. Perhaps you are in a hurry to draw conclusions, instead of first gathering all the information. Instead of jumping to conclusions, wait until you have all the information. And while you are gathering information, you should not plan your next move if you are at odds. Ask questions and strive to understand the entire situation before judging or emotionally expressing yourself.
   • If you are angry about your partner being late, don't jump to conclusions about why they might be late. Better to calmly ask what happened, but without condemnation or accusations.
2. 2 Don't react to emotional outbursts. If someone reacts very emotionally in a fight, you should not respond with such a reaction. Better practice your active listening skills. Reacting to another person's strong emotions is likely to exacerbate the situation, and in no way contribute to solving the problem.
   • For example, if your interlocutor is angry and tries to offend you with verbal attacks, you should not go straight to defense. It is better to listen to the person, try to understand his thoughts and feelings, ask questions and calmly answer.
3. 3 Use sentences with "I". When you blame a person, you automatically put them on a defensive position, which can lead to conflict.In addition, in this case, your interlocutor will be more inclined to accuse you of something in return. Take responsibility for your own emotions and express them without blaming others. When you take responsibility for your own emotions, you gain control over them.
   • Instead of accusing the person with the words: “You didn’t come and let me down again! What an idiot you are! ”Say,“ I felt hurt and abandoned because you didn’t come this evening. And I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me you weren’t coming. ”

Part 4 of 4: Make a Positive Connection with Emotions

1. 1 Identify emotions. You need to know how you are feeling so that you can adequately respond to each emotion. Start thinking about how your body feels when you notice the appearance of a certain emotion. For example, if you are feeling angry, you may notice how your breathing quickens, your muscles tense, or your facial skin turns red. If you are happy, you may notice that a smile appears on your face by itself, and a feeling of lightness in your body. Tune in to your body's communication language.
   • Write down every emotion. For example, write “sadness,” in your journal, and under that word write down anything that makes you sad. Do the same with anger, joy, peace, rage, or whatever emotion you want to focus on.
2. 2 Decode the message of each emotion. Emotions are often part of the communication system. You may, for example, feel anxiety, which is actually an expression of fear. Emotions can trigger emotional or physical stressors that we can accept or withdraw from ourselves. When you feel emotions are brewing, ask them what they are trying to tell you.
   • If you feel sad, ask yourself, "What have I lost, or what do I think I will lose?"
   • When angry, ask, "Do I feel like my values ​​are at stake?" or "Should I take action?"
   • When you are happy, ask: "What do I think has increased in my life?"
3. 3 Show more empathy. Empathy is when you pay less attention to your own emotions and pay more attention to the emotions of those around you. Empathy is part of emotional intelligence. If you find yourself mostly focusing on your own emotions, take a step back and pay attention to the emotions of the people around you. Analyze their emotional experiences and recognize the emotions they are feeling. Increasing empathy can help you connect more effectively with people, respect their emotional experiences, and divert attention away from yourself.
   • Ask yourself, "What is this person feeling and experiencing right now?"
4. 4 Practice mindfulness.When you are with your whole body in the present, it is easier for you to control your emotions. Mindfulness practice means that you allow your thoughts and feelings to come and go, you observe them without judgment. If you feel sad, try to ignore judgmental thoughts like “I shouldn't be sad about this still. What's wrong with me?" Instead, try to be objective by simply noting, “I still have strong emotions about this incident. It is interesting". Mindfulness practice can be incredibly beneficial for emotional, mental, and physical health. One of the common practices of mindfulness is attuning to and observing the senses (touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing). Focus on your breathing and see how it calms your senses.
   • For more information, see How to Learn Mindfulness Meditation.
5. 5 See a psychotherapist. If you find it difficult to find a positive connection with your emotions, or you cannot find ways to control them, seek help from a therapist.The therapist will help you work through difficult emotions and will also provide an opportunity to release your emotions in a positive and constructive way. If you find it impossible to control your emotions, talk to a therapist to find ways to deal with the problem.
   • Find someone you feel comfortable talking to and seeing on a regular basis. The therapist should be someone you can trust and with whom you feel comfortable sharing frank or embarrassing information. If you feel uncomfortable with your doctor or simply do not feel any connection, it is better to see another specialist.