Emotional Wellness
Right now our modern world is filled with situations, events, and phenomena that are producing high amounts of stress. ‘Doom scrolling’ is a daily activity and you may have learned to disconnect or numb yourself while scrolling so that you aren’t crying or raging about headlines like war, inflation, and climate change weather catastrophes. Or maybe you aren’t doom scrolling but instead are reeling from the stress and pain that you, family, or friends have directly experienced these past few years.
All that is happening around us, to us or within us can provoke a myriad of normal human emotions. But how do we acknowledge and accept a range of emotions that feel too big to hold? It might feel too scary to open up to feeling really angry, powerless, helpless, or desperate; you might want to shove these feelings aside, ignore them, or avoid them so you can save yourself from spiraling into a dark hole of panic or depression.
Research has helped us learn that labeling emotions with words, rather than ignoring, avoiding, or suppressing them, can actually prevent a dark emotional spiral1. Dr. Dan Siegel, one of the leading experts on mindfulness and mental health, calls this exercise “name it to tame it.” Acknowledging the broad range of emotions within us, labeling them with words that feel appropriate, and then allowing ourselves to feel and accept the emotions can decrease the brain’s amygdala response and instead turn on the part of the brain that processes emotions.
Though it may feel counterintuitive to lean into feelings of despair or helplessness building the capacity to be with our emotions, even for a few moments, can lead us to emotional wellness.
It is totally OK if you don’t know how to be with all that you are feeling within you and we encourage our readers to give themselves compassion and grace to take baby steps to cultivate the capacity to hold complex emotions during stressful times. Being open to accepting what we are feeling is a hard first step. The next step is even harder: allowing yourself to connect, feel and process the feelings. But first, let’s start with defining Emotional Wellness.
What is emotional wellness?
Emotional wellness means you have the inner capacity to be with and accept what is happening, just the way it is. This does NOT mean you are really skilled at letting things go or that you are happy when a situation doesn’t work out to your benefit. Emotional wellness allows you to feel your feels, whether it be disappointment or joy. And emotional wellness is not just emotions; the wellness part involves your awareness and connection to your body, being open to the signals your body is sending you that you need to allow some cagey emotions that are bubbling beneath.
Let’s talk about some free ways to achieve a greater sense of emotional wellness, even when the world around you may seem chaotic.
Cultivate Mindfulness
Mindfulness to the rescue! Cultivating mindfulness is a practice that can pay off in times like this. By accepting there is a war happening right now in Europe while also accepting you are enjoying beach time in the Caribbean for the first time in two years, you can make space to hold and feel powerlessness and gratitude; compassion and helplessness; empathy and joy. Mindfulness can help us hold dissimilar emotions and experiences as long as we remain non-judgmental and objective.
Mindfulness, however, is not something you can just make yourself do. You can try to set an alarm on one of your many devices to remind you to be mindful but reminders won’t help you cultivate your innate ability to be present with what is really happening, even if it’s scary.
Mindfulness is a skill that needs daily practice, consistent intention, courage, and curiosity. And if you are one of the millions of people who have been shoving most of your uncomfortable and painful emotions into an internal storage room, then it might be best to work with a mindfulness-based therapist to help you slowly and safely unpack what’s in the storage room so you can make room for all the feels that are happening right here, right now. Because when you are mindful and have enough room to hold what’s happening in the here-and-now you are embodying emotional wellness.
Here are some specific mindfulness practices to try out…
Mindful walking - Take a 5-minute walk, outside, without headphones and without a phone in your hands, and open yourself to the sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and feels around you.
Mindful eating - Pause for several minutes while you are prepping a meal and while you are eating to be curious about texture, taste, and aromas. Also, try counting (silently) up to 20 while you chew to ensure each bite will be properly digested.
Mindful breathing meditation - Sitting quietly with eyes closed for at least 5 minutes, taking your attention inward and connecting to your breath. Follow and be curious about your breath, its rhythm, and sensations within your body while you continue to inhale and exhale deeply. If thoughts pop up, that’s OK; gently bring yourself back to your breath when you are aware your attention wandered.
Reflect and Connect with the Feelings Wheel
According to Matthew Lieberman, associate professor of psychology at UCLA, he found this important element from his research:
“When you put feelings into words, you're activating this prefrontal region and seeing a reduced response in the amygdala. In the same way you hit the brake when you're driving when you see a yellow light -- when you put feelings into words you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses.”
This simple concept of naming emotions to achieve overall emotional wellness is not easy. It takes time to build the capacity to be aware of what we are experiencing internally and then to label them and allow them to be held and processed. Practicing mindfulness, as we suggest above, is a great start to emotional wellness and can give you the foundation to name and tame emotions.
Below you will find our Feelings Wheel. We have this ‘wheel’ in all of our therapy rooms and most of our clients have it handy when they are doing telehealth. Whipping out the wheel and spending a few moments with each word and then reflecting if the word resonates with you can be a really fun exercise. Most people who do this feel much better afterward; you might be surprised at what you find out you are holding beneath the surface.
Journaling
Writing down what you are feeling, experiencing and thinking can be a great way to process what you are holding. Again, the concept here is ‘name it to tame it’ and writing it down gives you the opportunity to tame all the ways your body is responding to the emotions that have been shoved aside and ignored. Whether you use a Feelings Wheel or not, expressing what you are feeling internally onto a piece of paper can help you resolve, contain and let go of the spectrum of heartstrings within you.
Try journaling in the morning, before you start your day, as a way to lighten your path forward. Or journaling in the evening, before bed, can also help you unload the emotions you’ve unconsciously been carrying around all day.
All of us have the innate human capacity for emotional wellness. By cultivating mindfulness, naming your emotions, and finding ways to process them that feel good to you, can lead you straight to emotional wellness.
Reference
1 Lieberman MD, Eisenberger NI, Crockett MJ, Tom SM, Pfeifer JH, Way BM. Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychol Sci. 2007 May;18(5):421-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x. PMID: 17576282.