What Nobody Tells You About Big Emotions

Without the proper coping skills, people who have what I like to call “big emotions” have a high probability of getting sucked into the slippery slope of negative self-talk. This is because, when it comes to big emotions, people have to make a choice: to deal with them, or not to deal with them. If someone doesn’t have the proper coping skills, she will often resort to the latter.

Unfortunately, one cannot simply avoid big emotions and expect that they’ll go way on their own. Instead, big emotions that are not dealt with stew in the subconscious parts of our minds. Then, unbeknownst to us, they continuously color our decisions. People may make choices that they do not really want to make, not know why they are making them, and then criticize themselves for doing so—and the aforementioned slippery slope is born.

Alternatively, we are left with the choice to actually deal with our big emotions, and I think I can speak for everybody when I say, EASIER SAID THAN DONE. Hell, if it were easy, everybody would make that choice from the get-go and this whole article would be a moot point. Dealing with big emotions is so varied from person to person, so to pinpoint one surefire way to do it would be quite a feat. One suggestion that I highly recommend, though, is to regularly remind yourself of this:

While some emotions may be difficult or even painful, there are no “bad emotions.”

Every emotion serves a purpose. I like to use the analogy of an indicator light on the dashboard of your car. When the light turns on to remind you that you need an oil change, it indicates that it’s time to schedule that. Similarly, when you start to feel an emotion wash over you—whether it’s happiness, sadness, grief, or something else—it may be an indicator that you need to address something in your life.

What I am suggesting takes time, especially for people with big emotions. It requires you to slow down, acknowledge what you’re feeling, and try to let the feeling exist without judging it or pushing it away. After a long day at work, dealing with big emotions can sometimes take up an entire evening. It can even take up every evening for a week straight! Sometimes dealing with a big emotion, such as anger, can uncover three more even bigger emotions, such as sadness, fear, and shame. It can be draining, and it can impact the other people around you as well. I cannot emphasize enough that what I am suggesting is not easy or for the faint of heart.

Luckily, there is a very large reward for those who are ready and willing to deal with their big emotions.

First of all, it is an opportunity to prove to yourself that you can! You can. If you don’t try, there is a good chance you don’t know that about yourself, and discovering that you are actually capable of dealing with those big emotions is a huge reward in and of itself.

If that isn’t enough, here is, perhaps, the best part. By practicing the skill of paying attention to your body’s amazing built-in capability of letting you know when to respond, and then actually choosing to listen to it, you will also be learning a type of mindfulness—which is a really powerful skill! While it is, as I mentioned above, time consuming, choosing to prioritize your emotions is choosing to prioritize yourself, and when you realize that you have the power to choose yourself over the daily grind of life, you’ll soon start to feel the alignment of your mind and body.

You’ll feel what it is to be present—the key that unlocks the potential to feeling all of the beauty that life has to offer. Suddenly, big emotions are no longer something we “have to deal with,” but rather something we have the opportunity to use as a tool for growth and understanding.