The truly happy and self-realized person is someone who has control over their psychological growth and knows how to process their emotions. People who know how to process their emotions are generally more successful and have better relationships than those who don’t. By facing certain emotions we have avoided for so long, like anger, hate, fear, helplessness, etc., we can finally make room for things to work in our lives. The longer we leave our emotions and do not process them, the easier it becomes to avoid them and the more challenging to face them later on.

1. Don’t Avoid Your Emotions

When difficult emotions arise, the more we avoid them, the more resentful, overburdened, and depressed we become. Sometimes we don’t even realize we are avoiding them because we are so accustomed to doing so. We avoid facing them by not thinking about them and disconnecting from our bodies. Or maybe we avoid them with food, drugs, and other means of escapism only to feel good for a while. We are eager for instant gratification and lack the skills to realize that healing takes time before feeling good again. The best thing we can do to process our emotions is to acknowledge them, name them and realize how they may reflect a distorted way of thinking that stems from trauma so that we can learn to calm our bodies down.

2. Explore Them In a Safe Space & Name Them | Process Emotions

You must explore your emotions in a safe space and name them. When it comes to our emotions, we want to break them down, identify them, understand what they may be telling us about the past that we haven’t fully resolved yet, and become more conscious before deciding how to react to them. If we learn to accept our emotions in a safe space without judgment and do not escape them, we can free ourselves from the burden of avoidance and its consequences.

Also, it is not your fault if you avoid your emotions. Sometimes we face traumas that are too difficult to deal with because of the overload of emotions that come through, and it becomes difficult to process them one at a time. Sometimes our work-related problems can become overwhelming because of what we risk losing due to money problems. Most people I have worked with have trouble processing their emotions because, during childhood, they never learned in their environment or had a safe space to express and talk about their emotions but suppressed them instead.

3. Admit Your Feelings Through Emotions, Not Thoughts

We need to learn to admit our feelings through emotions, not thoughts. Because we lack the skills to understand the many different emotions we experience, we often speak in a way that can be disempowering. Make sure that when you admit your feelings to your friends or yourself, it starts with I feel (emotion) and not with I am sad, or I feel that the world is out to get me. Be clear about the exact emotion you are experiencing as the experiencer. Do not let that emotion become your identity, and do not express your emotion with how your mind describes it. So instead of saying I am depressed, say I feel depressed because it gives you more power over your current circumstances and because the words we use with our self-talk matter. They become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Also, your body is intelligent enough to help dissipate that emotion once it’s acknowledged and understood. Recent studies show that the less vague and the more specific we are in describing our emotions, the more power we have to resolve them. An emotional chart that can be found on the interweb can help you increase your knowledge of emotional vocabulary, especially if it takes effort to acknowledge the more subtle ones or if you are experiencing more than one emotion at a time. Take time to write down the emotions you experience on a daily basis to get more clear in understanding them yourself.