5 steps to learn to relate to your emotions

All mental or personality disorders have a common component: having a relationship dysfunctional with emotions through experiential avoidance behaviors such as escape or avoidance.

In this article I expose the concept of experiential avoidance, how it works, what consequences it has, for what is the most used strategy to try to control emotions and why in the long term it does not it works.

To have a good relationship with your emotions, it is important to adopt the opposite strategy: stay with them, understand them, use them in your favor and be able to relate in a healthier way.

• Related article: "Emotional instability: what is it and in what signs can it be detected?"

What is Experiential Avoidance?

Experiential avoidance (EE) is a phenomenon described from the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that encompasses all those attempts to control private events (for example, emotions, thoughts, memories, behaviors, bodily sensations) with the aim of trying to alter their intensity, frequency or form.

Trying to protect ourselves from what "hurts us" is a biological act and has to do with the survival of the species. But today it is not only something biological, but this way of dealing with emotions has been learned socially for years. Historically, this “primitive” part has been underestimated and sensitive people have been classified as “weak”.

We have grown up hearing and incorporating into our internal dialogue that "feeling unpleasant emotions is terrible", that our natural state is to be happy and we tell ourselves things like "if others see me cry they will think badly of me", "I can't bear negative emotions", "I have to get well as soon as possible", "if I'm bad, something bad happens"...

Experiential avoidance is very powerful and effective in the short term, and for this reason it is the most used strategy. All attempts to control emotion work in the short term: if I am very anxious about being in social situations and I don't go to a party, the anxiety automatically disappears. The drawback is that this emotional control lasts a very short time and soon the discomfort reappears, surely, with more force.

In the long term, the problem intensifies and spreads to more and more areas.. If avoiding a situation has eliminated my anxiety, it will increase the probability that I will avoid more and more situations that generate that emotion.

In addition, it is most likely that invalidating thoughts of the type “I am not capable of facing these situations”, “I am not socially skilled”, “I never will be” begin to appear.

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Main steps to relate in a healthy way with your emotions.

From ACT and positive psychology they propose learning to relate to emotions in a different way. If trying to escape, control, belittle emotions doesn't work... **Why not learn to live with them? **

These steps are key for this relationship to be healthy and feel that you are not constantly fighting. The 4 main steps are used when the emotions are within the tolerance window, and if the emotions have overwhelmed us we will include the step number 5 that I add at the end.

1. Recognize emotion (detect and classify)

In every situation that we try to avoid, we feel an unpleasant emotion.: it can be sadness, guilt, anger, anxiety...

At this moment it is important to stop and observe how we feel that emotion, what bodily sensations we have when we feel it (pressure in the chest, knot in the stomach, suffocation, tachycardia...). All emotions have their physical part.

Once detected, we put a name and classify: it is sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt, shame or secondary emotions such as frustration, disappointment, abandonment, loneliness, humiliation...

This answers the question: What am I feeling? Putting a name and surname will help us in the next step.

• Related article: "10 daily habits that improve your emotional balance"

2. Validate the emotion

To validate is to “give it value”. We allow ourselves to be with her, we analyze the situation and the thoughts that are causing it, and we allow ourselves to feel it: “It is normal that you feel this way in this situation for which you think you are not prepared, nothing happens. It's fine".

It's good to feel emotions, it's human. With this step we answer the question: Why am I feeling this?

• You may be interested: "Emotional validation: 6 basic tips to improve it"

3. ask the purpose

Asking why shows us the origin. But in psychology it is not so important where the emotion comes from but the function of that emotion and answer the question: Why am I feeling this?

When we learn to identify the purpose of the emotion, everything is much easier. All emotions have a function, for example:

• Sadness helps us value a loss, evaluate what went wrong, learn, seek support.

• Anger motivates us to act in a situation where we feel we have been harmed or hindered.

• Fear appears in potentially dangerous situations and urges us to protect ourselves or attack.

• Guilt serves to maintain social relations through apologies or acts to compensate for the "damage caused".

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

4. Acting without using experiential avoidance

If you have followed all the previous steps, your emotion has probably decreased in intensity, since simply staying with it and analyzing it "without fighting", nor judging allows it to regulate itself natural.

The next step, therefore, is act to solve the triggering situation. We will expose ourselves to situations that we used to avoid, such as having uncomfortable conversations, expressing an emotion, setting a limit, negotiating, resolving a conflict, attending events...

It is very important to expose yourself little by little and increase the level of complexity (intensity of emotion) that you can manage. With each step you will gain confidence and self-confidence.

5. An Extra Emergency Step: Emotional Ventilation

In the case of being in the hyperarousal zone and noticing that emotions have taken control, it is very important to add this step at the beginning.

Emotional Ventilation is the expression of the emotions that are oppressing us: cry if we feel like it, scream if we need to... Try to channel that emotion outwards (without harming yourself or other people) and not leaving it trapped inside. “Emotions that are repressed build up until you explode.”

Crying is the most effective Emotional Ventilation mechanism and the social norm usually urges us to “not cry”… we throw stones at our own roof.

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In conclusion

Being able to maintain a healthy relationship with your emotions is vital to being resilient people and achieving well-being and tranquility.

If you don't feel able to act in order to solve the conflict caused by the emotion, you don't know where to start, you think you lack the tools to achieve it or you have tried but it has not worked, I encourage you to contact a psychologist to be able to make these changes with support.