how to process an emotion *life-changing tips from a therapy veteran*
Summary
TLDRIn this episode, the host delves into the crucial yet often overlooked skill of processing emotions, a skill not typically taught in schools. They share personal experiences and research-backed insights on how to acknowledge, validate, and process emotions to become an emotionally intelligent individual. The host outlines steps to deal with unprocessed trauma and suggests various methods like therapy, self-reflection, and healthy coping mechanisms such as exercise, journaling, or engaging in creative activities. The episode aims to empower listeners to cultivate positive relationships and achieve mental well-being.
Takeaways
- 🧠 Acknowledge and name your emotions as the first step, which is often difficult due to distractions and avoidance behaviors.
- 🚫 Avoid using social media, video games, substances, and other distractions as means to escape from dealing with emotions.
- 🧘♂️ Practice sitting in silence for 5 minutes a day to check in with yourself and your emotions without any distractions.
- 🌅 Reflect on your day by identifying one good and one bad thing that happened to help process emotions and understand your feelings better.
- 🔍 Use an emotions chart to help identify and name the emotions you are experiencing, which can increase awareness and understanding.
- 🤝 Validate your feelings, understanding that emotions don't need justification and that it's okay to feel what you feel.
- 🚫 Beware of people who invalidate your emotions by dismissing them as overreactions or by comparing them to others' experiences.
- 🔄 Recognize that emotions will resurface but should feel lighter each time you process them, leading to a point where they no longer trigger you.
- 💪 Decide on how to respond when emotions are triggered in the future, whether it's confronting the person or choosing to distance yourself.
- 🏋️♀️ Employ healthy coping mechanisms such as exercise, journaling, crafting, or cleaning to give your feelings a safe physical outlet.
- 💤 Ensure you get enough sleep as part of processing emotions, as the sleep also plays a role in emotional health.
Q & A
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
-The main topic discussed in this episode is how to process emotions and the importance of emotional intelligence in daily life.
Why is it important to process emotions?
-Processing emotions is important because bottling them up can lead to mental distress, strained relationships, and a lack of peace and emotional well-being.
What are some common distractions people use to avoid their emotions?
-Common distractions include social media, video games, substances, partying, staying in toxic relationships, and filling up schedules to avoid confronting emotions.
What is the first step in processing an emotion according to the podcast?
-The first step is to acknowledge and name the emotion, which involves recognizing when distractions are being used to avoid dealing with emotions.
What is the purpose of sitting in silence for 5 minutes a day?
-Sitting in silence helps to hear your own thoughts without distractions, allowing you to become more aware of your emotions and what might be triggering them.
What does the speaker suggest for reflecting on your day?
-The speaker suggests reflecting on one good and one bad thing that happened during the day to be more mindful of your emotional experiences.
What is the role of validation in processing emotions?
-Validation is crucial as it helps individuals understand and accept their feelings without needing to justify them, counteracting past invalidation experiences.
Why is it important not to expect the emotion to never come up again?
-It's important because emotions can resurface when triggered unknowingly by others. Expecting them not to return can lead to self-anger and hinder the processing of emotions.
What should be the response if someone hurts you and you acknowledge your feelings to them?
-An appropriate response would be an apology that includes an intent not to repeat the hurtful action or to do better next time.
What is a healthy coping mechanism and why is it important?
-A healthy coping mechanism is an activity that gives feelings a physical form in a safe way, helping to release emotions and keep the mind free to process them.
Can you give examples of healthy coping mechanisms mentioned in the podcast?
-Examples include exercise, journaling, talking to someone, crafting, walking, cleaning, and taking showers.
Outlines
🧠 Processing Emotions for Emotional Intelligence
The speaker introduces the topic of processing emotions and emphasizes its importance for mental health and relationships. They share their personal journey of learning to process emotions through experience, research, and therapy. The aim is to guide listeners on how to become emotionally intelligent individuals without causing harm to others. The speaker outlines the negative impacts of suppressing emotions and suggests that processing emotions can lead to a more peaceful and positive life. They also mention various methods to process emotions, such as therapy, talking to friends or partners, and self-help techniques.
🔍 Acknowledging and Naming Emotions
The speaker discusses the first step in processing emotions, which is acknowledging and naming them. They highlight the difficulty of this step due to common distractions that people use to avoid their feelings, such as social media, video games, and toxic relationships. The speaker advises listeners to pause and check in with themselves to recognize if they are avoiding emotions. They suggest sitting in silence for 5 minutes daily to become aware of one's own thoughts and feelings, as well as reflecting on the day to identify positive and negative experiences. The speaker also recommends using an emotions chart to help identify and name emotions accurately.
🤝 Validating Feelings and Moving Forward
The speaker moves on to the second step of processing emotions, which involves validation. They explain that it's crucial to understand what triggered the emotion and to validate the feeling without justifying it. The speaker warns against self-invalidation and the negative impact of others invalidating one's feelings. They suggest that after acknowledging and validating emotions, one should decide how to proceed, especially if the emotions were triggered by someone else. The speaker encourages listeners to communicate their feelings and to consider whether the person who caused the hurt is worth keeping in their life, advocating for self-love and protection.
🏋️♂️ Healthy Coping Mechanisms for Emotional Release
In the final paragraph, the speaker focuses on the importance of employing healthy coping mechanisms to process emotions. They define a healthy coping mechanism as an activity that gives feelings a physical form in a safe way. The speaker lists various activities such as exercise, journaling, talking to someone, crafting, walking, cleaning, and showering as potential coping mechanisms. They emphasize the importance of finding an outlet that allows the mind to wander while the body is engaged in an activity, facilitating the processing of emotions. The speaker concludes the video script with a reminder to ensure adequate sleep as part of emotional processing.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Emotional Intelligence
💡Unprocessed Trauma
💡Acknowledge
💡Validation
💡Emotion Regulation
💡Therapy
💡Coping Mechanisms
💡Distress
💡Emotional Processing
💡Self-Care
💡Mental Health
Highlights
Introduction to the episode focusing on processing emotions and its life-changing potential.
The importance of processing emotions to prevent mental distress and maintain healthy relationships.
The lack of emotional education in schools and the necessity to learn it through personal experience and research.
Acknowledging and naming emotions as the first step in processing them.
Avoiding distractions like social media and video games that prevent acknowledging emotions.
The suggestion to sit in silence for 5 minutes daily to become aware of one's own thoughts and emotions.
Reflecting on the day to identify positive and negative events that have occurred.
Using an emotions chart to better understand and name the emotions being felt.
The necessity to validate emotions without justifying them, as they are personal and valid regardless.
Recognizing the impact of past invalidation on current emotional processing.
The importance of not expecting emotions to never resurface and the process of lightening their impact over time.
Deciding on future actions when someone has hurt you and whether to maintain a relationship with them.
Considering the possibility of communicating feelings to the person who caused the emotional trigger.
The concept of employing healthy coping mechanisms to give emotions a physical form in a safe way.
Examples of healthy coping mechanisms such as exercise, journaling, and engaging in creative activities.
The significance of sleep in processing emotions and the importance of getting enough rest.
Conclusion of the episode with a summary of the steps to process emotions effectively.
Transcripts
hello welcome back to I think this will
be episode three I already recorded
another episode 3 but I have been
thinking about this topic that I'm going
to talk about today for like two weeks
already this one is going to change your
life because some of y'all are still
writing on unprocessed Trauma from like
when you were 7 years old and you you're
in your is like still thinking about
that and this will change your life
because I am going to explain how to
process an emotion I know crazy concept
wish it was taught in schools but it's
not I had to learn this through personal
experience and a lot of research and
being a psych major and going to therapy
for 2 years let me save you the time the
insurance money the effort I'm just
going to tell you exactly how to do it
and you can go out into life as an
emotionally intelligent human being
instead of traumatizing the people that
traumatized you back why process
emotions well because bottling up
emotions for years will cause you mental
distress it will cost you friendships
and relationships as much as mental
health is being talked about more in
society and general and being taken more
seriously it is still severely
underrated how much having a healthy
mind affects you on a daily basis in a
positive way just you need to know how
to do this okay if you want to be a
healthy emotionally intelligent human
being and you want to cultivate positive
relationships in your life and just feel
at peace you need this the ways that you
can process an emotion are either in
therapy friends with your partner or if
you don't have friends or a partner you
and you don't want to go to therapy or
you can't go to therapy for whatever
reason Reon you can do this on your own
it is very helpful to do it with other
people too the best case scenario is you
do all of them but you might not always
have a partner or friends and if the the
emotions are really taking a toll on you
then definitely therapy okay let's get
into how to actually do it step number
one you need to acknowledge and name the
emotion you need to and this is very
hard to do because there are so so many
actions we do all the time to avoid our
emotions there are so many distractions
that we employ to avoid doing this for
example social media video games
substances partying staying in toxic
relationships and filling up your
schedule if you partake in any of these
or all of them you are probably avoiding
some Feelings by doing those things so
how do you stop time you want to pick up
a distraction pause just pause pause and
check in with yourself s am I avoiding
an emotion right now time you boot up
your video game did something just
happen that triggered me and am I doing
this to avoid dealing with it did I
think of something that triggered a
negative emotion and am I booting up
this video game or am I opening
Instagram or dating apps are also
another distraction that a lot of us use
to deal with negative emotions or rather
avoid them and distract ourselves from
them you can still do the thing like you
can still play the video game after
after you've acknowledged oh it's
because so and so happened or so and so
said this and it hurt me and now I'm
booting up my video game another thing
you should do is sit in silence for 5
minutes a day with no audio or visual
distractions just set a timer for 5
minutes stare at the wall or close your
eyes and just sit and I know some people
do like guided meditations I think those
are okay but I think you should still
sit for 5 minutes and just silence
because in the guided meditation they
tell you what to think and the purpose
of this is
to hear your own thoughts see just see
what comes up you don't have to do
anything about it another thing you can
do is to reflect on your day at the end
of the day what's one good thing that
happened today and what's one bad thing
that happened today that's all you need
to do if you want to think of like one
funny thing that happened today or one
weird thing that happened today one
thing that I'm grateful for that
happened today or one thing that really
pissed me off because we go through days
and we don't even stop and think about
what happened and then we reach our
breaking point and then we're like I
don't know what happened I just broke I
just feel so depressed I feel so sad but
it could be that you've accumulated so
many little things that pissed you off
or frustrated you or angered you that
you never acknowledged or thought about
and now you've reached your boiling
point like it's not out of nowhere it's
not I don't know know what happened my
final tip is Google an emotions chart I
will put up an example here somewhere
and look over it and see pick out a word
that best describes the emotion that
you're feeling you can think about what
color you think the emotion is or where
do you feel tension in your body is it
in your stomach is it in your chest is
it in your back is it in your head like
those are things that are going to make
you aware of your emotion they're going
to help you acknowledge that you're
feeling something right now and then the
emotions chart is going to help you name
it step number two to validate yourself
or if you're talking to somebody whether
it's a therapist or a friend or a
partner about your feelings they should
help you validate the feeling first
figure out what happened like what
triggered the emotion did somebody say
something or do something that triggered
the emotion or did somebody say or do
something that triggered a memory a
traumatic memory that then triggered
sponsor to it do not confuse this with
justifying your emotions because you do
not need to justify your emotions you're
allowed to feel whatever you feel to
whatever magnitude that you feel it and
we we do this because when we were
little people would tell us that we are
too sensitive or that we overreact or
that we can't take a joke or that other
people have it worse we have been
invalidated before so we're going to
want to do this to ourselves but don't
and if beware of anybody who does that
to you if somebody hurt you and you tell
them even if it's a small thing and they
say something like oh my gosh you're too
sensitive you're overreacting blah blah
blah beware of those people they are not
your friends they are not a good friend
or partner or therapist if you're
therapist tells you that run ideally
someone you're talking to or if you're
doing this by yourself you will tell
yourself things like I understand why
you feel
XYZ it makes sense that XYZ made you
feel
XYZ you are allowed to feel XYZ your
friend or therapist might also say I am
so sorry that you went through that I'm
so sorry that happened to you step
number three is to figure out what
you're going to do moving forward once
you've done steps number one and two do
not expect the emotion to never come up
again it will come up again because
people will unknowingly trigger you in
the future do not be angry at yourself
when the emotion comes up again for
feeling hurt again because that is
completely normal and fine but it should
feel lighter each time that it comes up
again and again and again eventually the
same trigger might happen but it won't
trigger you anymore and that is how you
know you fully processed the emotion if
somebody hurts you you acknowledge your
feelings and you name it to them they
apologize their apology needs to include
an intent of not doing that again or
doing better next time and if they don't
say how they're going to act differently
next time to avoid hurting you think
about whether you want that person in
your life because someone who loves you
they're going to want to do everything
they can to protect your feelings just
think about whether you want them in
your life if you're processing stuff on
your own but it was caused by another
person but you never said anything think
about maybe you want to talk to them
whether it's this time or next time
decide if they do that again I'm going
to bring it up and feel empowered in
deciding that because you are taking a
step to to love yourself and to protect
yourself basically so you should feel
proud for doing that if they won't
apologize then you can either slowly cut
contact with them if that's possible for
you or you can decide when they do it
again because they will do it again I
will not take it as personally next time
I'll know what to do and their word will
hurt you less each time that it happens
and each time that you process it this
way like I said the emotion will come
back in the future but every time that
you do this it's going to get easier and
then the final step to processing an
emotion is employing a healthy coping
mechanism what is a healthy coping
mechanism you might ask good question
basically it's anything that gives your
feelings a physical form but in a safe
way for everybody for yourself and other
people it's something that leaves the
Mind free to wander but your body's like
busy with something else for example
exercise if you're feeling really angry
and you have a gym membership where you
can go and punch something go do that if
you want to go to the treadmill and like
run for an hour go do that if you want
to go to the gym and lift some weights
and that helps you release your anger do
that that's perfect then there's
journaling there's writing things out as
they come to you when I'm feeling
something negative it's like really hard
for me to write it down for some reason
I feel a lot of resistance to it it's
almost like I don't want to make the
feeling like too real like once I write
it down it's going to become too real or
it's going to manifest like in a
physical way some way I need to think
about something for a while before I can
Journal about it if you're like feeling
the urge to write it out to write like a
an angry letter or something to whoever
hurts you listen to whatever your body
is telling you there talking obviously
like I mentioned multiple times either
talking to a therapist or talking to a
friend or talking to a partner this also
gives your feelings a physical form it's
you're turning it into a sound that
other people are able to perceive
there's crafting of any kind doing
something with your hands whether it's
drawing painting crochet it can be just
taking away walk see how long you're
able to walk without any external
distractions like a podcast or music
sometimes I need to have music or a
podcast to be able to think and wander
because like I don't feel safe thinking
about my feelings in silence so if
that's how you feel that's fine too but
I do try to first see if I can take the
silence for at least 5 minutes and then
I'll let myself put on whatever podcast
music audio book cleaning is also a
perfect healthy coping mechanism because
it's like a physical release you're like
sweating you're doing something with
your body but your mind is again free to
think and wander and Ponder something
that really helps me also is taking a
shower shower thoughts have been a
phenomenon that people have been talking
about forever because again while you're
showering you're doing something with
your body like on autopilot and your
mind is able to wander just perfect for
processing emotions also you process
emotions in your sleep too so make sure
you're getting enough sleep and that is
all I have for this mini unplanned
episode about how to process an emotion
this has been Sab with the scatter brain
pod see you next time
浏览更多相关视频
How to Control Your Emotions: Become a Stoic | The Grant Mitt Podcast #86
how to MASTER your emotions | emotional intelligence
How to Process Your Emotions
Cách THẬT SỰ yêu, lắng nghe bản thân? (Q+A)
How To Master Your Emotions: A Guide to Emotional Intelligence
Releasing Negative Emotions From The Chakras
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)