Self-Regulation ABC: What If a Strong Emotion Floods You?

2. How to Respond to Strong Emotions

Now for a completely different topic. This is no longer about returning from a panic or emotional attack. This is about situations when you recognise a strong emotion inside yourself and need to choose what to do with it. For now I’ve chosen four: anger, envy, sadness and anxiety. Not because there aren’t other emotions — there are countless ones. It’s simply that these feel fairly recognisable to me and can strongly affect a person: some can explode outward, others can push into complete freeze.

** 😡 Anger.** 
If you feel very strong anger — pure rage or a quiet anger you can’t ignore — the best thing is not to rush into action. Wait until you can make sure that your reaction is truly the one you need. This doesn’t mean you have to do nothing. Maybe you need to say something, take action, set a boundary, or maybe the best response is not to react at all. The most important thing is to wait for your own agreement with that action. Not only the emotional part (“I’m angry, therefore I act”), but also the part of you that can calmly evaluate: “Yes. I truly support what I’m about to do.”

** 😒 Envy.**
If you feel strong envy that seems to flood your whole self, try asking yourself: “What do I actually want?” Because sometimes the specific thing, quality or life situation in another person that triggers dissatisfaction is exactly what you feel you lack yourself. Then you can direct yourself in that direction. If it’s beauty — move toward beauty. If physical strength — get stronger. If body shape — shape your own body. If professional skills — develop them in yourself. In other words, channel the energy created by envy into what you yourself want more of. Envy can become not a reason to attack another person, but a pointer: “This direction is important to me.”

** 😔 Sadness.** 
Strong sadness can turn into apathy, and in apathy it’s very easy to stop moving altogether. So my response here is simple: do something. But not just anything — something that is pleasant for you. Listen to music, take out the rubbish if that will make the room feel nicer, go for a swim, do some crafts, play an instrument, eat a tasty piece of cake, stroke a dog, go to the shooting range. Whatever it is — do something that is pleasant for you, even if you don’t feel like it at the moment. Action breaks the freeze, the pleasure of doing something softens the gloom, and the mood and desire to act come later.

** 😰 Anxiety.** 
If you feel strong anxiety that even makes your body tremble — the kind where it finally feels like you can only lie in the foetal position — the neutralising response is even simpler: you need to act. Anything. Get up, go into another room, make a sandwich, reply to a friend, tidy something, wash yourself, get dressed, go outside. Start any simple action. Anxiety really loves freeze, so sometimes the first step is simply to move. The hardest part, of course, is starting when you are completely frozen, so begin with the very smallest action.

Why did I gather all this?
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There are countless ways to get out of similar states, and endless emotions and their combinations. For now I simply wanted to put the basic tools in one place that a person can choose and use. In the first part — when you need to quickly reclaim yourself from complete inner chaos. In the second — when you already recognise what you feel and don’t want to keep spinning in that emotional state, but want to become active and confident again. These are not the same thing. Sometimes you first need to return to yourself. And sometimes you are fully in yourself, you simply feel huge anger, envy, sadness or anxiety and need to know where to direct that emotion.

​That’s all for now. :)
Maybe later I’ll add other emotions and other responses. But for this time I wanted a simple beginning — not so that a person would give in to the temptation of trying never to feel strong emotions (that is impossible), but so that a strong emotion does not necessarily have to become their driver.