Dealing with Difficult Emotions

Happiness and joy are wonderful emotions—but they aren't the only ones. It's human to feel sadness, anger, fear, guilt, envy, disgust, and other difficult emotions. It's normal to have those difficult feelings when life is not going as you'd like it to—when you face loss, failure, unfairness, abandonment, and other traumas and disappointments.

Psychologist Susan David presents a model that can help you deal with difficult emotions productively and move past them, rather than ignoring them, ruminating on them in an amplifying cycle, or trying to suppress them with false positivity. By recognizing and dealing with difficult emotions, you're building resilience for facing future difficulties. You're learning to live in the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.

Recognize the full range of your emotions.

With the modern emphasis on happiness and positivity ("Cheer up." "Count your blessings." "Look on the bright side.") and cultural norms that discourage the expression of difficult emotions ("Don't cry." "Be strong."), many people have trouble even identifying difficult feelings and emotions. It's telling that they're labeled "negative" emotions, while happiness and joy are labeled "positive" emotions.

David proposes that all emotions have value—that recognizing the full range of your emotions is an important step toward mental health and the realization of your potential. Emotions in themselves aren't "good" or "bad," she explains. They provide information about your values and what's important to you. It's how you act in response to those emotions that can either hold you back in life or propel you forward.

Don't deny or bottle up difficult emotions.

One common response to difficult emotions is to ignore or suppress them. Difficult emotions can certainly be uncomfortable. However, when you push them aside or try to bottle them up, they tend to spill out anyway, often at inconvenient times and in unproductive ways. By ignoring or dismissing difficult emotions, you're also distorting your view of the world. You're forcing yourself to see things as you want them to be, rather than looking honestly at things as they are. Emotions, even difficult ones, are important points of information.

Don't brew or ruminate on difficult emotions.

Another common response to difficult emotions is to ruminate on them. A little rumination can be productive if it helps you examine the emotion and consider what's triggering it. However, full-blown rumination—stewing about what has made you angry or overcriticizing yourself for what has made you feel guilty—becomes a self-destructive cycle. You're stuck thinking the same painful thoughts and feeling the same uncomfortable emotions over and over again, amplifying the difficult emotions instead of dealing with them.

Label your emotions.

As you experience difficult emotions, notice and label them as specifically as possible. This can take practice if you're new to it. You might feel sad, but can you be more precise? Are you lonely? Grieving a loss? Feeling excluded or ignored? If you're feeling stressed, is it that you're overwhelmed by work demands, irritated by the way someone is behaving, tense from a fear of failure, or anxious about overdue bills? The more specifically you can name your emotions, the more effectively you'll be able to deal with them.

Examine your emotions with curiosity and compassion.

In the practice of mindfulness, you focus your thoughts on the present moment, clearing your mind of thoughts about the past and the future. An important part of the present moment is how you feel right now. In the practice of mindfulness, the goal is to notice and accept how you feel without judgment.

Whether it's using mindfulness or another method, your goal in dealing with difficult emotions is to examine them with curiosity and compassion. Recognize all of your emotions, even the difficult ones, and accept them as real. Don't dismiss them with false positivity. Don't wallow in them in a rumination cycle. Don't judge yourself for having "bad" emotions, but don't let them drive you, either. Accept difficult emotions for what they are: your feelings at the moment. They could be wild overreactions to a situation, or they could be appropriate responses to a hurt or injustice. Use them to gain insight into your values, your needs, and what's important to you. As David puts it, "Emotions are data; they are not directives. We own our emotions; they don't own us."

Create space between your emotions and yourself.

You can't choose your emotions, but you can choose how you respond to them. Stephen Covey framed an important concept of Victor Frankl's in these words: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Everyone has difficult emotions, but you don't need to let those emotions define you or drive your behavior. Create space between you as a person and the emotions you are feeling.

One way to do this is to notice a building emotion and take time to pause and examine it. Count to 10 (or to 100 or 1,000). Take deep breaths to calm yourself. Consider the emotion and what it is telling you. Then think about how to respond in a way that's aligned with your values and the person you want to be while recognizing the reality of the situation. That might be to speak up if you're feeling ignored or overlooked—but in a productive way that gets at the source of the problem you've observed. It might be to keep quiet for the moment and find a way to respond at another time—without losing sight of the problem your emotions have helped you identify. It might be to accept that you are grieving a loss and allow yourself to feel sad.

Another way to help create this space is to reframe "I am" statements like "I am sad," or "I am mad," into observations of your emotions. Statements like "I notice that I am feeling sad," or "I notice that I am feeling angry," separate you—your character, your personality, your values—from the emotions you are feeling and gives you space to choose a response. They help you step back and examine what might have triggered the emotion and explore why you are having the emotional reaction. Within that space, you'll be better able to choose your response.

Journaling and professional therapy are also helpful ways to recognize your emotions, label them with more specificity, and create space between your emotions and your responses.

Choose your response based on your values.

As you create space between your emotional reactions and your responses to those emotions, and between yourself as a person and your emotional reactions to the situations you face, choose your response based on your values. Your emotions can be clues to those values. David refers to them as signposts. If you feel angry about an injustice, either one you observe or one you hear or read about, that can be a sign that you care about fairness and equality. If you are frustrated by being ignored, that could be a sign that you have something important to say and should find ways to express yourself in ways that you are heard.

Gradually change your habits of responding to difficult emotions.

It can take time to change lifelong habits of responding to difficult emotions. You may have been raised to hide or bottle "negative" emotions, to buck up and get over your sadness or never to express your anger. You may have settled so deeply into a rumination habit that it can be hard to break the self-fueling cycle. As with changing any habit, the key to dealing with difficult emotions is to start small and take it one step at a time.

As you improve your ability to notice your emotions and label them more precisely, take pride in that personal growth. It's important progress. Congratulate yourself when you are able to change an automatic and unhelpful reaction to a difficult emotion to a response based on your values. Observe how your ability to accept the full range of emotions and choose your response strengthens your relationships and frees you to be true to yourself. Each small step you take strengthens your new approach and gradually builds into a new habit of healthier emotional living.

For More Information

David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. New York: Avery.

David, S., & Congleton, C. (2013, November). Emotional agility. Harvard Business Review. Link opens in a new windowhttps://hbr.org/2013/11/emotional-agility

David, S. (2017, November). The gift and power of emotional courage [Video]. TED Conferences. Link opens in a new windowhttps://www.ted.com/talks/susan_david_the_gift_and_power_of_emotional_courage