Fear, anger, anxiety, and shame are the 4 most common feelings that risk holding your recovery back from completely thriving. Sometimes, we need a bit of help to really, tangibly begin to let them go. Two of the biggest reasons for this are that 1) we believe we deserve to feel them, and 2) We don’t know how to disengage from the pattern that they play in our lives. First, we need to understand how thoughts and emotions work from deep within us. Remember, the brain is pliable. Instead of fighting against it, we can make it our very own playground for change. Essentially, emotions are a response of our most basic human brain function. This primal, emotional quick-response system helps us react to the world around us in a jiffy. Often, it sets off impulse reactions before we even know that it’s happened. Unfortunately, these emotional reactions don’t always turn into the feelings that we actually need. In order to react in a way that is good for us, we have to retrain our brains.
Electric & Chemical Reactions
Feelings are what develop after certain emotional memory or reaction responses are triggered within our brain. The thought or stimuli interpretations are electrical messages in the brain that fire off additional responses throughout the body. These electrical responses are followed by chemical chain reactions. Our internal chemical responses result in emotions. Basically, our minds take that powerful emotion and turn it into something even more powerful if we don’t actively intervene: the feeling that we are going to base our behavioral response upon. This can be dangerous because, FEELINGS AREN’T FACTS, and additionally, the past clouds our experience of the present. As emotional charges flash over us, our brains compare that emotion to every experience we’ve had with that particular emotion before. Everything that we’ve known up until that moment comes back into play. Thus, we either react or respond. Reactions are usually impulsive and automatic. Responses are consciously thought out. The choice between the two is ours. When you’re working to change or repair your automatic reactions to the world around you, you need to know how you actually feel about certain common emotions, in the specific moment at hand. It’s also beneficial to monitor emotions and choose a course forward based on logic.
4 Common Feelings That Stunt Your Growth
FEAR
“You’re scared of what life will be like now. You may be fearful about your ability to cope emotionally, or you may be uncertain about practical concerns like money, raising the children, or where you’ll live. You may just feel afraid, without really knowing why.”
When your emotions scream fear, do you fight or flee? Do you react to feeling afraid through action or inaction? Sometimes, we develop a tendency to relive all the past situations of our lives when we simply feel fear in the present, no matter how fleeting. As a result, we may have fallen into a mind trap that causes us to immediately have a trauma reaction to the situation at hand. Sometimes, the situation at hand isn’t actually a traumatic crisis…even if it immediately feels that way.
- S.T.O.P. Stop. Take a step back from the situation. Observe what’s actually happening. Plan and proceed accordingly.
ANGER
“Anger often feels like a physical thing. Your muscles tense up, and you may feel like yelling
at someone or hitting something. Your rage may be aimed at yourself or your lost loved one,
or you may find yourself getting angry at other people, society, or your spiritual beliefs.”
Over time, the anger emotion causes one of the most conditioned responses to any emotion that you will experience during your life. The feeling of being angry is something that everyone develops certain thoughts about and immediate reactions to. Feeling angry is very likely to cause you to act in a way that impulsively makes the current situation worse, instead of helping to actually solve any inherent problem.
- BREATHE. When anger washes over you and you start feeling the need to react to that anger, take a moment, close your eyes, and count to 10.
ANXIETY
“Anxiety is distinct from fear and is often a generalized feeling. If you’re afraid, at least you
know what scares you. If you’re anxious, on the other hand, you’re likely to feel agitated
without knowing exactly why. You may experience cold sweats, hyperactivity, or edginess.”
It is common to develop anxiety over people, places, and things with which you may have had negative experiences in the past. Sometimes, we may have experienced so many negative things that anxiety begins to disrupt our ability to do all kinds of things that we need to do as healthy adults. The key to changing your feelings about anxiety is to recognize when anxious emotion is arresting you, and ground yourself in the moment. Think rationally, not emotionally.
- Take a deep breath. Focus on the floor beneath your feet, and feel the weight of your body as you stand upon it. Know that the ground is not going to swallow you whole, and your anxiety won’t either if you don’t let it.
SHAME
“You may feel that you should be getting over your feelings, or maybe ashamed to show them
in front of family, friends, and others. You may also harbor feelings about the death, or the fact
that you are still alive, that feels shameful to you and are difficult to share with others.”
For whatever reason, we sometimes start to feel like we are not as worthy as the people around us. We want to hide our truths because we feel that they will judge us harshly, as they may done in the past. Shame is one of those things that we try to bury so deep that it festers until we can own it and let it go. It is baggage that only you can decide when it’s time to unpack and lighten your load.
- REMEMBER There is no shame in your humanity. You are not the first person to make mistakes, nor will you be the last. You have the responsibility to take accountability for your actions and the opportunity to make amends and move forward. If others choose to be stuck on the events of the past, that is not your burden to carry. There is no shame in forgiveness.
Keep In Mind
- You don’t have to feed every emotion with so much feeling, and vice versa.
- Take the time to understand your emotions, and everything that you associate with fear, anger, anxiety, and shame.
- Think about how you typically react to each of these emotions?
- Are your feelings about each emotion logical? Do they serve you well?
- Ask yourself how else could you react to this emotion?
- What would make you feel better about these difficult emotions?
The mind can be either a complicated or playful place. It’s all about your personal perception. On any journey, you will learn so much about yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. The ideal hope is that it will transform the way that you view yourself and the wider world. You don’t be a victim of your emotions, and with a little practice, it’s easy to make peace with them. Learn to harness your feelings in a way that truly helps you heal your habits. When this happens, you empower your capability to reach your goals. Just because you’ve always reacted to certain emotions in a particular way; doesn’t mean that it’s the only way. Why not play around with something different.
Recovery Is Possible!