How to Control Your Emotions
If you sometimes (or often) feel like you have no control over your emotions, you are not alone. Many people who come to therapy describe themselves as feeling like they don’t know how to stop themselves from feeling unwanted feelings, and having strong undesirable reactions to seemingly small events in daily life that they believe they “should be able to handle” but in fact feel totally overwhelmed by.
Whether your response to the unwanted feelings is to run away from them using substances, social media, movies or other forms of distraction; to fight them by blaming and attacking yourself, loved ones, or other external forces; or to find yourself frozen with indecision and uncertainty; what is occurring inside you before you have a chance to think is similar.
Your nervous system is responding to emotions as a threat.
Before we go into how to address this problem, it is important to understand that these responses are only a problem when they occur against our conscious will. Your body responds to stimuli the way it does for many reasons, all of which are intended by nature (aka your body) to help you protect yourself and respond to [perceived] threats quickly and efficiently. Your emotional reactions themselves aren’t actually a problem until and unless they don’t match the real life situation that is actually occurring, either in proportion or suitability.
So what is the solution to strong unwanted emotions? Believe it or not, our goal is not to eradicate them. It is to learn, on multiple levels of consciousness, how to allow and accept them, without letting them automatically determine your actions.
Only once you are able to recognize, allow, and accept your emotions, can you then make a thoughtful and informed decision about how best to respond to how you feel with action.
A number of therapies and practices exist to help you learn how to do this on cognitive, emotional, and unconscious levels. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is one of them. In my practice, I employ some of the principles and techniques of EFT — Emotionally-Focused Therapy — to this end. I also bring in elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help clients gain emotional self-awareness, improve executive function and ultimately learn emotional self-regulation.
And, both within therapy as a technique we can try together, as well as a suggested form of “homework” outside of therapy, I often suggest that my clients consider trying out a mindfulness practice to support their ability to identify the somatic indicators of emotional states, allow and tolerate the experience of these sensations, and slowly learn to accept them as a natural, expected, and acceptable part of everyday human experience — not as a threat that requires a strong reaction.
Of course, if you like the idea of practicing mindfulness, you do not need a therapist or mindfulness guru to teach you how to do it. The internet abounds in mindfulness resources of every conceivable flavour. I strongly encourage clients who are interested in mindfulness to try many types of practice before deciding whether or not meditation is “for them.”
One consideration to keep in mind before you start searching for resources is the degree to which you are tolerant of or enjoy the language of spirituality and religion. Mindfulness practices have historically gone hand-in-hand with spiritual practice, most famously as the central component of a regular practice of Buddhism, though many other spiritual traditions incorporate some form of mindfulness. If you are interested in finding a particular teacher who feels like a fit for you, I have listed a few options below in order of secularity.
If you lean more toward atheism or agnosticism, and prefer that your mindfulness practice feel more concrete and practical, I recommend Jon Kabbatt-Zinn, an American medical doctor who has written at length about the health benefits of meditation and mindfulness, and whose 8-week course called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is offered by medical institutions across North America. In some cases the cost of the course is even covered by government health insurance plans, and free versions can also be found online. Kabbat-Zinn’s website lists his many other publications, courses, and resources, including a subscription-based meditation app, for which there is also a free option.
If you are comfortable with spirituality, have perhaps seen the inside of a few yoga studios, and are interested in learning more about Buddhist Psychology (with lots of other spiritual traditions mixed in), you might enjoy the work of Tara Brach, an American meditation teacher who has a PhD in Clinical Psychology. Brach has written several books on meditation, as well as the practice of radical acceptance, and gives regular talks about meditation, mindfulness, and self-compassion, which are published freely on her website, along with paid and free resources and mindfulness meditations. These can also be found on most podcast or music apps.
Finally, if you are comfortable with Buddhist ideas and want to dig deeper into this topic from one of our era’s foremost thought leaders, I encourage you to explore the work of Thích Nhất Hạnh, founder of the Plum Village monastery and worldwide mindfulness community. Sadly, Thích Nhất Hạnh passed away in 2022, after a lifetime of peace activism and spiritual leadership. Many of his public talks, teachings, and meditations can be found on Youtube, and more information about his teachings on the art of mindful living can be found on the Plum Village website. Plum Village also has a free app where many English teachings and meditations by Zen masters in the Plum Village tradition can be found.
If you are curious about meditation and mindfulness but aren’t sure what it entails, or would like a brief introduction to what a simple mindfulness practice might look like, I have shared a description of a basic practice, along with some common pitfalls, here.
