Expressing Your Feeling Before They Become Destructive

One of the problems with feeling negative about life is that although we are all born with the ability to express a whole range of emotions such as pain terror, joy, rage, sadness, happiness etc., we are also often brought up to keep our negative emotions hidden. For example, you’ll all have witnessed the mother in the shop talking to the young child and saying things like, “Don’t you dare cry” or “Be quiet!” or “Stop screaming now!”

Therefore, as we get older, some of us have been virtually ‘trained’ to keep negative feelings repressed and bottled up inside rather than run the risk of being reprimanded or made fun of.

This in turn leads us to lose touch with the world in some way. Our emotions and the full range of those emotions are what connects us to the world and allows us to make sense of the world and what we experience within it. Therefore, when we block our feelings, it can make us tense, sick, tired and unhappy.

Letting Your Feelings Out

For people who keep their negative feelings buried deep inside and don’t share them with a soul, it’s a recipe for disaster and will often lead to an eruption of emotions that can also trigger off a violent response. What makes this worse is that it’s often a person not associated with you in any way who can bear the brunt of this outrage or, alternatively, you can vent your anger on those that you love the most and desperately don’t want to hurt. Therefore, it is necessary to reprogram yourself to understand that it is perfectly OK to express any negative feelings as long as you do so in an appropriate and controlled manner.

Ways of Releasing

People have many various techniques for releasing their emotions and what works for some might not work for others but it’s important to try out new methods of getting rid of your inner frustrations if you are aware that they are in danger of getting out of control.

Some people take a deep breath and actually encourage the feelings of negativity to rise and surface through their bodies and then to visually imagine those feelings pouring out of them like a tidal wave. And, they can achieve this peacefully and in silence without letting those emotions take control over them. They simply think of the emotions as waves that will peak and then pass, reminding themselves that they are just feelings and that they cannot harm them.

Others will write down their feelings or draw pictures or engage in some other kind of creative activity to get their feelings out that way.

Others will engage in a sporting activity to get their frustrations out. That doesn’t necessarily mean taking up boxing and punching the living daylights out of your opponent – you can equally get rid of a lot of pent up frustrations with a racquet and ball, for example. Any form of energetic physical exercise is often very good for releasing frustrations.

Reprogramming Yourself

There are many other techniques people will turn to in an effort to express their feelings appropriately before they become destructive. Some will take up yoga or something even more radical like primal scream therapy. As mentioned earlier, it’s all about rediscovering and reprogramming yourself and determining what works best for you.

What is crucial however, is that if you do think that your emotional response to negative feelings could place you or others at risk of physical harm, then it is important to speak with an anger management professional who will be able to work out the best solution for you.