3 Focused Steps to Find Emotional Calm during a Storm of Emotions

INTRO

Do you sometimes feel as if you are being carried away by waves of emotions? What does that look like exactly? When cruise ships encounter active waves and choppy waters, the captain may caution the passengers to be careful while navigating the ship.
If you have ever been on a cruise when the ship navigated into rough waters, you probably had to hold on to steady yourself as you walked. The ship probably rocked side to side or left to right. Your stomach may have turned upside down. You settled yourself by sitting or holding on. What do you do when emotions crash? In this blog post, we are going to share “3 Focused Steps to Find Emotional Calm and Stability Amidst the Storm.”

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BACKGROUND

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a modality that I often use with my clients. In traditional CBT, we work together to identify thought patterns, and thought content that cause harm or distress. The goal is to reframe or change the thought patterns or content.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness behavior therapy. It is one of the modalities that is considered a third wave of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The goal is to live a life with meaning while acknowledging that life also has painful experiences. Instead of reframing or changing thoughts or thought patterns, ACT encourages one to change the relationship one has with thoughts related to painful experiences.

3 FOCUSED STEPS

An activity that I often use with clients who are experiencing numerous emotions and emotional thoughts is called Dropping Anchor. This is part of my Positive Psychology Toolbox. Positive Psychology provides high quality research-based resources to clinical professionals for use with their clients. In a session I will review the steps, practice with my client, and then give them a handout to take home to encourage practice. I will share the steps and rationale below.

Acknowledge your emotional state.
So often we are not honest with ourselves regarding the emotions we feel. We may have been discouraged, as a child, from expressing negative emotions. Perhaps we were punished, ignored, or shamed by authority figures in our lives for expressing emotions that they considered unacceptable. Regardless of the reason, some suppress emotions rather than express them. This includes a refusal to name and tag them for reference. When acknowledging your emotional state, it is important to consider thoughts, feelings, memories, and body sensations to fully understand the scope of the emotion.

Come back to your body.
This is a grounding activity that enables us to experience he uncomfortable sensations in our body that arise from the negative thought or painful emotion. I may have a client press their feet into the floor to feel the firmness of the floor. It doesn’t move and holds us up. I may also encourage them to press their hands into their thighs, stretch their arms, out or roll their shoulders. One of my favorite grounding activities is to have my client take several deep breaths. The grounding activity occurs while they are acknowledging how they feel.

Re-engage in the environment.
Finally, I guide my client to re-engage with the present moment. Coming back to what I call the “right here and right now” space. The client is guided to notice a specific number of items they can see, hear, touch. This is a mindfulness exercise that I often share.

This 3-step process is a helpful tool to use when feeling overwhelming emotions. It requires practice to make it an automatic response. I encourage you to work with a licensed clinical professional to gain more insight and support for your mental health concerns.

Marcyline Bailey is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the State of Georgia and a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers. She is the owner of M.L. Bailey Consultants, LLC, a private therapy practice that specializes in grief, loss, anxiety, and depression. Ms. Bailey is the host of “Stress Talk” a video and audio podcast that focuses on helping women live healthy lives through strategic stress management and solution focused self-care. Learn more

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