Managing feelings
This page highlights key points and links to my articles on managing feelings. Explore these ideas to better understand your feelings and build a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
A feeling is an emotional state we experience in response to situations, often shaped by our subjective thoughts about them. When we judge a situation as good or helpful, we feel a pleasant feeling, which we label as positive—such as happiness, joy, satisfaction, gratitude, awe, or excitement. When we see a situation as bad or harmful, we feel an unpleasant feeling, which we label as negative—such as sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, guilt, boredom, shame, envy, contempt, disgust, disappointment, or frustration.
However, some feelings arise automatically before we have time to think, like the fear triggered by a sudden loud noise. This happens because the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing instinctive feelings, reacts instantly to potential threats. It sends signals through a sort of superhighway to the body before the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, has a chance to evaluate the situation.
The goal of managing our feelings is to support our well-being and growth—the same goal as managing our thoughts. By nurturing helpful feelings and addressing unhelpful ones, we can take meaningful steps toward building the life we want.
All articles
The articles below explore approaches that may help with managing feelings. These ideas are shared for general educational purposes and aren’t a replacement for professional advice. If a feeling is causing significant distress or getting in the way of your well-being, it might be helpful to talk to a licensed therapist or mental health professional for support and guidance.
Keep in mind, not all approaches work the same way for everyone. What helps one person might not work for someone else, and the only way to know what works for you is to try it out.
🔗 How to reduce the impact of unpleasant feelings
We often try to avoid, suppress, or get rid of unpleasant feelings because we prefer feeling good and want to avoid discomfort. However, this approach can backfire. The more we try to escape or fight difficult feelings, the more they tend to return, trapping us in a cycle of increasing discomfort. If we stop fighting them and simply let them be, they won’t cause as much trouble. Though we may not like them, we save ourselves from extra suffering by not wasting energy fighting, numbing, or distracting ourselves. This way, our feelings can come and go naturally. We can reduce the impact of unpleasant feelings by letting go of judgments about them, making space for them in our bodies, and acting in line with what is important to us.
🔗 Why you’re not meant to feel happy all the time
Happiness is not the natural state of human beings. We are made to survive and reproduce, not to be happy all the time. Constant happiness would make us less vigilant to potential threats. There’s nothing wrong with you if you feel unhappy now and then. Let go of the idea that you should always be happy. This misconception sets you up for an impossible battle: the battle against your own human nature. Instead, accept your difficult feelings and focus on what’s important to you.
🔗 Uncover the unhelpful beliefs behind your difficult feelings
Most feelings come and go naturally, but sometimes a difficult feeling lingers or feels much stronger than necessary. These intense or persistent feelings are often influenced by our thoughts. By exploring what’s beneath the surface of feelings, we can uncover underlying beliefs and learn how to understand and manage our feelings more effectively.
🔗 Zooming out: Dealing with intense feelings by taking a step back
Frequent intense feelings like frustration, anxiety, depression, fear, or anger can greatly disrupt our everyday lives. When we experience these feelings, it's hard to see the situation objectively. Our focus narrows, we fall back on automatic habits that are often unhelpful, and we think less clearly. By zooming out in the moment, we can gain a clearer understanding of ourselves by observing our thoughts, feelings, and actions from a distance, almost like we're having an out-of-body experience. When we approach the situation with curiosity, we can discover new perspectives and insights that lead to better solutions and personal growth.
🔗 Improve how you feel by changing your focus
What you focus on shapes how you feel. Dwelling on negatives can distort reality, making problems seem bigger than they are. Shifting your focus to positive aspects creates a more balanced perspective, fostering hope, calm, happiness, confidence, and resilience.
🔗 Dealing with stress from everyday hassles
Research shows that how you react to daily hassles can have a big impact on your emotional well-being, physical health, and even how long you live. It’s not the number of hassles you face, but how much you stress over them that causes problems. Taking small annoyances in stride and moving on helps protect you from the ongoing stress they can create.
🔗 Assessing the importance of situations and decisions
Don’t fret over unimportant situations—save your energy for those with major long-term consequences for your well-being, happiness, relationships, or goals. A simple way to gauge importance is to sort situations into three categories: trivial (no lasting impact), moderate (some impact but not significant), and high (major long-term consequences).
Taking a moment each day to reflect on your experiences can greatly help you manage unhelpful thoughts and feelings. By considering the situations that upset you and exploring how to shift your perspective, you’ll become less affected by what others say or do. This practice can lead to experiencing fewer negative emotions and greater emotional resilience.
Feelings are personal, subjective interpretations and may not always reflect objective reality. They can be influenced by biases, past experiences, and current circumstances, whereas facts are typically verifiable and independent of individual perception. You can have your own feelings, but not your own facts. Emotional reasoning is a cognitive distortion where you think your feelings about a situation prove that something is true, even if the facts show otherwise. You ignore what's really happening because you mistake your feelings for facts and see them as evidence of reality. We shouldn’t believe everything we feel, and allow all unpleasant feelings to be.
🔗 Harnessing the power of shame
Shame is the painful feeling that arises when we believe we’re not good enough. It’s tied to our basic psychological need to belong. But shame can also be a source of strength—it reveals something we deeply want, a desire hidden beneath the discomfort. Instead of pushing shame away, we can embrace it and let it guide us toward what truly matters to us.
References
The happiness trap, by Dr Russ Harris