Talk it out

Renee Singh

Some people are particularly more vulnerable to stress than others. This is something that makes us wonder all the time. Emotions interrupt good rational thought and make us behave in less than sensible ways.

Many emotions

You are often told ‘don’t be so emotional’, if you are the type who’s wallowing in self-pity and feeling sorry for yourself over everything.

The brain has a habit of scanning everything in the world around us. We can identify with our own emotional scale by observing our own emotional activity.

Draw attention

The emotion we experience will draw our attention to something the brain identifies as significant which is happening. It then reacts to it in anger anxiety or fear.

Do something

If there is danger we have the ‘fight or flight syndrome’ taking over. This is a response according to which without thinking we react in a situation.

Decision making

This capacity to make decisions gets influenced if some emotion is covered, and associated with negative consequences. In this scenario each given situation will trigger anxiety.

Suppressing emotions

Emotions are like automatic reactions. But human beings have a tendency to control, so they suppress emotions, they think in this way the emotion will go away. But stress starts building within.

We want to avoid pain and all the uncomfortable unpleasant and unwanted realities of life; so, it becomes an instinctive suppression of emotion within us. This is often at the root of something that is more serious, which one is avoiding.

Suppressing becomes a habit and then a pattern further leading to a comfort zone in a particular situation.

We push down the emotion hoping it will go away of course it doesn’t, you need to see where it’s coming from.

Trying to suppress emotion is like putting an angry dog in a box. We may shut the lid on it but it keeps barking inside when you open it. Emotional attack is very painful and overwhelming.

Pulling yourself together

We make it a habit to suppress emotion and this is something we really need to consciously get rid of.

Take a deep breath and ignore the emotional upheaval. You need to carry on regardless.

Long-term stress if not handled creates anxiety that triggers fears. We start imagining a lot of things that would create a negative impact on our lives.

Self doubt

‘I m so useless I can’t get it right or I’m always messing up with everything’ these thoughts always have triggers. These emotions make us vulnerable to stress and anxiety and many times press panic buttons.

This kind of emotion leads to panic attacks and Obsessive Compulsive disorder (OCD). It is our brains way of keeping itself happy.

Happiness would be to discuss the underlying fear and then assess the pattern of thinking, and the belief system responsible for these negative thoughts and behaviour.

We need to get a grip on our emotions. Handle them sensibly and in a firm manner. For many of us different ways of handling emotions would apply. This would definitely be in accordance with our inherent individual temperament.

Meditation, concentration, self-discipline, practising different forms of yoga, listening to music, indulging in creative pursuits would be idyllic. Self-discovery is the key to emotional healing. Know yourself before you walk the path.

(Renee is a Chandigarh-based psychotherapist)