Emotions

In a Bad Place

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If you feel like you’re in a bad place the best thing you can do for yourself is to let yourself be consciously aware of the fact. Your emotions are probably exerting a more powerful pull over your thinking than your rational, logical side, and as we all know this can compel you to say or do things you normally wouldn’t say or do, only to deal with the consequences later.

The problem in such states of being is that thoughts and emotions are running wild and you don’t take the time to center yourself, coming back to the present moment through your breathing,  just giving yourself a chance to observe the situation without acting. Sometimes action is necessary but you want to control your actions, not let your actions control you. It’s okay to say to yourself “I’m feeling out of control right now” or “I’m in a bad place” and you’ll find that the very act of consciously recognizing it will slow you down and probably make you feel a little better.

Dialectical behavioral therapy has a lot to offer in the realm of emotions. There is a four part sequence that is pretty useful if you feel like you’re in a bad place. It is to: observe your emotion, experience your emotion fully, remember you are not your emotion, and practice mindful acceptance of your emotion. The point of this four part sequence is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling an emotion, even when you view it as negative. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being in a bad place, there’s only something wrong with feeling compelled to act in a way that harms you or someone else because of it.

Unpleasant states of being will pass in their own time if you just give them the chance to, and you don’t want to do something during that period that you’ll end up regretting. It’s easy to lose sight of who you are most of the time when you’re caught up in the whirlwind though. By mindfully coming to your breathing and then going through the four part sequence outlined above you’ll minimize the damage that being in a bad place can do to you and put yourself back in the driver’s seat of your own life.