5 Tips for Integrating Difficult Emotions, in Difficult Times

In this present time, you may discover there are an abundance of challenges to face, either personally, professionally, or at the community, institutional, or systemic level. You may find yourself charged and stirred up over all sorts of topics or issues on the local, regional, national, or international stage. So, what’s it like to experience difficult emotions and how do we work with these emotions to integrate them into our daily lives?

In general, this is a relevant and familiar topic for most of us, even though the details of each circumstance and situation may seem to vary with unique details. I’m going to explore this topic based on both personal experience and also on broad knowledge from the fields of neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, psychology and behavioral science, mindfulness based stress reduction, and meditation.

My intention is to be helpful in supporting you with information that may be useful to apply in your daily life. So, here are five daily tips for integrating difficult emotions:

Tip #1: Tune in and experience the emotion

Tune in to the emotion and create a gentle space for an awareness of what the emotional sensation feels like in your body and what it sounds or looks like in the mind. You can notice and observe where in your body there is a sensation that has arisen (maybe in your abdomen or stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, throat, face, or head). Sometimes it may present as a tightness, warmth or coolness, or other types of sensations.

Often times it will be a familiar type of sensation that you’ve noticed before in the same or similar location of your body. It may be connected with the same type of emotional experiences (anger, frustration, jealousy, resentment, hurt, sadness, fear, insecurity, etc.).

Take a moment to ask yourself, what sensations do I feel in my body and what emotions are present?

Once you’ve tuned in to experience the emotion in your body, you can also check to see if there are any thoughts associated with the emotion. Often there is a narrative or story line attached with the emotion residing in our body and sometimes the thoughts and sensations can cycle back and forth triggering each other to become activated.

Take a moment to ask yourself, what are the thoughts arising in my mind at this time?

Tip #2: Identify the message and move aside

Now that you’ve tuned in and experienced the emotion present in your body and perhaps some associated thoughts in your mind, it may be helpful to receive a message from these emotions and then move aside.

Emotional experience happens through the right hemisphere of the brain and it takes some intention to transfer the signal over to the left hemisphere to understand the message. It’s like using our emotions as a compass or barometer to gauge what’s going on with our needs and values. It’s a process of shifting between an intuitive and emotional state, to a logical and reasoning state. This can result in a more coherent narrative or message.

You might take a moment to ask yourself, what are these emotions and thoughts trying to tell me about what I need or value? This involves shifting your long term memory from implicit (procedural) to explicit (declarative). Here’s some quick background on memory. Procedural memory is responsible for knowing how to do things and motor skills. Declarative memory (knowing what) is about facts and events and refers to memories that can be consciously recalled (or declared).

The following is a sequence to use that may help you to discover possible messages from events, and from the associated emotions, thoughts, and memories. Fill in the blanks. Here it goes: “I recall _______ event happened, I feel (or felt) a ________ sensation(s) in the _______ area of my body, I identify the emotion as __________, I observe the thought or memory of ____________ in the mind, and I identify the message as a need or value to_________.” These need or value messages could be stated as: “I need to feel loved and cared for,” or “I need to feel safe and secure,” or “I need reassurance that everything is going to be okay,” or “I value autonomy and independence,” or “I value predictability and stability.” There are many more possibilities.

Once you’ve identified the message, go ahead and invite some positive seeds into your thoughts around the message. What would you like to invite to sprout up in your life? It’s your chance to pay attention to the wholesome qualities and positive things in your life, rather than giving any more attention to the negative things, such as suffering of past hurts or wallowing in sorrow. Concentrating on seeds of compassion and happiness daily will sprout up as a powerful zone of energy.

Now that you’ve invited a positive seed into your mind, try moving aside for the moment and just allow things to be as they are without trying to change anything or make anything different than it is. This moving aside is like allowing yourself to let go and accept things as they are for the moment. This helps with choosing to stay present instead of reacting out of habit to beliefs about what is necessary for your own survival, security, or happiness. These beliefs may be obstacles to your own joy. We limit our experience in each moment by placing rigid expectations and rules around what we think we can live with or without. Moving aside helps us to not get stuck or carried away with our storyline or narrative. It also helps us transition into the next tip or part of the process.

Tip #3: Be in stillness with focused attention and concentration

Being in stillness involves finding a comfortable and safe physical space where you can lay down, sit, or stand, and perhaps close your eyes and focus on your breath coming in and out (or you may choose to focus attention on another bodily sensation). This action is bringing your mind home to your body. Often it helps to be somewhere that is quiet, however, you can be anywhere regardless of the noise (but it may require more attention and skill to notice these other distractions and allow them to flow or pass through your field of awareness).

In this state of being in stillness, or meditation, for whatever amount of time (10-15 or more minutes) that works best for you based on your daily routine, you give yourself the gift of generating mindful energy and connecting with the conditions of joy and happiness that are already available. It’s also a gift of patience, self-kindness and compassion, and offers the possibility for empathy to emerge for others (especially those that may be associated with your difficult emotions and thoughts).

Sometimes it’s pretty hard to imagine that the other people in your life are also experiencing difficult emotions, bodily sensations, and mental thoughts. These people are also struggling to cope with pain and suffering from their own narrative or storyline. They, just like you and I, want to feel happiness and enjoy their life, rather than be in a state of struggling.

The power of concentration is in breaking through and burning away the afflictions of your suffering – related to events, emotions, thoughts, and your personal narrative or storyline. You can acknowledge these things about your past or future and then use stillness and concentration to return to an awareness of the present moment (which is often safer, more secure, and far less threatening than the emotional reaction and thoughts we experience in response to our perceptions). This practice is regarded as a type of mindfulness based joy.

Tip #4: Allow insight and wisdom to emerge

From this practice of stillness and concentration, an interpersonal insight and wisdom can emerge that allows us to form a more whole version of our experience from the perspectives of the “me” and the “we.” This self-awareness (I or Me) and multiplicity of awareness of others (you, they), and togetherness (us, we) plugs us into an interconnected and universal state of being. It may sound very abstract in a philosophical or theoretical way, but the tangible meaning and benefits of it becomes clearer as it’s practiced and applied regularly.

We all get hooked occasionally (some more often than others) by temporal or time-related questions, doubts, and uncertainties about our existence in life. We can recognize these sensations and tensions in the body, use some insight to see what’s there, and bring clarity to liberate ourselves in the moment. So, go ahead and try saying to yourself (quietly or out loud) an affirming message, such as: “How fortunate I am right now that I’m not in that situation (overwhelmed or flooded with difficult emotion or past suffering). I can be happy right now!” You can nourish your happiness daily with this acknowledgment, understanding, and compassion.

If you’re still reading along, I honor your interest and courage in allowing your insight and wisdom to emerge. You have a powerful source of energy and wisdom within and around you, that can guide you on your path way to navigating difficult emotions in life.

Tip #5: Integrate those difficult emotions

So far, you’ve tuned in and experienced your emotion, identified the message and moved aside, practiced stillness and concentration, and allowed insight and wisdom to emerge. Great work!

Now, you can check in and see how that difficult emotion still feels. What’s the intensity level of the sensations in your body and the mental thinking in your mind? Is it at a high, medium, or lower intensity? If it’s still equal to or greater in intensity as it was before you began reading through and trying the tips, than you may want to read back through each tip and take a little extra time with them. Or, you can explore a variety of other approaches and methods. There are many out there.

However, if you notice that the sensations in your body and the thoughts in your mind have reduced in their intensity, or perhaps even dissolved, then it’s a sign that you’ve helped yourself to integrate those difficult emotions. Each time you experience them, this is one approach you can continue to explore as many times as you like, throughout your days, weeks, months, or years.

May you be happy, healthy, and well in life, play, and work!