Five ways to navigate an emotional meltdown
Last tuesday I had a full on meltdown.
This is how it manifested;
- Brutal onslaught from within. Yes, brutal. My brain did a number on me.
- Crying. Actually no, bawling for no obvious reason (other than all the things my brain was telling me)
- Eating all the "wrong" stuff
- Netflix instead of yoga. It wasn't good Netflix either.
- Getting into bed at 7:45pm. Instead of yoga
Contrary to what my brain was telling me on Tuesday (you should have sorted this by now. Srsly; you're a LIFE COACH!) I don't have it all figured out. Let's be honest, nobody does. We're all just. figuring. it. out. That is our job in this human life. To figure it out.
Back in 2014 meltdowns were a regular occurrence for me.
I was dealing with insolvency, unemployment and a long term relationship that was falling apart. I was suffering from panic attacks and frequent bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. My dominant thought was that life was caca and I had a tonne of evidence to support this.
The brain is fitted with something called the Reticular Activating system (RAS) and its task is to go out into the world and find things that match up with the thoughts you’re thinking and show them to you. It’s the lens that all your thoughts get filtered through. It’s the evidence gathering system and it’s very effective. When we think the thought ‘life is terrible’ the RAS will go out and find all the things to match up - certain number of positive testing Covid cases, your diminishing bank account, lack of employment, relationship problems. It’ll just make a long list and there we have confirmation bias. From a scientific perspective we can call this an equation. Simple as;
Brain thinks life is terrible + what brain sees in the outside world = confirmation that Life is indeed terrible
From where you are to where you want to be
During those months of meltdown, which felt like a never ending dark night of the soul I was desperate to feel happy, but I kept remembering something I’d heard my teacher Abraham say, often. ‘You can’t get there from there’ meaning that there were a whole bunch of steps between where I was now and where I wanted to be. I had to build a ladder, out of the pits to the top and without the aid of springs in my legs I realised it was going to take some effort and work from me. I took myself back to basics in my thinking, learning to think 101, kindergarten level, but it worked wonders and it’s a technique I still use to this day. Here’s what I did.
When you’re in the pits your thoughts will be centred around how rubbish life is and all that is bad and terrible. The related feelings will be despair, dread, terror, panic. Where you want to be is happy, bubbly, joyful, yay! Daisies, rainbows! And so you think happy thoughts. Isn’t that what we’ve been taught right? Think happy thoughts and everything will be fine. Except your brain (who thinks it’s in charge and is actually currently in charge) doesn’t believe the happy thoughts because the RAS is so efficient and keeps proving you wrong.
We have to approach it from another angle. We can’t just walk in the front door and say ‘hi brain! We’re changing direction and thinking that everything is wonderful and great today! Woohoo!’. We have to go softly, softly, but with purpose.
To aid you as you figure it out I’ve put together five things I do when emotions are running amok.
1 - GET FACTUAL
Describe what’s going on without the adjectives. Taking the description words away helps everything in your system to calm down. When we describe the circumstances from a purely factual point of view any argument our primitive brain offers can be settled. I find it useful to write a stream of consciousness for a page or two and then read back through and extract the facts. Circumstances are things that everyone would agree upon and that would stand up in a court of law. See the example here;
Primitive Brain; ‘it’s a horrible day. 2021 is going to be worse than 2020. Everyone is getting sick, the infection rate is rising, more people than ever are dying, my business is suffering, and I'm all alone. I’m going to die here in this place, on my own, sad and lonely with no one to talk to…’ blah blah blah
You; the circumstances
It’s Tuesday. It’s 2021.
Some people are sick. Some people are healthy. I’m healthy right now.
I have a business
One day I’m going to die, but not today
There is always someone available to talk to
2 - ALLOW THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS
I know this sounds totally counterintuitive but hear me out. Instead of resisting and blocking our negative feelings let’s allow them. When we resist negative emotions we make them stronger. Not allowing ourselves to feel negative emotions can have a detrimental effect on our long term physical health. Feelings need to be felt. Resisting them or ignoring them doesn’t make them go away. Allowing them helps them to move through. The key here is to know that a feeling is nothing more than a vibration in our body caused by a thought in our brain. Those vibrations do not always feel lovely. Anyone who has ever fully felt the feeling of shame or humiliation will attest to this, but allowing the vibrations of shame to be there, noticing the feeling in your body, and observing it with curiosity will allow it, and then help it move through and out. Negative emotions are included in list of things that make us human, so we might as well feel them and get to know them.
3 - GO TO SLEEP
Whichever thoughts your brain is offering, the ones that are most dominant will gather momentum throughout the day. Because our thoughts create our feelings our emotions can overwhelm us when the thoughts that have gathered momentum are predominantly negative in tone and quality. Negative thoughts will only ever create negative feelings. We might have tried all the tools in our emotional self-care kit to manage ourselves; talking to a friend, Netflix, a soak in a warm bath with a glass of wine. Sometimes sleep is the best answer. It’s often underrated, and when we’re in the midst of trying to figure it all out we can miss the simple solution that perhaps we just need an early night. Sleep stops the momentum of negative thoughts and feelings. It is, as Shakespeare said the balm of hurt minds.
4 - MOVE
Physical activity releases endorphins, the bodies feel-good chemicals. The benefits are compound; physical movement makes us feel good, helps us keep fit, helps us sleep better, makes us want to do more because we like the good feelings, builds our confidence and then we’re onto a treadmill of better feeling.
I took up running during a difficult emotional time. I’d just quit smoking and wanted a healthy activity to be a new focus, something that I’d have greater benefit from than smoking. You don't have to take up running at all, any physical activity from a walk to punching a boxing bag will work to release those good feeling chemicals and shift your mood and perspective. (follow me on instagram to learn more about my current favourite movement activities, all of which are optional but incredibly beneficial!)
5 - KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS
All feelings are vibrations in our body, and when we feel them they move through and new ones come in their place to be felt. Experiencing negative emotions and negative thoughts does not mean that anything has gone wrong. It means that you’re a human being having a human experience and that this will pass and you are capable of experiencing a wealth of emotion, from wildly happy to deeply sad. No feeling is permanent. Remember, they are vibrations in your body and as such are in constant motion. As my teacher Avanti taught me (and my daughter has reminded me on more than one occasion) E-motion; Energy in Motion.
