From Overwhelm to Empowerment: Embracing All Your Emotions to Take Charge of Your Life
Have you ever caught yourself wishing you could just “stay positive” and avoid all the messy emotions that make life feel heavy? While positivity is often painted as the ultimate goal, the truth is that negative emotions are a natural and necessary part of being human. Denying them doesn’t make them disappear; it only creates a disconnect within ourselves.
In a recent coaching session, my client came to me feeling overwhelmed and stuck, both at work and at home. Together, we explored how embracing her full range of emotions, rather than fighting them, helped her regain clarity, control, and confidence. Through her journey, you’ll learn how to make space for all your feelings, positive and negative, and use them as tools to create a life that feels truly aligned with who you are.
The Starting Point: Overwhelmed and Rejecting Herself
When my client arrived at our session, she was carrying the weight of work stress, family challenges, and wedding planning that felt too big to manage. At work, she struggled with a culture of unclear leadership and felt scapegoated in her role. At home, an innocent moment, her dog running muddy paws over freshly painted stairs, sparked disproportionate frustration. “I was so mad,” she admitted, “and then I felt terrible for being mad. It just spiralled.”
This was a common theme for this particular client: feeling upset about something, then judging herself for those feelings. “It’s like I should always be positive, but I’m not, and I hate that about myself,” she said. This cycle of frustration and self-rejection only deepened her overwhelm, leaving her unsure how to move forward.
Embrace all your emotions, both positive and negative, for true self-acceptance and empowerment.
The Shift: Embracing All Emotions as Part of Being Human
To break the cycle, we explored a radical but freeing idea: what if nothing is wrong with feeling negative emotions? Life is a mix of 50% positive and 50% negative experiences. Both are normal, and both have value. By allowing herself to feel emotions like frustration, sadness, and anger without judgment, this client could start to build a healthier relationship with the person who matters most; herself.
Take the muddy stairs moment, for example. Her initial thought was, “I shouldn’t be so mad about this. It’s just a small thing.” But this thought only added shame to her frustration. Instead, we reframed it: “Of course I feel annoyed. The stairs were freshly painted, and I put a lot of effort into them. That makes sense.”
This shift allowed her to validate her feelings instead of rejecting them. “When I stop judging myself for being mad, the feeling passes so much faster,” she said. By making room for her emotions, she found it easier to return to a calm state and take constructive action.
The Model: Understanding How Thoughts Shape Emotions
At the heart of this clients transformation was learning to use The Model, a framework that reveals how our thoughts create our emotions, actions, and results. Here’s how we applied it to the muddy stairs scenario:
Circumstance: The dog ran across the stairs with muddy paws.
Thought: “I shouldn’t feel this annoyed - it’s just mud.”
Feeling: Shame / Anger
Action: Yelling at the dog, ruminating on her reaction, blaming and shaming herself for feeling angry.
Result: She continues to feel annoyed, at herself.
We reframed the thought to something more compassionate:
Thought: “It makes sense to feel annoyed because I worked hard on the stairs.”
Feeling: Validation and understanding.
Action: Taking a deep breath, cleaning the stairs without added drama.
Result: Resolved the situation calmly, without rejecting herself.
Through this exercise, she realised that rejecting her emotions was like rejecting herself. By embracing them, she could respond in a way that honoured both her feelings and her values.
The Practice: Making Room for All of You
We talked about how human beings are multifaceted, like a dinner party of emotions and traits. There’s the shiny, positive parts of ourselves - joyful, excited, motivated. But there are also parts that feel frustrated, sad, or overwhelmed. Instead of trying to exclude the “messy” parts, we need to invite them in, too. “They’re part of you,” I told this client. “When you reject them, you’re rejecting yourself.”
She started practicing this in everyday moments. For example:
When work left her feeling anxious, she acknowledged the anxiety instead of suppressing it: “Of course I feel this way - it’s a tough situation.”
When a comment from her partner triggered feelings of rejection, she paused to notice what she was making it mean: “This isn’t about me failing; it’s just his choice of words.”
By allowing space for all her emotions, she found herself feeling more whole and grounded. “It’s not about forcing myself to be positive,” she said. “It’s about choosing positivity when it feels good and letting myself feel everything else when it doesn’t.”
Empower yourself by accepting all your emotions and using them as tools for growth.
The Outcome: A Life of Alignment and Self-Acceptance
This clients journey to embracing her emotions brought profound changes to her life:
At work, she stopped internalising leadership’s poor decisions and set boundaries aligned with her values.
At home, she handled challenges with her partner and kids with more compassion, seeing every emotion as a chance to connect rather than a failure to manage.
With her wedding planning, she approached the process with curiosity instead of overwhelm, giving herself grace when emotions bubbled up.
“I feel like I’m finally being kind to myself,” she said. “I’m not trying to push away parts of me anymore. I’m learning to accept them.”
A Practical Guide to Embracing Your Emotions
If you’ve ever felt like you need to “just stay positive” and avoid your messy emotions, here’s a guide to help you embrace all of who you are:
Pause and Identify the Emotion
When you feel upset, name the emotion: frustration, sadness, anger, etc. Simply acknowledging it can help.Validate the Feeling
Ask yourself: “Why does this make sense?” For example, “Of course I feel annoyed—this matters to me.”Separate Facts from Thoughts
Write down the neutral facts of the situation and notice the story your brain is creating about it. This will help you see what’s causing your feelings.Allow the Emotion
Remind yourself that emotions are temporary. Let the feeling move through you without judgment, like a wave passing by.Take Compassionate Action
From a place of understanding, decide on a constructive next step. For example, clean the muddy stairs while being kind to yourself.
This clients story reminds us that life is 50/50—half positive, half negative—and that’s perfectly normal. When we embrace all our emotions without judgment, we create space for transformation and self-acceptance.
Are you ready to stop rejecting your emotions and start living in alignment with who you are? Download The Guide to The Model today to learn how to transform your mindset and embrace your whole self. It’s the first step to becoming your own best friend.
