A step-by-step guide to manage intense feelings and grow from them

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Experiencing overwhelming emotions can be intense and confusing. While it’s easy to feel lost, learning how to deal with overwhelming emotions in a conscious way can provide relief and is also a beautiful skill to have. The key is to approach it with acceptance, connection, self-awareness, and embodiment. Below is a clear step-by-step guide on how to work through feelings of overwhelm and create space for healing.

Step 1: Accept and acknowledge the overwhelming emotions

The first, and perhaps the most important, step in how to deal with overwhelming emotions is to accept your feelings without judgment or resistance. Allow yourself to look at these emotions honestly and acknowledge whatever it is that you feel.

• Don’t resist, control, or minimize what you’re feeling. Acceptance doesn’t mean you necessarily have to express your feelings outwardly, but it does mean at least acknowledging them internally.
• Give yourself permission to feel. Remember, your emotions deserve your attention. When you allow space for your feelings, they lose their power over time (although that seems counterintuitive).
• Let go of the illusion that ignoring your feelings will make them disappear. True acceptance creates space for healing and growth.

Step 2: Seek Connection and Support to Help Soothe your Overwhelm

Overwhelming feelings can often be amplified by a sense of isolation and a sense of shame “Why am I so overwhelmed? Is something wrong with me? Everyone else looks fine”. Feeling connected and supported is crucial for managing these emotions.

• Recognize that your feelings are normal and let go of shame. Don’t pathologize yourself for feeling overwhelmed. Everyone feels this way sometimes. Shame creates more distress. Knowing that others have felt the same helps normalize your experience.
• Reach out to your community. Whether it’s friends, family, or a partner, sharing your feelings with someone who listens and understands can bring a sense of peace. Sometimes we need someone else to hold space for our feelings in an empathetic and curious way for us to learn to do the same.

Everything feels more manageable when you are supported and connected to others.

Step 3:  Explore the Beliefs and Patterns Behind your Overwhelming Feelings & Make Space for Unresolved Emotions

Once you’ve fully accepted your feelings and created space for them, you can begin to explore the roots of your overwhelming emotions.

• Distinguish between present challenges and past influences. Even though your feelings arise in the present, the intensity of it may be rooted in old experiences, patterns, or beliefs.
• Identify patterns and beliefs contributing to your overwhelm. For example, tendencies like perfectionism or people-pleasing may have developed as ways to cope to your early environment, ways of being that still drive your actions today. These sorts of patterns are typically rooted in negative beliefs such as “I am not good enough” “I need to be perfect to be worthy”“ If someone doesn’t like me it means I am unlovable” etc.
• Ask yourself: When did I begin to have these beliefs and overwhelming feelings? What was happening in my life at that time? Nothing traumatic needed to have happened. Even seemingly small dynamics that were overwhelming you as a child can shape negative beliefs about yourself.
• Understand that these patterns once served you. How you relate to these coping mechanisms, these ways of being you have can make all the difference. When you become curious about them with compassion and understand their deeper purpose, you realize that there is a pain that wasn’t processed and you allow yourself to feel that pain that these coping mechanisms are trying to protect you from, because you were too young to be able to manage your feelings.
• Process the feelings of the past. Allow yourself to feel old feelings with the awareness that they are old feelings that have been stuck in your system, and hold these feelings with the compassion of the adult you are today.

As you work through these steps, you may initially feel worse before feeling better. Over time, you’ll notice that you get triggered and overwhelmed far less often. And when you do, you'll notice more quickly that your body is responding to past experiences, rather than the present moment, and that awareness will help you come back to the present.

Step 4: Connect with Your Body and Regulate Your Nervous System To manage intense feelings

If you are someone that often experiences overwhelming feelings (which is very common and normal), it’s likely that your nervous system is hyper-activated.

This is typically a result of the stress and feelings that were stored in your body for a long time. Learning to connect with your body and regulate your nervous system can help you deal with overwhelming emotions by processing what is present and calming your nervous system.

Techniques such as mindfulness, breathwork, conscious movement practices (e.g yoga, dance movement therapy) and pure physical activity are all great avenues to do that-

Step 5: Consider Professional Support To Help with feeling overwhelmed

If you find it difficult to create space for self-compassion, curiosity, and connection on your own especially while you are experiencing overwhelm, professional support can be invaluable to help you navigate these steps..Sometimes, having an external guide that is experienced in supporting individuals making these conscious changes can make all the difference.

Final Thoughts

Managing overwhelm is not about suppressing your feelings or forcing positivity. It’s a process of acceptance, connection, self-awareness, and embodiment. By following these steps, you can create space for your feelings, understand their origins, and find tools to regulate your emotional state. Remember, you are not alone in this experience — help is available, and healing is possible.

If you’d like support with this, please check my coaching page and book a free discovery call with me to see how I can support you

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