Dealing with emotions appropriately can be hard. The key word here is appropriate. What do I mean by this? Well looking at how we feel can be difficult at times in our lives. We can be in denial about so much that is going on in our lives at that moment. We may not even beware of how or what we feeling.

When we do start to acknowledge how we feel it could be masking so much more going on in our lives. It can be also affected by trauma from our past. This might come out in ways that have us reacting to the present moment in an exaggerated manner. In order words, we may be overreacting now because of something that happened in the past that we have not dealt with.

If you have read my previous blogs you may have already started to look at negative and positive thinking. Hopefully, you will have started to notice your emotions more. Or have started to see your thoughts as just thoughts. Maybe now you are willing to tackle some of the more difficult emotions that can arise as a result.

Let’s Talk Shame & Guilt.

Shame is one such difficult emotion. It is reinforced by other people whether through childhood experiences or through community structures. It can be one of the most destructive emotions for traumatized people. Shame is said to be the one emotion that binds all other negative emotions including guilt to it.

Shame involves a sense of failure, defeat and incompetence. If you are suffering from shame and guilt from a previous abusive experience please get therapy. It could have become toxic for you. It was not your fault what happened to you. You should certainly never feel like your experiences were in any way your fault. It is time to let go of your shame and guilt.

Shame and guilt can have it’s uses in society. 

Shame and guilt can have its uses in society if it is appropriate to the situation. And is dealt out in small and time-limited doses. It can serve to make us conform to societies moral codes and promote good behaviour. Examples can be teaching a child healthy boundaries or preventing people from drink driving. 

Extreme and pervasive shame and guilt, on the other hand, doesn’t serve that function. Nor is it helpful to anyone. It is used by abusive individuals to control and manipulate others they perceive as victims. Narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, machiavellians, sexual abusers and domestic violence perpetrators use shame and guilt in this manner.

When we view our emotions as either/or negative or positive we grant them more power over us than they deserve. We can’t get away from feeling. Maybe we can live in denial for a while, but eventually, it all comes up like emotional vomit.

When we embrace the fact that we create these emotions because of our own thinking, we can regain control. We can accept that emotions are just feelings we have and experience. They are not positive or negative. They are just a response to an event, perceived or real, occurring in our lives at that moment. We get to choose how we respond. No one gets to dictate how we respond.

Understanding How You React To Shame & Guilt Is Important.

Understanding our own response to events and people in our lives is vital. This exercise builds upon previous ones mentioned in other blogs so please start with these.

1. Negative thinking
2. Deleting negative people from your life,
3. Positive thinking,
4. Self-care building,
5. Setting healthy boundaries (you) (your relationships)
6. Having good communications skills
7. Plus dealing with anger appropriately 

From the tips in these blog we can start to question our own responses to gain a better insight into our shame and guilt. 

1. Do you attack yourself or others?
2. Do you withdraw from others – isolate yourself or avoid your own inner experiences by dissociative means?

Learn to recognise your shame and guilt reactions. Just observe them at first. Journal about them and get to know your triggers.

1. Are they appropriate reactions to these situations?
2. If not do you need help dealing with them?

Get to recognise your pattern of behaviour with shame and guilt.

1. Is it tied into your negative self-talk?
2. Write down what these beliefs are.
3. Are they correct?
4. How can you re-record these into a more positive self-talk?

Be willing to get therapy if you need it. Chronic guilt can be helped by being more empathic towards yourself. Again this is where the positive self-talk comes in. You need to notice the script you are telling yourself and then re-record it with a positive one.

Realistic guilt can be managed by acknowledging your faults and realising that everyone makes mistakes’. Make a realistic note of your reactions and apologise when appropriate. Most of all by acknowledging your guilt you can learn from your behaviour and move on.

If you are currently in an abusive relationship or Domestic Violence situation, please be aware of your own safety. You can contact Women’s Aid (Ireland) (UK) Men’s Aid (Men Ireland) Refuge (UK) for help.

How To Track One Emotion At A Time.

1. Identify which emotion you want to track. In this case it might be shame or guilt or both as they are so intangibly linked.
2. Use mindfulness or another form of meditation to help ground yourself and help you be more intuned with how you feel in the present moment.
3. Allow yourself to just identify one experience around the emotion you are tracking.  Make a note of it in a journal and explore what was going on and how you reacted after the event.
4. Notice the: who, what, where, when of the event and the emotion. Is this related to your past or present? Be honest is the emotion escalated because of a similar event in the past. Has it triggered more emotions you need help dealing with? If so please seek therapy.
5. After a week or two of tracking try to see your feeling not feel the feeling. What I mean by this is emotions are triggered by thoughts/reactions to events, we need to gain control over our emotion in a healthy way. So by seeing how you feel you can then judge how to react more appropriately.
6. Review your journal of the last two weeks to see if there is a pattern to your behaviour. Are you in a situation you need to get out of? Have you dealt with the negative people in your life? Do you need to make a complaint to someone in work about unacceptable behaviour? Ask yourself what can I do to change the situation I’m reacting to?
7. If you notice you are particularly anxious about doing this exercise, what is it that’s making you anxious? Is your anxiety justified in the current situation? Or are you still dealing with something from the past?

Always remember to stop if something triggers too many bad memories for you.

You will need professional help if this is reoccurring i.e. you have flashbacks, PTSD, depression, anxiety etc., symptoms.

Build Self-Esteem As You Go.

An exercise that might help while learning to recognise and dealing with any of your emotions is to use your journal to build your self-esteem and gratitude. Use the following question in your journal alongside your gratitude building questions. You don’t have to answer all of these questions every day. I’d pick a maximum of 3 to write about on a daily basis:

1. Something I did well today…
2. Today I had fun when…
3. I felt proud when…
4. A positive thing I witnessed…
5. Today was interesting because…
6. Today I accomplished…
7. I had a positive experience with…
8. Something I did for someone…
9. I felt good about myself when…
10. I was proud of someone else…
11. Today was interesting because…
12. A positive thing I witnessed…

Work With Me.

If you need extra support then you can also work with me. We all struggle with stress and overwhelm from time to time. If you find this has become a problem for you and you’d like some support then schedule an appointment with me.