Dealing With Strong Emotions

Writing Exercise (Part 2)

This week’s blog, is a variation on the ‘Understanding Your Fear’ writing dialogue, from couple of weeks ago. If you found that writing exercise useful, try out this one.

This exercise is about dealing with strong emotions that have the capacity to immobilise, and confuse us. A useful writing tool to use when your mind is whirling around with strong feelings, which are threatening to throw you off balance and deplete your energy.

This writing tool helps you to step back from the force of the emotions, to assist in diminishing the intensity, so it runs out of steam as it were.

The next time you experience strong emotions, such as fear, doubt or procrastination, that are holding you back from making a choice, or moving forward with your day, set aside some time when you will not be disturbed and do this free-flow writing exercise.

I like to light a candle before I start and blow it out when I’ve finished to signal the end of this work.  

Once you begin, it is best not to think too much about what you are writing. Just write. Banish the critic. Keep writing. Write fast. Don’t read what you’re writing until you’ve finished the prompts. Don’t censor what you’ve written in any way.

There can be powerful messages in this kind of writing.

1.    Describe in detail what has happened that has given rise to you feeling these strong emotions.

2.    Describe in detail the strong emotions that you are experiencing.

3.    Now write about what has happened - this situation, person, place or thing as though you strongly like and approve of it.

4.    Now write about the situation, person, place or thing, as though you strongly dislike and despise it.

5.    Now write about the situation, person, place or thing, as though you are feeling perfectly ok about it. You don’t have strong feelings either way.

6.    Now read what you wrote in sections 1 & 2 , about the situation and the emotions and note down what might have changed in how you are feeling now after the writing? Does it seem so important now or have the feelings diminished?

Read everything you’ve written during this exercise.

When you’ve had a chance to digest it, take some time to write down your answers to these reflections, as a review of the experience.

1. What did you notice about yourself whilst you were doing the writing in terms of your feelings, energy levels etc?

2. How did you feel immediately after finishing?

3. How do you feel now?

4. What insight have you gained from completing this writing exercise?

5. How has your perception changed?

6. Can you do anything differently with this insight?

Writing about what gave rise to these emotions, and considering it from different perspectives, can allow you to see how you may have lost your energy, what you can learn about this going forward and what you might be able to do differently.

Completing this writing exercise can help you to step back from the intensity of such strong emotions.

Another powerful tool that helps me on a regular basis.