Emotions can be powerful guides, but they can also trip you up when they take the wheel.
Fear can stop you from trying. Sadness can convince you nothing will ever change. Anger can burn bridges before you’ve even realised you’re holding the match. But suppressing your emotions never really works either—it just pushes everything underground until it explodes later. The real work is in feeling your emotions without letting them take over your choices. It’s not about controlling them like a robot. It’s about creating enough space between what you feel and what you do next. Here’s how to do that in a way that feels honest, not bottled up.
1. Name what you’re feeling—without rushing to fix it.
It sounds simple, but just saying “I feel overwhelmed” or “I’m really angry right now” can take the intensity down a notch. Naming your emotions doesn’t make them disappear, but it helps your brain process what’s going on instead of being hijacked by it. You’re giving yourself clarity, and that clarity creates breathing room.
Often, people try to jump straight from feeling to fixing. But that’s where you lose the chance to actually understand what’s going on. Naming the emotion first gives you a chance to pause, observe, and decide what kind of response makes sense instead of reacting out of habit.
2. Let emotions pass through you instead of getting stuck in them.
Most emotions have a natural rhythm. They rise, peak, and fall—if you let them. But when you resist or overthink them, they get stuck. You keep circling the same mental drain, replaying conversations, imagining worst-case scenarios, or criticising yourself long after the feeling should’ve faded.
Try seeing emotions like weather. They don’t stay forever. Let yourself feel the storm, but don’t build a house in it. Breathe through it. Move your body. Talk it out. Let it pass. You don’t need to hold onto everything just because it showed up strongly.
3. Don’t judge yourself for feeling “too much.”
One of the quickest ways to get trapped in emotional spirals is by judging yourself for even having them. You might think you’re overreacting, weak, dramatic, or broken. However, all that self-judgement just adds another emotional layer on top of the original one, making it harder to untangle what you actually need.
Your emotions aren’t bad—they’re information. Even if they feel out of proportion, they’re still worth paying attention to. Try replacing “Why am I like this?” with “What is this trying to show me?” It changes the whole conversation in your head.
4. Give yourself a time-limited space to feel it fully.
Sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is let yourself fall apart—but with boundaries. Set a timer for 10, 20, 30 minutes—whatever feels right—and let yourself feel everything that wants to come up. Cry, vent, lie under a blanket, journal, whatever helps it move through.
When the time’s up, gently shift gears. Get outside, change rooms, splash cold water on your face. The goal isn’t to pretend it didn’t happen. It’s to honour the emotion without letting it take over the whole day. Boundaried emotion is powerful and healing without being all-consuming.
5. Separate what you feel from what you do.
You can feel furious and still choose not to yell. You can feel hurt and still respond with calm. The idea isn’t to fake your feelings—it’s to separate the internal experience from the external response. That space in between is where your power lives.
Start noticing when your feelings are trying to drive the car. You don’t have to banish them to the boot, but you also don’t have to hand them the keys. Let them ride with you, inform your route, but don’t let them swerve you off the road.
6. Practise grounding when your emotions get too loud.
When your emotions feel like they’re flooding everything—making it hard to think, speak, or breathe—grounding techniques can help you come back to the present moment. This isn’t about ignoring your feelings. It’s about reminding your body that you’re safe right now.
That might look like touching something cold, naming five things you see, putting your feet on the floor, or focusing on slow, deep breaths. It sounds small, but these practices can be the difference between drowning in emotion and staying anchored while you ride it out.
7. Know your emotional patterns and triggers.
You don’t have to be caught off guard every time. Most people have emotional patterns—things that reliably set them off, stories they fall into, responses that feel automatic. When you start to recognise your own loops, you can prepare for them with more awareness.
You don’t have to avoid everything that triggers you. It’s about noticing when you’re entering an old pattern and giving yourself a chance to choose something different. When you know your usual route, you’re more able to take a new one, even when it’s hard.
8. Don’t turn emotions into your identity.
It’s one thing to say, “I feel anxious.” It’s another to start saying “I am an anxious person” like it’s your permanent label. Emotions are temporary states, not fixed truths about who you are. The more you identify with them, the harder it is to let them move on.
This doesn’t mean denying your struggles. It means recognising that you’re not your fear, your sadness, or your rage. You’re the one feeling them, not becoming them. That subtle change helps you respond with more curiosity and less shame.
9. Talk it out without making it someone else’s responsibility.
Sometimes you just need to speak it aloud—get it out of your head and into the air. Talking to someone you trust can give your emotions a container, especially if they just sit with you without trying to fix it all. But the key is owning your experience instead of handing it off.
Say things like “I just need to vent for a minute” or “I’m not looking for advice, I just need to say this out loud.” It helps you release the emotion without expecting the other person to take it away. That way, connection becomes part of your healing, not another emotional loop.
10. Check the story behind the emotion.
Feelings usually come with a story—one that might be outdated, exaggerated, or not entirely true. You might feel rejected when someone’s just distracted. You might feel worthless because of one small mistake. Checking the story behind the emotion helps you get perspective without dismissing what you feel.
You can ask yourself, “What am I telling myself about this?” or “Is there another possible interpretation?” This helps you stay emotionally honest without being emotionally hijacked. The goal isn’t to talk yourself out of your feelings—it’s to make sure the story they’re attached to actually holds up.
11. Let movement help you change the energy.
Not all emotional processing happens in your head. Sometimes the fastest way to loosen an emotional grip is through your body. Go for a walk, stretch, dance, shake your arms out—whatever helps the feeling move physically. It doesn’t have to be intense. Just intentional.
Feelings are energy, and if you’re stuck sitting in the same spot while they swirl, it can make everything feel heavier. Even a few minutes of light movement can signal to your system that it’s okay to shift gears, and that you’re not trapped inside the emotion forever.
12. Give yourself credit for handling things differently.
When you manage to pause instead of snapping, or stay present through a tough feeling instead of running from it, that’s growth. Even if it wasn’t perfect—even if you still cried, still got overwhelmed—you’re doing the work. And that deserves recognition.
Changing your emotional patterns doesn’t happen overnight. But every time you choose to feel instead of suppress, and respond instead of react, you’re breaking cycles. Give yourself credit for that. It matters more than it probably feels in the moment.
