How to Process Emotions

Many of the people I meet in my practice want to stop being affected negatively by past events or experiences. But what does this really take? One answer, is the processing of emotions that are attached to the memories. So I thought I would take a brief look here at what ‘processing’ really looks like.

There are many forms of psychotherapy out there. In my Gold Coast psychology practice, I adopt an individually tailored approach that adopts aspects from several of the alphabet soup collection of evidence-based therapies. You may have heard of some of them; Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing (EMDR). The reason I mention these is that regardless of what therapeutic modality we adopt to build new skills, the underlying ‘processing of emotions’ remains a necessary component of our healing and runs as an undercurrent throughout your psychology sessions.

This is what emotional processing looks like in step by step form. You don’t need a therapist to do this, though a helpful and non-judgmental person may help you along the way for reflection and encouragement.

1)      Notice: Pay attention to your emotional state when either recalling a past memory or in-the-moment when your emotions are triggered. Take a deep breath. Feel. Don’t think. Feel. Notice what is happening. Bring your attention to your present experience as much as you can.

2)      Name it/ them: State what you feel. “I am sad” “I feel angry”. If you can’t pinpoint a word, try an emotion wheel like this one (I’ve left it big so you can print it out for the fridge if you like).

3)      Feel it: Stay with the feeling, even if it is hard. Notice what it feels like in your body. Stick with it through your discomfort. These are only feelings.  

4)      Relax into it: Take a few deep breaths. Notice if the feeling changes or shifts. DON’T JUDGE YOUR EXPERIENCE. Notice how your mind may try to take you out of it.

That’s it… Processing your emotions is one of the simplest yet most challenging things we face psychologically as overthinking human beings. Research indicates that the more skilled you are at doing this though, the less intra-personal (within yourself) and interpersonal (with others) conflicts you will face.

Keeping a journal can help to take this experience further or help you to deeper understand yourself. It can also help you see patterns in your thinking-feeling relationship and what triggers pop up frequently in your life.

Moving your body can be a really helpful way to process some of the physiological energy that emotions create. Dancing, yoga, running etc. Express the emotional state you are feeling. There are healthy ways to express all of the human emotions that don’t involve harming yourself or anyone else in any way.

Take care everyone and be kind to yourself. If you want some practice processing emotions, drop in to our Burleigh Heads psychology clinic or email me directly for more information.  

Note: If you’re reading this and are experiencing suicidal thoughts and have not practiced something like this before, I urge you not to, and instead call Lifeline (131114) or the Acute Care Team (1300 MH CALL) if you do not feel safe.

Likewise, if this practice becomes too overwhelming, I encourage you to enlist the help of a mental health professional for support. Don’t judge yourself. It’s just a practice like any new skill.

Increase Your Gym Attendance With These 4 Simple Steps

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A simple fact is that getting out to do something like going to the gym can often help us feel a bit better. But we’re in a catch 22 here. How do we get to the gym if we don’t have the motivation to do it!?

Many people often hold the common misconception that they need motivation in order to actually do something. The truth is, it is often the opposite - we have to do something in order to get the engines moving to spark motivation. So we are offered two choices here; force the initiative to get started to reap the motivation later, or increase motivation from the get-go. Both work wonders to improve your likelihood of success.

Let’s adopt some Motivational Interviewing* and Behavioural Psychology principles here that you can apply to increase your likelihood of making it to the gym. Why is this important to me as a psychologist? Well, because if your body is healthier, it’s much easier for your mind to work well too.

What's Your Why

Simon Sinek wrote a wonderful book called ‘Find Your Why’ a few years back promoting the importance of meaning and purpose in sustaining fulfillment in our lives. Sinek talks about our WHY being grounded in the biology of human decision making and we can take advantage of this in increasing our motivation towards something even as simple as the gym.

The questions to ask yourself here and be honest with your answers are “Why are you really going to the gym? Do you have a goal?”

Go on. Think now for a minute beyond your immediate answer. What else? What are some good things about exercising for you? What are some of the not so good things about not exercising for you? How important are these things really to you? Be honest.

Your answers here can help highlight your motivations for the gym - whether they are intrinsic (self oriented) or extrinsic (other oriented), for example. There are no right or wrong responses in any of your responses, though your likelihood of exercising is significantly increased if you can brainstorm more intrinsic motivations for attending the gym like you value your health, rather than extrinsic such as going because your partner/ your doctor/ society believes you should. This is YOUR why we are looking for here, not someone else’s.

From your reflections, form a concise and comprehensive WHY for you exercising. Try reminding yourself of this statement whenever your motivation dips. Sinek tells us to return to this statement regularly and ensure your every action is aligned with it.

Behavioural Activation & Removing Choices For Your Lazy Brain

I regularly meet people who say that they lack motivation and I challenge this statement outright. The statement is categorically untrue even in the depths of disorders such as depression. What these people really mean is that they lack motivation to do the things that they feel they should be doing or want to be doing. Even in doing nothing we are motivated to be doing nothing right? From the very core of our evolution, motivation is inescapable.

One commonly used initial approach to supporting people facing depression is called Behavioural Activation (check it out if your interested). It’s basic, but it works. It involves getting started at the lowest common point of action and building from there. The same can be applied to the gym. Say you’ve lapsed for a while in your attendance. Start off small. Aim to walk around the block today. Awesome. That’s it, you're done... Tomorrow 2 blocks. 3 a few days after. Be kind to yourself and you will be rewarded with motivation to continue through the achievement of mini-successes.

An alternative approach to maximising the chance of your success, is to try minimising the barriers to your activity...

Take going to a 6:30 class in the morning for example. What steps are you taking to ensure that you get there? Early night and alarm set? Great, this is the bare minimum. Now let’s make it easier for your brain in the morning by reducing choices. How about getting your entire gym outfit including socks and shoes ready by the bed the night before? Or take this one step further and wear your (clean) gym clothes to bed the night before?

Ensuring you have fuel in the car the day before. Check.

Getting your water bottle filled. Check.

Breakfast partially made. Check.

Protein shaker prepared by the door in a bag. Check.

Camping outside the gym ? Okay, too far….

Get this stuff done while you’ve time because at first light, most people’s brains are often more motivated towards sleep than a jog and so will create any mental excuse to avoid extra activity.

Schedule in Your Non-Negotiables

Facilitating change in your life is not always easy and so let us take out another choice for your brain - deciding when.

'When' refers to scheduling your weekly exercise routine. Everyone has different exercise requirements according to their goals. This is fine. You are more likely to keep to your goal if you have gym times scheduled in to your week as non-negotiables though. ‘Non-negotiables’ are like if your boss said, “This has to be on my desk by the morning or you’re fired” (Does that only happen in movies? I don’t know). Either way, it’s NON-NEGOTIABLE.

What’s that? Beer offer at work lunch - gym time is still non-negotiable.

Stayed up late to watch final 3 episodes of GOT on TV - still non-negotiable.

Essay due at end of week - definitely non-negotiable…

As before, set your gym attendance goals realistically and be kind to yourself and you will achieve what you set out to. This will encourage you to be more motivated to continue. Setting out a new gym membership thinking you’re going to go 6 times a week every week from day one is likely to lead to failure. This will lead to demotivation to attend.

Train with a Mate

Your brain was evolutionarily designed towards adapting itself to the easiest possible solution to every problem it faces. Simple solution: get another brain on board to hold your brain accountable.

According to the research, you are more likely to remain committed to a weight loss program or gym regime if you have a gym buddy. Also, the Kohler Effect describes that no-one wants to be the weakest link. So..., in a gym setting, you will generally push yourself harder if you hang around with people just above your own fitness/ strength level.

Finally, mix it up with the people you exercise with. Go to different time classes, join a community sports team, go running with your gym buddy... By making your workout schedule fresh, this will increase your brain’s intrinsic desire for stimulation and improve your motivation.

I hope this finds you well and healthy. If you enjoyed this article, check out my website for more www.tristanabba.com or follow my FB page https://www.facebook.com/tristanabbapsychologist/ for a regular thread of mental wellness info and whimsical ideas related to your psychological health.

*Motivational interviewing is a conversational style of counselling that is most commonly used to help people facilitate change in their lives. It is the cornerstone of addiction therapy and something I have incorporated in to my practice supporting clients with mental health and drug and alcohol issues over the past many years. The aim of MI is not to necessarily demotivate people regarding the addictive behaviour but to instead highlight people’s motivations towards using and not using substances. By increasing people’s awareness of this contradiction, their motivation to not use can often change.

Don't Let This Thought Ruin Your Day

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Okay, the truth is that there are so many specific thoughts that could be potential culprits here but I wanted a catchy headline so apologies for misleading you. But… What if i could give you a list of the most common general thoughts that trip up everyone at some time or another and leave us feeling angry, shameful, stressed or depressed? Then if you can recognise that you are thinking (or are about to think) one of these, you are empowered to stop this thought ruining your day by coming up with a more reasonable, kind, or self-empowering thought. Wouldn’t that be great!?

The thoughts I’m talking about here psychologists refer to as Cognitive Distortions (Cognitive=thought, Distortion=misleading). Now I must admit, when I was learning this stuff back in second year Cognitive Psychology, I never liked the term Cognitive Distortion much so let’s just call them Brain Farts. It’s kind of apt, it’s less technical, and, well, it sounds funnier…

Believe it or not, brain farts are there to protect you. They provide an immediate go-to thought in new, challenging or stressful situations when your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain best adept at complex thought processing) isn’t engaged. Doesn’t make sense? You’re thinking, ‘in challenging situations, my prefrontal lobes are totally active and that’s how I solve the problem’. And yes, you’re correct. At the end of your challenging situation this is often the case but at the acute, beginning point of challenge or stress, your brain is in survival mode where you need to react to survive. Thinking and considering various options doesn’t help when you are faced with an angry moose (moose are really angry creatures I learnt recently). When faced with an angry moose, you need to react in order to survive and your brain knows this, so it generally shuts out your complex / creative thinking prefrontal cortex and instead relies on tried and tested automatic algorithms of thought that were designed many evolutionary years ago to get you out of danger. Unfortunately, it is these same algorithms that can sometimes seep into your consciousness at times when you don’t need them (i.e., non-moose situations). And this is how the evolution of brain farts (cognitive distortions) has transpired.

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From here on,  I’m going to use one, single common situation here that could very well occur in your day to help you to see how each of these brain farts (BF) can accidentally emerge (pardon the pun). The hypothetical scenario we’re going to imagine is when another driver pulls in front of us quickly but we didn’t see them because we were texting or checking our phone. With this, we will explore the various ways we might cognitively react to this experience.

Brain Fart #1: ‘all drivers are such idiots’ ‘everyone in this city drives like shit’ OR, ‘it’s not safe to drive on the roads ever anymore’ ‘I’m always nearly having crashes’

In these examples, we are Overgeneralising by using one (or a few) experiences to generalise extensively. Look for the words always or never in your thoughts. Overgeneralising often leaves us feeling negative towards others or if it involves self-blame, negative towards ourselves.

Brain Fart #2: ‘It must have been an Asian/ white / male/ female/ young/ old / sportscar/ truck drivers’ (you choose the stereotype you most often fall back on).

Here we are Jumping to Conclusions. We didn’t see the other driver. Sure it explains the event and displaces blame from ourselves but it can also create misplaced anger and ongoing unnecessary resentment to certain people (or types of people) in this case. Not a happy way to start your day.

Brain Fart #3: ‘OMFG, i nearly crashed and if i did i would have to call mum and OMG I wouldn’t have a car and how will i get to work and i’ll lose my job but i don’t have the money to fix the car and i’ll have to borrow money from somewhere or i’ll lose my job and then i’ll become destitute and then i’ll won’t be able to pay my rent and i’ll have to … etc etc’ OR ‘i’m never going to drive again because it’s just too risky’

Okay, you get where I’m going with this. This is called Catastrophising and it is the hallmark of anxious thinking destined to increase your stress levels and ruin your day. As soon as you start thinking ‘what if…’, pull yourself up

Brain Fart #4 & #5: ‘I’m such an idiot, I shouldn’t have been texting’ OR ‘what an idiot, he should have been watching where he was going, what is he, blind?!’

These are both examples of two common TFs; Labelling and Should Statements. Labelling is really useful for fight/ flight situations when we need a quick solution. With time, a reasoned approach to this scenario might be that both drivers were in some ways at fault but in an emotion-fuelled moment, the brain will often resort to ‘us vs them’ logic and attribute blame wherever it is most in a habit of doing, leaving us occasionally feeling better in the case of self-righteous indignation but often worse in the longer term.

Shoulds, oughts, musts, are all telltale words to look out for in your thoughts. They’re absolute rules there for our brain to provide quick solutions but often leave us feeling negative, rigid, or shameful.

Brain Fart #6: ‘They cut me of because they didn’t like me’ ‘That truck driver must have cut me off because I have such a lame looking car’ ‘people have no respect for older drivers’

Here is an example of personalisation or taking responsibility for things that are not (solely in this case) our fault. In the scenario described, there are many possible reasons why the other driver cut you off. Personalisation of the event is possible though often improbable where a more simple explanations is more likely. The other driver didn’t see you, or simply misjudged their lane change perhaps?... Maybe they’re just having a bad day, maybe they’re trying to get their wife in labour to emergency? Who knows but more often than not, it has nothing specifically to do with you. Personalisation emerges frequently in people with more fragile sense of selves or lower self esteem. Be mindful of thoughts that involve self-blame and take a moment to analyse these.

Brain Fart #7: ‘All male/ female/ young/ old/ Asian/ white/ truck/ sportscar/ Holden/ Ford drivers are bad drivers’

This is called ‘All or Nothing’ or Dichotomous Thinking. It’s fraught with danger because there are no absolutes in this amazing world we live in. We all make mistakes and there are plenty of white/ asian/ male/ female/ young/ old/ truck/ sportscar/ Holden/ Ford drivers out there with all sorts of grey degrees of driving skills, right? Worse yet, if you are applying dichotomous thinking to yourself such as in ‘if i’m not perfect i’m a failure’, it is toxic! Allowing more shades of grey into your mind will enable you more cognitive peace.

TF #9: ‘I’m so angry now because of that driver!’

Final Brain Fart for this scenario is probably the most common because it is so easy for us to fall into the trap of. In this example, we are straight-out Blaming someone else for the way that we feel. ‘BUT IT’S THEIR FAULT!’, I hear you yell. Well, even if it was wholly their fault and you weren’t texting and even if they cut you off on purpose and even if they flicked you the bird as they did it and they yelled out “lame car” to you, here’s the clicker, and I say this to almost every one of my clients;

You, and only you, are responsible solely for the way that you feel.

So own this responsibility. Change your thoughts and your feelings can follow or accept your feelings and watch them pass. Either way, don’t blame them on someone else. This will only leave you feeling disempowered and definitely ruin your day.

If you want more information about brain farts or more diverse scenarios where they might be applying to your life, search Cognitive Distortions (brain farts might not come up with what you’re looking for). I covered some common ones here but there are many others including Magnification, Minimisation, & Emotional Reasoning. The point of knowing this information is bringing aware to your own cognitive tendencies and over time practicing new and more helpful self-talk to replace them.

Take care people and be kind to yourself, always.

Oh, and don’t text and drive…