How to shift your emotional state
It's happening again. You’re halfway through the day, and you’re nowhere near getting through all the things on your to-do list—but you don’t have the energy or the desire to tackle anything on it. Or the thought of tackling the most important thing on it brings up something between panic and fear.
Or maybe it’s not your to-do list. Maybe you’ve been fighting with your Mom, and it’s reopened an old wound. Maybe your friend isn’t texting you back, and you’re wondering if they really care about you after all. Maybe you’ve just been turned down for your dream job and your confidence has taken a nose-dive.
You know as well as I do that most of us experience some sort of negative emotion every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes for most of the day.
But I have two pieces of good news:
Your emotions are temporary.
You have the power to shift your emotional state.
3 steps to shifting your emotional state
Learning to shift your emotional state can be life-changing. It’s also one of the most important practices to master on the road to becoming your best self. So how do you do it?
What I do, and what I’ve taught my clients to do when they’re learning to cope with negative emotions, comes down to three steps:
1) Sit with the emotion. When you’re in pain, when you’re afraid, when you’re depressed or anxious, your first instinct might be to run from the emotion. Instead of bypassing the emotion, or trying to talk yourself out of feeling it, or judging yourself for feeling it, try to sit with the feeling without judging it. Why? When we fully accept our emotions in the present moment, and allow them to move through us as emotions are designed to do, we can release them more easily. And when we release them, we automatically gain clarity.
Remember: the key isn’t to avoid negative emotions—they are a fact of life. It might sound like a paradox, but the only way to change how you feel is to feel your feelings.
2) Ask yourself what you need to shift your emotional state. You may already have practices you turn to when you want to feel better, whether it’s watching cat videos on Tiktok or screaming into a pillow or doing a headstand. (I’ll go into some more techniques for shifting your emotional state in step 3.)
The key here is to consciously choose something that makes you feel better, vs. something that gives you temporary relief but actually drains you and/or makes you feel even worse—like drinking alcohol or doom scrolling or wolfing down a bag of potato chips.
3) Do the thing that makes you feel better. Here are some of the things I like to do when I want to shift my emotional state—and some of the things I recommend to my clients, too:
Moving. When you move the energy in your body, you move the energy in your mind. I realize moving may be the last thing you feel like doing when you’re caught in a negative emotional spiral. The key is to think about the easiest thing you’re capable of doing right now. Can you take a 5-minute walk? Do 10 minutes of yoga? It doesn’t even have to be a “healthy” activity. If buying a soda at the corner store is what gets you out the door, then do that.
Meditating. Meditation is the simplest way to detach from negative emotions—though it’s not the easiest, and not necessarily the best thing to turn to when you’re anxious, since your mind might be going 5,000 miles a minute. When you’re not anxious and/or triggered, though, meditation is an incredible way to build emotional resilience. Here’s how to commit to a meditation practice.
Tapping/emotional freedom technique. If you’re feeling acute stress or even physical pain, tapping (a.k.a. emotional freedom technique, or EFT) is a great way to allow emotions to move through you faster and eventually release them.
EFT is based on the same techniques acupuncture practitioners have been using for thousands of years. It involves tapping certain areas on/along the body’s energy pathways to increase the flow of energy and release stagnation. This video and this video will give you a brief introduction to EFT and guide you through the practice. If you want to dig deeper and practice regularly, check out the Tapping Solution app.
Besides moving, meditating, or tapping, there are lots of other things you can do to shift your emotional state: walking, cooking, playing games, making art, listening to music or audio books, watching movies, texting a friend, or taking a nap, just to name a few.
Can you think of others? Which of these state-shifting practices appeal to you most? I invite you to choose two or three—and keep them in your back pocket. This way, the next time you’re dealing with a negative emotion, you’ll have some sources of support at the ready.
Even if you don’t feel the effects immediately, just the act of trying to shift your emotional state builds your strength and resilience. Think of it like virtual sit-ups. Over time, the more you practice sitting with your emotions, and the more you turn to your sources of support when the going gets tough, the easier it becomes to shift your emotional state.
Want to learn more about how to shift your emotional state? I have just the course for you.
During my three-month group course, I’ll guide you to create your own unique formula to build, nurture, and sustain self-love. Click here to learn more!