How to Process Your Emotions
How to Process Your Emotions
As therapists, we love to tell our clients that processing emotions is very important and helpful. However, “processing emotions” is such a vague term that seems to be thrown around a lot. Everyone uses it, but does anyone really know what it means? Here are some tips from a therapist about what processing your emotions even means and how to do it!
What is “Processing Emotions”?
Processing your emotions is a healing process that involves accepting the emotions and releasing them. When we don’t process our emotions, we always run the risk of being taken captive by them. For example, some people who have never processed their feelings of abandonment as a child, may now express this hurt as a bitterness and a reluctance to get close to people. Or small hurts with your partner may grow into a deep resentment for them. Or even if we have bad memories or dark insecurities that we try to push down, they always seem to bob back up to the surface.
These steps below are some general tips that can be helpful to you. However, if you have experienced a deep hurt or trauma, these steps may not be feasible or even safe for you to complete on your own. If you feel like that resonates with you, I urge you to reach out to a therapist who can help you along this journey.
How do I Process my Emotions?
1. Feel It
The first step to processing your emotions is to feel it. In the therapy world, we have a phrase called “feel it to heal it.” In my opinion, this is probably the least fun step. Nobody wants to sit with uncomfortable emotions. However, if we don’t sit with them, they never really go away. And the good news is that this gets easier with practice.
Maybe you’ve never sat with your emotions before. Many people haven’t. Many people were taught from a young age that emotions were bad or unhelpful or even unmasculine. I reject the idea that emotions are bad or unmasculine. I agree that emotions can be unhelpful if we don’t listen to them and decide what to do with them, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them.
More good news is that feeling our emotions comes naturally to us. When kids fall down and get hurt, they don’t have to force themselves to start crying – that is simply their natural response. Additionally, as an adult, you don’t have to force yourself to feel emotions. What you may need to do, is work on taking down the walls you have around your emotions so that you can let yourself feel them.
2. Name It
The second step in this process is similar to the first step. In fact, these steps will most likely overlap. After you let yourself feel what your body needs you to feel, you need to explicitly name what you are feeling. Another fun therapy phrase we have is “name it to tame it.” When we can name our emotions, we identify them as something specific and contained, instead of leaving them as a big and unknown scary mess.
When identifying or naming our emotions, it’s also important to know the difference between primary and secondary emotions. If we are naming a secondary emotion, it is important that we go deeper than that and also identify the primary emotions behind it. For example, anger is a secondary emotion, so it should never be the only emotion that you name. What is fueling your anger? Is it an insecurity? Is it bitterness?
An emotion wheel is a great tool to help with this. General emotions are in the middle of the wheel, but you can move towards the outside of the wheel to get more specific and identify your primary emotions.
3. Share It
The final step in this process is to share it. As humans, we are relational beings. We need to do things in community to thrive. Depending on the intensity of the emotion that you are processing, your way of sharing it may be different. For example, for relatively mild emotions, it may be as simple as talking with a pet about it or writing a letter to someone that you aren’t planning on sending. For deeper emotions, you may need to share your emotions with a trusted friend, religious leader, or even a therapist.
Walking around with unprocessed emotions can be exhausting and discouraging. If that is you, try out these steps. You may need to repeat them multiple times, or whenever the said emotion arises. That is totally okay. You may also need the help of a skilled therapist to help guide you through these steps. If that’s what you need, let us help you release yourself from the emotional prison that unprocessed emotions can cause. You deserve freedom.
About The Author
Jorden Groenink, MS, AMFT, APCC an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT136162) and an Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC12906), supervised by Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT, CSAT, CPTT (CA90961). She has been trained in Experiential Therapy and loves working with couples and individuals who want to experience a more fulfilling life. Jorden wholeheartedly believes that every person is worthy of love and relationship. When not working with clients or listening to audiobooks, Jorden enjoys spending time with her family (husband, dog, & cat) and doing DIY projects around her house.
