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Emotional Expression
How Do I Use Emotional Expression to Overcome Stress?
Emotional expression is key to a healthy life. It gets bad feelings out of our system. It prevents the fight-or-flight state that leads to so many health problems. And if we express our emotions, we can take back control of our minds from the stress that can often overwhelm it.
Here is a way to move uncomfortable emotions quickly:
- Identify the emotion you are feeling. Is it anger, sadness, fear, disgust?
- Focus on the emotion without the reason you are feeling that way. This is going to be difficult because we usually think about the reason we are feeling a certain way or we try to stuff it.
- Focus on where you feel this emotion in your body and what it feels like. It might help to give it a shape or color and focus on that. If you start thinking about why you are feeling it, stop yourself and go back to just focusing on the basic emotion.
- Take deep breaths and as you exhale, imagine the emotion melting away.
- Continue to do this until you feel relief. If you leave the story out of it, the relief should come quickly – five minutes or less.
When we take control from stress, we can put our minds at ease and focus on more important things that bring us joy and happiness. Here are some more emotional expression exercises and activities to help overcome stress.