Six steps to calm your emotional frenzy!

You know the Fergie song Big Girls Don’t Cry? (If you don’t, hit YouTube ASAP.) My favourite line from the song is “I need some shelter of my own protection, baby. To be with myself and centre, clarity, peace, serenity”. It captures a lot of what I aspire to, but all too often forget to actually do! 




Whenever I’m walking about in my daily life and get stung with some sort of crazy huge feeling out of the blue, (which is to say, about a thousand times a day) I often go straight to my phone or the person I’m with and start blurting out all this emotion. Which rarely ever gets the perfect reaction, as they are struck with the energy of the emotion I am projecting. We aren't able to effectively communicate through the fizzling flames of feeling, and therefore the other person is often unable to pick up on what we are actually asking for from them. What a pickle. 


My partner and I struggle with this to no end. When I ring him and launch into a rant, he doesn’t hear ‘I am hurting and need reassurance and love’. Similarly, when I feel wronged and start complaining about a customer I served that day, he doesn’t hear ‘I know we should let go of our egos, but I felt disrespected when treated as inferior and I would like you to remind me that I am valid and complete in my own self regardless of how others make me feel’. Instead, he just feels attacked by a barrage of emotions, for which he isn’t aware what the response I am looking for is. I know on the movies, they can read our minds, but unfortunately that just isn’t possible in this life. We forget that they too have feelings and us meeting them with trunk loads of our may well overwhelm theirs!


But I have the solution! 

As earlier stated, I always rush straight at others as soon as I feel something. But I’m going to pledge to myself, to explore the emotional state inwardly and filter out all the useful stuff before trying to communicate it.


These are my suggestions for how we can interrogate the best out of our frenzies:

1.       What am I feeling?
Sometimes we don’t even sit with the emotion long enough to know what it is!

2.       Why am I feeling this?
An unmet need? A memory? Passed trauma? A character trait? A personality disorder? Hormones? Any reason is valid, and feeling is beautiful and necessary so don’t use this step to ‘explain away’ the feeling.

3.       What do I need in order to balance my energy?
If you are sad, do you need to make yourself a hot chocolate or run a bath? Maybe draw some kittens. Are you angry? Try going into the woods and finding sticks to break in half or even snapping a pencil.
The idea for this question was prompted by the amazing YouTuber Rowena Tsai (click HERE for link) who has been a life saver during quarantine.  

4.       What can I learn from this emotion?
What can I learn about myself? What do I need? Why is the emotion visiting me? Do I like how the emotion affects me? Do I need outside help or can I bring balance internally? How can I protect myself in the future while remaining open to new visiting emotions?
Sometimes all the visitor wants is a cup of tea and an *internal* chat. It may seem like a lot of ‘work’ or effort, but over time, it will get easier and become second nature. 😊

5.       And when ALL of the other steps have been completed, we’re ready for the last one, yay!

6.       How can I most effectively express my needs?
I have written a guide for this – click HERE - based on the book Nonviolent Communication by communication genius Marshall Rosenberg. This book was recommended to me by a beautiful and wise friend and I will always be grateful for reading it.

TLDR: take responsibility for your feeling, state what it is in reaction to and then make a request for any unmet needs to be met. (Example: I felt unheard when you didn’t have much to say to what happened to me at work today. Please would you consider reassuring me by reminding me that I am valid and loved and that what happens at work can’t take that away.) Remember that you may have an emotional reaction to a situation, but that situation isn’t necessarily the reason for your emotional state – often we can choose how we react to things. Even though it doesn’t feel like it!
Also, sometimes when we feel someone is ‘having a go’ at us, it can be very powerful just to assert ‘I can hear that you are angry’. Try following it with, ‘what do you need?’. But seriously, GO READ Nonviolent Communication.



Good luck with your adventure towards serenity. I know it’s a constant battle to ride the waves of life, but remember you are tethered to plenty of magical things. Please comment with any questions, recommendations or happy ideas.