How to Process Emotions in a Healthy Way

This article is a step by step guide on processing and handling your emotions in a healthy way with journaling prompts to guide you through the process. This will not only bring you peace but also shift your relationships in a positive way.

Step 1: Acknowledge your emotions (Do NOT suppress or avoid them)

We were shown at a young age to avoid our emotions because they can cause trouble for other people. However, those emotions won’t disappear just because we ignore them. Instead, they are stored in the body that lead to chronic stress, build-up as resentment, or cause us to lash out. None of these actually solve the problem. They only cause more suffering. 

Therefore, we should instead allow ourselves to experience the emotion without denying it. Emotions are only temporary. They won’t last forever. So, instead of wasting our energy in resisting them, we should appreciate our privilege for being able to experience the whole spectrum of emotions and learn from them.

Journaling Prompts for Step 1

1. What are the emotions I am experiencing right now? (If you have trouble identifying your emotions, you can try searching it on Google or Youtube)
2.  How do I feel? (Write everything down)

Step 2: Validate your emotions

When going through a negative emotion, I think we’ve all had the experience of trying to gain comfort by talking it out to other people. However, they just ended up telling us that it’s not a big deal to get so upset about it. From my experience, it really hurts when those feelings get denied especially when we are trying to feel better by talking about it. But the truth is, other people aren’t even capable of validating our emotions because they literally have no idea about what we are going through, our past experiences, and our thoughts. Therefore, we are the only person that can validate our emotions.

Journaling Prompts for Step 2

1. I am feeling <the emotions> right now because <the emotional trigger>
2. It’s totally okay to feel <the emotions> when <the emotional trigger> because my feelings are valid and I allow myself to feel this way

Step 3: Understand the emotional trigger

Every emotion has a trigger. We are practicing self-care by understanding the trigger. This is because we are able to look at ourselves from a different perspective when things don’t go our way. This can give us a better direction on our self-development journey because we now know which areas we need to work more on. 

For example, after becoming aware of my tendency to take things personally, I realized that it’s because my childhood experiences have lead me to attach my self-worth to other people’s reaction towards me. Therefore, I now know that my self-development journey needs to focus more on detachment.

Journaling Prompts for Step 3

1. What happened that triggered this emotion?
2. Why do I feel this way about what happened? (this can include childhood experiences or insecurities)
3. If the same thing happens to me again, what are the areas I need to work on in order to (emotionally) react in a healthier way?

Step 4: Brainstorm ideas to evolve from the experience

A good person dyes events with his own color and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.

Seneca

Now that we know what is causing the negative emotions, it’s time to take action to transform the whole experience to work in our favor, whether it’s apologizing to someone, doing the inner work, or learning more about a specific topic. By doing so, every negative experience becomes an opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves!

For example, after learning that I need to work more on detachment, I started doing research on role models, books, youtube videos, and podcasts about mastering detachment. Then, I started implementing what I learned from those resources when experiencing negative reactions from other people. This resulted in healing and evolving from negative emotions. 

Journaling Prompts for Step 4

1. What lesson did I learn from this experience?
2. What steps can I take to solve the problem?
3. What resources can I learn from to better deal with the same situation again?

Hope this helps! Thank you so much for reading!