How To Help Our Loved Ones During a Crisis

Part 1: Top 5 Life-Changing Facts About Emotions

Part 2: Helping our loved ones through an emotional storm

Part 3: Practical tools and techniques to deal with negative emotions at home, at work and in the classroom.

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Part Two:

Helping Our Loved Ones Through an Emotional Storm

In Part 1 of this article, we reviewed the following five points:

1) All our emotions are valid, acceptable and important, especially the negative ones!

2) To instantly have a good idea of where you are on the scale of emotions, simply notice how you are feeling in your body.

3) Everyone can learn to move themselves up the scale of emotions by choosing better-feeling thoughts or actions, or by releasing pent-up emotions.

4) Don’t try to escape or ignore negative emotions, even if they are often inconvenient and uncomfortable. They are sending you an important message. Make the appropriate changes and move on.

5) Don’t get sucked in. Negativity is highly addictive and contagious, so don’t dwell there too long. Be aware of the secret pleasurable payoff our egos get from negativity.

It's Not What You Think!

Understanding and practising these five essential points about emotions will already bring us a huge sense of empowerment and well-being. It's important to educate ourselves - and especially our children about emotional literacy, because many would-be emotional outbursts can be prevented simply by applying these five life-changing principles. As radical as this might sound to many, we have much more control over the way we feel than we might think. Emotional resilience and self-regulation are skills that can be learned and perfected. When we have the courage to work through our emotions consciously, the end result is invulnerability and imperturbability. These are definitely enviable assets in such a volatile and unpredictable world.

What can we do?

This next section is all about helping our loved ones through their tough emotions. How can we help them prevent outbursts? What is the true cause of an emotional crisis? When a storm hits, what can we do to make it easier for them? What attitudes should we adopt? What is going on internally and externally?

1.   Teach and Practice Prevention First

If we can increase our awareness of where we find ourselves on the scale of emotions at any given moment - and we learn how to catch ourselves when we are headed towards a negative spiral - we can adjust our thoughts and actions accordingly and maybe even avoid a crisis. The key is to practice this technique when we are feeling calm and centered, or when we are not completely emotionally overwhelmed. If we get to that point of overwhelm, then it's often too late to turn things around and avoid a crash because the negative emotions have built up too much momentum. So when it's too late for prevention, or when life unexpectedly hits us or our loved ones with a major challenge, what's the best way to deal with an emotional storm?

2. Understand the Real Cause

It’s crucial to understand the real cause behind any emotional upset. This will probably surprise and maybe even shock a few people. You have been warned! The ego will not like this one bit. It will strongly resist, but try to keep an open mind. As surprising as this may sound, the true source, or cause, of all our feelings (positive and negative) is always internal and not external. In other words, people or circumstances can’t make us feel anything unless those emotions are already present inside us. This is best explained by the brilliant psychiatrist Dr. David Hawkins, who wrote:

"The rationalizing mind prefers to keep the true causes of emotions out of awareness and utilizes the mechanism of projection to do this. It blames events or other people for "causing" a feeling and views itself as the helpless innocent victim of external causes. "They made me angry." "He got me upset." "It scared me." "World events are the cause of my anxiety." Actually, it's the exact opposite. The suppressed and repressed feelings seek an outlet and utilize the events as triggers and excuses to vent themselves. We are like pressure-cookers ready to release steam when the opportunity arises. Our triggers are set and ready to go off. In psychiatry, this mechanism is called displacement. It is because we are angry that events "make" us angry. If, through constant surrendering, we have let go of the pent-up store of anger, it is very difficult and, in fact, even impossible for anyone or any situation to "make" us angry. The same, therefore, goes for all other negative feelings once they have been surrendered."

What happens in the case of an emotional crisis is that a trigger (often external) taps into a major area of suppressed or repressed (unconscious) feelings. This can create a sense of overload to the conscious mind. Strong emotions, accompanied by irrational behaviours sometimes follow.

3.   Address the Internal Problem First

What does this mean? It means that we have to own our feelings. It means that we are 100% responsible for the way we feel inside, and there is no point in blaming anyone or anything. However, this does not mean that we have to fully agree and accept everything. We are free to speak up, to act and to fix the problems "out there", but we will have much greater power to do so if we fix our emotional wounds "in here" first. We can firmly demand change without being stuck and blinded by our own anger, rage, or hatred. Once we understand this for ourselves, we can help our loved ones untangle their internal and external issues. Let me explain...

If our child or our friend feels intense emotional discomfort, there are likely two factors to consider, or two facets to work on simultaneously:  the possible external triggers - or problems they have to deal with (a bully, a break up, getting fired...etc) and their internal emotional state (fear, low self-esteem, anxiety...etc). There are really two issues going on: their internal pain, and the trigger, or the external problem. We are conditioned to believe that the problem has caused the internal emotional pain, but remember that it has only aggravated it, not caused it. You might be able to work through the internal and external issues simultaneously, but the first priority should be to acknowledge and validate the feelings your loved one is experiencing, then allow them to calm down. Help them verbally express what they are feeling. You can say something like "I can see that you are feeling some________ and this must be difficult for you. Take a minute to breathe, calm down, and then we'll talk about it."

4.   Remember, It’s Not About You

The first question to ask ourselves when a loved one is having an emotional outburst is "do I really want to help my child / student / friend, or do I want to be right and appear to be in control?" At first, the answer might seem obvious, but beware! Strong negative emotions are highly contagious and if you’re not anchored in awareness right from the start, your ego might begin to take things personally and feel threatened. You don’t want to get triggered too, because that will complicate the situation even more. So if you really want to help, be willing to accept a bruised ego. Things will likely get messy, so take a deep breath, stay present, and remain as neutral and calm as possible. Remember, no matter what - despite the hurtful words or disrespectful behaviours that may be coming your way - that in the midst of their outburst, it's really not about you. They might be projecting their negative feelings onto you, but it's really about them dealing with overwhelming emotions. It's about them losing control and needing help to find clarity again. It's about them crying for help in a desperate way, because in that moment, they just don't know what else to do. Try to calm them down and show them that you understand what they are feeling. Try to "be on their side” as much as possible and help them to manage their raw, uncensored feelings.

5.   Accept What Has Happened

Many times, when people act in ways we don’t approve of, we think to ourselves something along the lines of "they SHOULD have known better than to act this way." This kind of thinking is not helpful or even true, because the fact is, they have already acted out. Despite the judgements we often have about others, everyone is always trying to do the best they can at any given moment. If they could have acted in a more appropriate way, they would have, but they didn’t. Human behaviours and emotions are complex, and very often, we are driven by unconscious drives. So focus on what is right here, right now. Help your loved one get back to a place of emotional balance, and then you can give consequences for the bad behaviours – but you can do this without being angry. This is no time to desert, ignore or shame the ones we love, as tempting as it might be for our egos to show them ‘who’s the boss.’ Hopefully next time, things will be better.

6.   Be a Catalyst For Healing
One of the greatest gifts you can give someone is to help them release those heavy, suppressed negative emotions that have been a burden for far too long. This emotional pain we all carry negatively affects our energy, our health, our creativity and our overall well-being. The only way to permanently release negative emotions is to face them consciously. So the next time a crisis happens under your watch, you have a choice. You can either consider it an inconvenience and a nuisance, telling your loved ones to “get their act together” and push those feelings way back down again, or you can help them heal. You can teach them how to release those feelings; you can offer them clarity and compassion; you can guide them through the discomfort so that they come out of the storm lighter and brighter. What an empowering act of Love! 

    In Part 3, I will give you practical tools and techniques to release negative emotions at home, at work and in the classroom. In the meantime, you will find plenty of resources on my website: www.lisevilleneuve.com

Thanks for reading!

Lise

www.lisevilleneuve.com

Top 5 Life-Changing Facts About Emotions

Why do we feel emotions? What is their purpose? Is it really possible to teach kids how to self-regulate their moods? How should we deal with the tantrums and meltdowns caused by negative emotions? How should we manage our own negative emotions that feel so uncomfortable? In this 3-part article about emotional intelligence, we will explore all these questions, and much more.

Part 1: Top 5 Life-Changing Facts About Emotions

Part 2: Helping our loved ones through an emotional storm

Part 3: Practical tools and techniques to deal with negative emotions at home, at work and in the classroom

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Part one: 

Top 5 Life-Changing Facts About Emotions

Most of us have been conditioned to love and value our positive emotions, but we avoid our negative emotions like the plague! We run away from them, we hide them from ourselves, we project them onto other people, and we even feel ashamed or guilty when these negative emotions catch up with us. Why do we do this? Nobody can feel only positive emotions all the time, so we should give ourselves a break. We’re only human, and that means we get to experience the full spectrum of emotions: positive and negative. (Below is Robert Plutchik's wheel of emotions).

As promised, here are the Top 5 Life-Changing Facts About Emotions:

1. All our emotions are valid, acceptable and important -especially the negative ones! They are not "wrong" and nobody should feel guilty or ashamed about the way they feel. Remember that our feelings and our behaviours are two different things. You can correct behaviours without shaming the feelings behind them.

2. Emotions are at the heart of our internal guidance system. Feelings create thousands of thoughts, and these thoughts then generate more feelings and emotions. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Our emotions are directly transferred and felt in our body. Positive emotions will make us feel good, relaxed, open, energized and inspired, whereas negative emotions will make us feel tense, constricted, closed, lethargic, sluggish and drained. So by paying attention to the way you feel in your body, (open or closed, good or bad) you’ll always know if you’re in a positive or negative emotional state. How do you feel now?

3. The emotional states we experience are not random at all. Emotions have been classified in a scale of emotions, from the lowest states to the highest. It's very difficult to make a sudden jump from the lower levels (such as depression) directly to the highest levels (such as optimism or joy), or the other way around. Our emotional states fluctuate during the day, gradually moving up or down the scale. Here’s the good news! We can change how we feel with our thoughts, our actions and our focus. To do this, we just need to reach for a better-feeling thought, or an action that will bring us joy. Try it now. Think about something that makes you smile. Breathe in that feeling. You have just moved yourself up one notch on the scale of emotions! It’s very simple. If we learn to pay attention to how we’re feeling in our body at any given moment –and we do our best to keep ourselves up in the more positive range of emotions on the scale, we won’t suddenly be ambushed by strong negative feelings. However, when the negative emotions do show up, that’s ok! They serve a very important purpose and they should not be ignored.

4. Negative emotions tell us when we're off track, or out of alignment with the wisdom of our higher-Selves. Negative emotions are like a wake-up call. They are telling us that we are now quite low on the scale of emotions and it would be wise to slowly climb back up by either changing our actions or our thoughts. It’s also possible that some old unresolved emotions have been stirred up again. If that’s the case, we can decide if we’d like to work on releasing those suppressed emotions, or if the timing is not appropriate, we can shift our focus to better-feeling thoughts or actions and come back to these at a later time.

5. Everyone experiences negative emotions sooner or later, but we don’t have to stay stuck in negativity. Beware! Negativity can be highly addictive and contagious, so you don’t want to dwell there. It’s addictive because it offers a secret, pleasurable payoff to the ego. Unchecked, it will quickly pick up momentum and generate more negativity. Remember: the purpose of negative emotions is to make us aware that we are heading in the wrong direction, or that something needs to be released if we want to move forward and feel good again. Once we have gotten the message and made the appropriate changes, we can start to move back up the scale of emotions to a better-feeling state. Sometimes –like in the case of grief, or severe depression, the healing process can take some time, so we have to be patient with ourselves. Having an attitude of surrender and acceptance of whatever feelings we are experiencing accelerates the process. If we resist our negative feelings, we can’t heal them, because we’re just trying to escape. Instead, these feelings have to be willingly released. I will be giving more details about releasing negative feelings in the following sections.

In short:

1)     All our emotions are valid, acceptable and important, especially the negative ones!

2)    To instantly have a good idea of where you are on the scale of emotions, simply notice how you are feeling in your body. Feeling good / open means you are experiencing positive emotions (#7 and up on the scale), feeling any kind of tension or resistance means you are experiencing negative emotions (#8 and down on the scale).

3)     Everyone can learn to move themselves up the scale of emotions by choosing better-feeling thoughts or actions, or by releasing pent-up emotions.

4)     Don’t try to escape or ignore negative emotions, even if they are often inconvenient and uncomfortable. They are sending you an important message. Make the appropriate changes and move on.

5)     Don’t get sucked in. Negativity is highly addictive and contagious, so don’t dwell there too long. Be aware of the secret pleasurable payoff our egos get from negativity. Nevertheless, it feels much better to be in a state of joy and peace. Anyone can get there. It just takes a little will and courage.

Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3. In part 2, we’ll discuss what you can do to help a loved one navigate through an emotional storm. Part 3 is all about practical tools and techniques to help you deal with negative emotions at home, at work or in the classroom.

In the meantime, if you’d like some extra resources to teach children about emotional intelligence (mindfulness), I’ve written a complete program called Conscious Kids / Enfants Lucides. The lessons are taught through creative short stories, followed by fun activities that can be done at home or in the classroom. 

Level 1 covers:

- The relationship between thoughts and emotions;

- How to move ourselves up the scale of emotions;

- How to deal with strong negative emotions, and more. 

Thanks for reading! Coming soon is Part 2: Helping our loved ones through an emotional storm.

Lise Villeneuve

www.lisevilleneuve.com

Teachers and Parents : Are Negative Emotions OK?

The Post-School Tantrums
I recently got flashed back to when our daughter came home from public school - when she was just nine years old. Very often, she would walk in the door, immediately run to her room, slam the door and be in a mood until supper time. Our son Théo often did the same thing when I picked him up from preschool. When he got home, he needed to vent all that stress and pent-up frustration he had accumulated during the day. It was only at home that he finally felt comfortable enough to let it out -thankfully. Did you ever experience this with your kids?

Model Students?
I realise now that our kids simply didn't know how to deal with their (socially unacceptable) negative emotions when these came up at school or preschool, so they did the only thing they could to not disrupt the class : they ignored the emotions, repressed them and let the pressure build up inside... until they got home.

Stress, Negative Emotions and The Brain
I've been homeschooling my kids for over six years now, and we have totally fallen in love with this way of life. For us, it means more flexibility, creativity, efficiency and autonomy. It means more fun learning and less stress. But this blog post is not about the pros and cons of homeschooling. It's about what we can do to help kids thrive in a learning environment. Many of my friends are wonderful teachers and I think it's important that we have an open and honest conversation about what we can do to help kids cope with their strong negative emotions in the classroom, as well as at home. We all intuitively know what research has proven: that stress and negative emotions are detrimental to learning.

Nobody Can Escape
BUT. Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us experience negative emotions on a daily basis, despite the fact that we highly resist the discomfort these bring. They are just a normal part of life. Kids in the classroom are not exempt from negative emotions - au contraire! Like Emma and Théo, many kids are obedient and they are eager to please their teachers or parents - but this doesn't mean they don't feel stressed out at times or are immune to experiencing strong negative emotions. In fact, the best behaved kids are probably more likely to repress and suppress their negative feelings in order to comply. All emotions that are not acknowledged, expressed or neutralised remain stuck in our bodies, so it would be extremely helpful to give students some tools, strategies and even a little physical space to help them cope with their negative emotions.

Classrooms of the Future?
Wouldn't it be life-changing to remind kids that they don't have to be ashamed, or embarrassed about the way they feel, even if they feel irritated, or angry, or scared? Wouldn't it be easier to teach a class if each student knew how to self-regulate his moods, especially when those big, scary negative emotions return? Isn't it pointless to try to force-feed information to a pupil who is emotionally overwhelmed? I know that many teachers are doing the best they can, often with overcrowded classes and tight schedules. But small, incremental changes in our attitudes towards negative emotions can start to make a big difference.

Théo's Tantrum
Wednesday this week, Théo was having a rough morning. For some reason, he was feeling very irritated -even before we sat down for school. This intense mood made it difficult for him to focus on the French lesson we were doing together. He ended up throwing his pencil across the table and yelled "I'm not doing this!" This is not typical for him. I simply said "I can see you are feeling very frustrated right now, why don't you take a little break, do something that will help you to feel better, and we'll get back to this later." I added "you know there's nothing wrong with feeling frustrated, right? It's OK if you feel this way." Théo looked a little surprised and relieved.

A Blessing In Disguise
It's in that moment that I realised how lucky I was to be able to witness the tantrums, the anger fits, and the negative self-talk when they happen. Why? Because at least our kids are comfortable enough to spontaneously express their negative thoughts and feelings -as opposed to repressing or suppressing them for fear that they might be considered disruptive, inappropriate or socially unacceptable. And rightfully so. Théo would probably never have the guts to act out like this in a classroom. Honestly, I prefer the tantrum over the repression of his feelings.

The Most Valuable Subject?
I am grateful to have the opportunity to teach kids how to honour and learn from their strong negative emotions. Science, math, French, music and social studies are all very interesting, but mindfulness may be the most important and valuable subject they ever learn.

If you'd like some mindfulness resources for kids, including how to work with strong negative emotions, please go to my website, www.lisevilleneuve.com and look for Conscious Kids or Enfants Lucides in French. I have also created a deck of free, printable mindfulness cards that is great in the classroom or at home.

Each one of us is changing the world right now.

Peace!

Lise Villeneuve
www.lisevilleneuve.com