How to Process Emotions & Feel Better – 4 Easy Steps
Do you know how to process emotions? In other words, how to take care of yourself emotionally and process your feelings. Especially when something is triggering you or you’re experiencing a relationship upset. Have you given it much thought? Or are your emotions running the show?
Knowing how to process emotions is one of the most empowering things you can do. Especially if you’re an emotional person, highly sensitive, and/or have a hard time managing anger. But knowing how to deal with emotions in a healthy way isn’t the societal norm.
We’re always looking at how to “control” emotions and feelings when controlling them shouldn’t be the goal. You really can’t “control” emotions. It’s energy in motion that wants your attention. Your emotions are there to help you evolve.
This article will give you an easy and effective way to process emotions. It’ll show you a 4 step process on how to deal with your emotions in a healthy way.
Ultimately the process involves learning how to take care of yourself emotionally.
Especially when:
- You’re upset with those closest to you
- Faced with a challenging life situation
- Suffering from self-destructive behaviors.
This is a tool to process emotions that you can use for the rest of your life.
How Do You Release
and Process Emotions?
In my younger years, I used to be such an emotionally intense person. My emotions would drag me under. They would sabotage me and my relationships. I had no idea how to take care of myself emotionally. My emotions were overwhelming and they scared me. I had no clue how to deal with emotions in a healthy way.
Over time I created a greater understanding of my emotions. By understanding my emotions and no longer fearing them, they’ve become a source of power for me instead of a source of sabotage. But I’ve had to stay diligent.
Coping with emotions is an ongoing journey. Not a one-time deal. Managing emotions and having greater emotional awareness is a skill. And really an evolutionary process you take during your life. What I share in this article will show you how to release and process your emotions. And how to let your emotions heal you instead of sabotaging your life and your relationships.
Knowing How to Process Emotions Wasn’t a Skill You Learned
Emotions are an important part of being human and the human experience. That’s why it’s important NOT to ignore your emotions. They play a key role in your evolutionary process. But you’ve been programmed to ignore and deny them – to be strong and “suck it up.” Thus also dampening the full potential of your evolution process.
Both men and women have emotions. As you reclaim your emotions you reclaim your divine feminine power. You’ll balance the masculine and feminine energies within you and find your truth and true center.
It’s no longer about being tough and “getting over it.” What’s more important is becoming emotionally aware and “moving through it.” Knowing how to process your feelings requires you to validate them as opposed to denying them.
Your emotions are both subtle and powerfully intense – knowing how to process emotional pain and handle emotional situations is a must-have divine feminine skill no matter what gender you are.
How to Process Difficult Emotions and Take Care of Yourself Emotionally
I developed a method of how to process negative emotions in a productive way. The process is called the Four N’s: Notice, Name, Nurture, and Need. We all want someone to be there for us in relationship. This process is a way for you to be there for yourself emotionally. It’s an easy yet powerful practice worth learning.
The process involves directing your behavior toward what is underneath an uncomfortable feeling you are having instead of numbing out with such things as overeating, overdrinking, overshopping, etc. Also, too much social media or being on your iPhone have become great ways to numb out. As you can see running from your feelings can come in many forms. For now, l use overeating as an example.
Related article: How to Take Care of Yourself and Overcome Emotional Eating
Let’s say you find yourself eating too much pizza or indulging in a second or third piece of pie, knowing this behavior will leave you feeling discontent in your body and regretting it later.
What is an Emotional Process?
Here’s what you do if you want to shift that old, disempowering pattern and really know how to process your feelings and emotions instead.
Remember… it’s not about learning how to be less emotional.
It’s about learning how to get better at feeling!
The 4 Step Method of How to Process Your Feelings
1. Notice Your Behavior
The first N is to Notice, “Ah, I am reaching for too much pizza or pie because I’m having an uncomfortable feeling.” You’re bringing more consciousness to an unconscious behavior. You’re shifting your behavior simply by noticing and acknowledging that you’re overeating due to an uncomfortable feeling instead of being on autopilot.
This step is the first step in knowing how to process your emotions. It seems easy but really it’s the hardest step. That’s because it’s easier to stay stuck in the old familiar yet unconscious pattern. It takes effort to notice and then be willing to do something about it – and in that moment – to stop and shift the energy so that you can start the process of self-awareness and learning how to process your emotions. Simply by developing the art of noticing you now have a choice to take it to the next step. The Notice step is a “pattern interrupt” of habitual and automatic, unconscious behaviors.
2. Name the Feeling
Once you take notice, proceed to the second N, which is to Name it. If you get this far you’re well on your way of managing emotions that come up when you’re upset. It’s a turning point. You’re letting go of the old destructive pattern and turning your focus inward by naming your uncomfortable feeling.
To name it, ask yourself, “If I am having an uncomfortable feeling, what is it? Understanding emotions is an important part to this process. And categorizing emotions helps to create a container for them. Your brain will cooperate more with your heart.
Part of coping with emotions is understanding them instead of fearing or denying them. For simplicity, I’ve categorized them into six different categories. See image below.
Categories of Feelings
So again when you’re upset ask yourself, “What is the feeling.” Is it SAD, MAD, GLAD, FEAR, SHAME, or NUMB?” It’s probably not glad.
Be present and feel the feeling.
It’s important to understand feelings are IN YOUR BODY and not in your head.
As you feel into it, let’s say, for example, you feel the feeling as hurt. Hurt is part of the sad category. You’ve identified the feeling by giving it your undivided attention.
All your feelings want is your attention and love. Similar to what a child wants. Your feelings are there to inform you that something isn’t quite right. They discharge when you acknowledge them in a compassionate and non-blaming way.
That’s an important part of understanding how to process emotional pain. Coping with emotions properly is important. They don’t like to be repressed. They need your attention, just like a child does. This is your inner child wanting your attention. When you give it your attention – it stops “screaming” at you.
Feelings and Their Characteristics
- Have you ever consciously noticed how fear feels in your body, compared to sadness?
- Or how anger feels in your body, compared to shame?
- What does it feel like in your body when you are numb and can’t feel anything at all?
- Sadness, for example, is a heavy energy, whereas fear is a tense or nervous energy.
- Anger is a fiery and often explosive energy.
Become aware of the different types of feelings, of how and where they occupy your body. This is an important awareness to have for coping with emotions. You take care of yourself in a more conscious way when you are tuned in like this. It is powerfully transformative.
3. Nurture the Feeling
Once you know what type of feeling you are experiencing, you can proceed to the third N, which is to Nurture it. This is an important step for understanding how to process negative emotions.
You may know that you are hurt, and you’re able to name that emotion. However, if you don’t go to the third step, which is to Nurture it, then you’ll likely fall back into your old patterns of overeating or other destructive behaviors.
The old pattern is to disregard, repress or negate the feeling. Instead, Nurture it – acknowledge it and transform it. This is exactly how to come to your rescue and be there for yourself emotionally.
Can You Sit With Your Uncomfortable Emotions?
To nurture the feeling you need to sit with it. BE with that activated energy in your body. To begin, place one hand on your heart, and the other hand on your belly, or wherever you feel the emotional pain in your body.
Become present in your body. Start to breathe into the feeling. Give it your undivided attention. This is where your feelings are, as mentioned earlier, in the body. With your hands on your heart and your belly (or wherever you have placed them), you are literally holding the feeling.
Then as you hold the feeling, begin to breathe into it and be present with it. Begin to nurture the feeling as a loving parent would. Literally holding your uncomfortable feeling like a baby. Ask yourself, “What is this negative emotion all about?” Become curious about the energy in your body as opposed to continuing to intellectualize, reprocess “the story” or try to solve the situation.
For example, let’s say that your partner yelled at you. You notice you are feeling an emotion. You get present with your body and are able to name the emotion: hurt. Once you are aware of what the feeling is, you become compassionate and nurture yourself regarding this issue. You feel the hurt inside your body.
You become curious about this heavy energy inside of you. You take the time you are in this emotional state to deepen self-awareness by asking yourself…
What color is this energy?
What shape does it have?
Does it have a certain texture?
All your focus goes towards this energy in your body and not about replaying the story in your head. Then, you hold this hurt with loving kindness. You take care of yourself in a deeply emotional way when you can develop this self-nurturing skill of how to process emotions.
4. Uncover Your Core Need
Then go to the fourth N, which is to uncover the Need. Under every uncomfortable emotion is an unmet need. Know that your difficult emotions are there for a reason. With one hand on your heart and the other hand on your belly (or wherever you have placed them), ask yourself, “What do I need?”
This is a powerful question to ask yourself when you are upset about a situation. It will help you stay out of “story,” which keeps you in your head. When you are in your head in such a situation, you give your power away.
Your power comes from understanding what your soul wants to show you. It wants you to grow, learn, and live a more expanded life. Your soul does not want you to stay in drama, sabotage, victim, or “stuff it” energy. It doesn’t want you to stay in a confining box constructed from limited belief systems. And it wants you to expand into greater awareness.
Your negative feelings are the magical source for greater awareness. They can help you feel more empowered as a woman when you understand the underlying unmet need. Addressing the unmet need translates into more aliveness in your body because this is a process of learning to love and acknowledge yourself. It is a process of honoring your negative emotions instead of repressing them. This is how you learn to lead your life from a place of love by cultivating it from within.
You Take Care of Yourself by Validating Your Uncomfortable Emotions
Look for what is under any intense emotions or uncomfortable feelings. It helps you uncover a core unmet need. Understanding your core need and embodying it is empowering.
Your uncomfortable emotions are valid. Don’t dismiss them. Instead, uncover the unmet need and either give it to yourself, request it from another, or both. It will steer you back to a state of balance.
This powerful and effective process will help you understand yourself on a deeper level.
Knowing your needs and how to meet them is empowering. When I refer to knowing your needs, I’m not referring to your desire to have someone change their behavior. You can never control another’s actions. The only actions you can control are yours. I’m referring to core needs. A core need is not saying to your partner, “I need you to stop being a jerk.”
Core needs are normal and natural. It doesn’t mean you are needy. Core needs are such things as compassion, understanding, clarity, cleanliness, and gentleness, to name a few. In the example I gave of your partner yelling at you, causing you to feel hurt and sad, maybe your core need would be gentleness.
By putting your hands on your heart and your belly, you are already giving yourself that which you need. You have already begun, by doing the 4N process, to give yourself what you need.
Now, feeling aware and centered as opposed to emotional, and knowing that your core need is a desire for gentleness, you can go back to your partner and request that. When you do this, you help prevent unnecessary drama in your relationships.
You definitely won’t get your core need for gentleness met if you say to your partner, “You are such a jerk for yelling at me. Don’t do it again.” INSTEAD, when you uncover your core need and embody it, meaning you feel you are worthy of it, and you own the statement “I need gentleness,” you can say to your partner, “Honey, when you yelled at me, it really hurt. I felt sad. What I need is gentleness. Would you be willing to be gentler with me in the future?”
Your partner may not be perfect, however, with this type of request, if asked sincerely, will help your partner see things in a different way. By you seeing things in a different way through using the 4N process you shift the energy dance in the relationship.
Your Needs are Valid
This type of request will only work if you mean it, embody it, and speak it from your heart. Knowing inside yourself that your needs are valid. The 4N’s will help you develop a more compassionate relationship with yourself. Once you have discovered your core need, you then must believe you are worthy of having that core need met, 100 percent.
If you don’t feel you are worthy of it, your request won’t come from your heart; it’ll come from your head. You may request to be treated gently, but you can’t convince another person to be gentle with you if you don’t believe you are worthy of it.
That’s what I mean by embodying and feeling deserving of your core need. When you do this, your whole “being” becomes empowered. Your energy isn’t scattered or confused; it is centered and stable. When you “people-please” to the detriment of your needs, it weakens your life force energy.
Use The 4N Process any time you have an uncomfortable feeling. Now that you’ve been introduced to this method of how to process your feelings, half the battle will be simply to remember to do it.
Old habits die hard. You may do it and then slip and not do it. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t process your emotions productively every time. How to process your feelings and emotions takes time. You are human, learning a new way of living and loving. It’s a lifelong process of opening to love.
Remember to put your hands on your heart and belly when you are upset. Learn to be there for yourself so you won’t create unnecessary drama in your relationships. You’ll come to your senses by sensing into your body (not your mind) when negative emotions arise.
It’s all about taking care of yourself and BEING in your body and not in the insanity of your over-active mind. When you speak your feelings, remember to use “I” statements instead of “You” statements to take full responsibility for your feelings.
How to Process Emotions
Involves Exploring Your Needs and Feelings
Learning how to deal with emotions in a healthy way involves connecting to your needs and feelings. The 4N process helps you explore your needs and feelings. Knowing your needs, and how to get them met, is empowering. You take care of yourself in a deeply emotional way when you practice this process and make it part of your life.
Set aside ten minutes or more, then get centered by taking a few breaths. On a piece of paper write down ten of your core needs. Remember, core needs don’t involve making someone else do something such as, “I need my husband to help with the housework.”
Instead, a core need in that situation could be a need for cleanliness. Other core needs, for example, might be gentleness, connection, patience, and support. What are yours?
When you practice this new way of communicating with yourself and others, you’ll feel less heaviness in your body. This type of communication “technique” is not really a technique, because if you are not in your heart, it won’t work. It is a way of learning how to give your heart and body – instead of your mind – a voice. And that’s what knowing how to process emotions is all about.
Again, it’s not about learning how to be less emotional. It’s about learning how to deal with emotions in a healthy way.
The 4N process will show you exactly how to do that.
I’m Anna-Thea an author and Certified Divine Feminine Educator. If you want to feel good learn this valuable tool with me via video on how to process emotions.
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EMOTIONS
