Emotional crisis? How to deal with one, and try and mitigate its effects

5 October 2018

With all the stresses and strains of modern life, and the challenges we all, at some time or another, face in our relationships with our partners, lovers or other people close to us, it’s really not surprising that sometimes we all reach a stage where our emotions enter a crisis stage. In short, we have had enough and are ready to vent our feelings or, alternatively, want go and hide away from the issues which are facing us; get away from the people most likely causing us problems.

For some people, an emotional crisis just creeps up on them; slowly…, slowly but surely their mood changes, their overall feelings become negative and their thoughts strained… until they can tolerate the situation no longer and they… snap!

Others, however, are a bit like a volcano and the eruption of feelings and associated actions, behaviour and emotions are instant, dramatic and intense and can be quite scary—especially if you are one of the people observing such a situation or, worse still, are on the receiving end of the torrent of emotional outpouring!

Obviously, different things trigger upset, and result in strong emotions coming to the fore, in different people; obviously, too, some people are far better at handling emotional crises than others.

Whichever type of person you are (and, in reality, almost everyone has an emotional crisis of sorts at some time in their life), the important thing is to make sure you do your best to mitigate the impact of such a crisis on you and others around you.

So, here are a few key things to do if an emotional crisis grips you and you don’t know quite what to do for the best:

    – relax, breathe deeply and clear you mind; don’t do anything impulsively—the situation may not be quite as bad as it seems;

– sit down with a nice cup of tea or coffee and carefully think though the primary issues which have caused you to get where you are; the aim being to try and identify the real, underlying causes of the crisis; go beyond looking at the superficial reasons;

– write it down! Take a piece of paper and a pen, and write down your thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Write down any ideas you have, to help with the situation. Sometimes writing down your thoughts can work such wonders;

 – talk to your partner, friend, lover, or significant other. Open communication is an important key to solving problems, especially if they are problems in a relationship;

– once you have a good grasp on the key causes, do your best to endeavour to rationalise the situation objectively; don’t second guess or make hasty assumptions; talk to a trusted confidante;

– if this is not the first time you have suffered severely emotionally, look for longer term solutions, however painful they may be. For example, are you your own worst enemy, do you repeat the errors you have made before or go back to a situation where your well-being is still being affected; do you need to break away from a relationship, or can you work together to make amends?

– email me and arrange for a mutually convenient time for us to get together and talk (or more) and maybe help you work out some sort of action plan to make sure your emotional crises can be dealt with more effectively in the future; or you might just need some tender loving…

Whichever way you choose to deal with your emotional crisis, be sure that there is a solution out there…. you just need to find the one that’s best for you!