Most of us can appreciate the difficulty of experiencing feelings. Do feelings have to be difficult? Probably. But that doesn’t mean that’s all they have to be. Today I want to spend some time discussing how to extricate that little bit of fun that resides in the possibilities indicated by most of the tough feelings – anger, anxiety, boredom, confusion, envy, fear, frustration, guilt, humiliation, imposter syndrome, jealousy, panic, schadenfreude, self-righteousness, shame, sorrow, suspicion. Or if not fun, at least a sliver of something constructive.

But first, what makes tough feelings difficult? I think it is because they feel physically uncomfortable and we often don’t know how to act on them. There are probably other reasons I am missing, but let’s start with those two. There are things we can do about those two aspects.

The Physical Experience of Emotion

Physical discomfort. What does that phrase call to mind? Cold feet, burning indigestion, tensed muscles, strained lungs? When it comes to discomfort caused by feelings – changes in pulse, blood pressure, facial muscle activation, breathing pattern, adrenaline levels, concentration – part of the struggle is that those sensations have additional meaning to us, beyond just an emotion. We associate them with risk and survival. It can be difficult to tolerate the physical manifestation of a feeling if you think it’s indicative that your body is going to fail you at any moment. To decrease the additional fear and stress that comes from worrying about your survival, it can help to appreciate that your body is capable of withstanding a lot of acute stress, much more than would be inflicted by one of these difficult feelings.

Without that existential worry, your mind is freed up to contemplate a more constructive thought while your body is in the throes of an emotion. One such thought could be, “my reality is more than this emotion.” Because this feeling will pass. Its origins may or may not be important to you. You may or may not decide to act on it. You won’t always feel so uncomfortable, and there are probably things you can do to reduce the risk of this particular feeling recurring.

If you find yourself often experiencing a particular emotion that seems overwhelming, you can learn to develop a tolerance for it so that it doesn’t affect you as much. It helps if you can first label the particular feeling that causes overwhelming discomfort for you.  The next time you find yourself overwhelmed by a feeling, take a look at this study by Nummenmaa and colleagues (PNAS 2014). Figure 2 shows how people tend to perceive higher or lower levels of activation in various parts of the body during specific emotions. Once you have an idea of how a troublesome emotion manifests in your body and have a label for that emotion, you can work with it on your own terms. We’ve all heard about the benefits of mindfulness, but perhaps have not experienced what it can do for you in terms of emotional capacity.

Try intentionally putting yourself into a particular emotional state for a few minutes a day over a period of several days, and your ability to tolerate that emotion will probably increase. Meaning, you won’t feel so much distress or additional side effect feelings about experiencing that primary emotional state. For some audio recordings to help with this exercise, check out the “Stepping into …” links from the website of Dr. Ron Seigel, a mindfulness clinician. There are many other websites dedicated to these types of resources, so you can really get into it if you choose this strategy.

Neglected in this section is the possibility of discomfort from positive emotions. The angst of suspecting that your love interest might have feelings for you. The unbearable warmth of receiving praise from your idol. The constriction of receiving caring attention from people you have long distrusted. The overwhelming sensation of drowning in affection that counters your long-held knowledge of being generally unlovable. These scenarios are tragedies to be addressed in a future post, but they deserve a mention here for being just as unwelcome and destabilizing – with similar potential for harm – as the difficult emotions listed earlier.

Acting on Emotions

Most importantly, when it comes to acting on emotions: you don’t have to act on them. The stronger your ability to tolerate an emotion, the more control you have over whether you act on it and how. Although I tend to think you should usually act on emotions, if only by writing in a journal about what led to them or what you plan to do about them. I see them as motivators for growth – that extra drive to get over the energy barrier to whatever constructive risks you’ve been considering recently.

Beyond that, I use this guide to help me figure out what to do for certain emotions. It provides a shortcut for translating the emotion into a positive force, at least for me. These aren’t professional recommendations and they’re definitely not meant to deal with  serious, clinically diagnosable conditions related to these feelings. Just the every-day variety. It may be useful to go through these for yourself and make your own recommended shortcuts for each feeling. What other feelings would you add to this list?

• Anger – an opportunity to vocalize your values and expectations, regardless of whether they were met or respected
• Anxiety – a reminder to write in your journal
• Boredom – a reminder to get up and exercise
• Confusion – an opportunity to learn more about others’ philosophies and assumptions and perhaps share your own
• Embarrassment – an opportunity to solicit empathetic connections from those around you or to request/make space and distance for yourself
• Envy- a learning opportunity or an opportunity for curiosity – “how did they do it and how can I make that happen in my own life?”  “How would that look in my life? What do I have to gain from that?” or to find out for yourself how to borrow or experience a bit of what that person seems to have
• Fear – an opportunity to responsibly investigate the mysteries affecting your own life
• Frustration – an opportunity to imagine a better future. The more frustration you feel, the more detail with which you can imagine this future. Including your place in it and how you might get there. If the frustration endures for long enough, you can even envision how you might achieve that future goal independently of the person or scenario that triggered your frustration.
• Guilt – an opportunity to make amends to yourself regarding your past behavior
• Humiliation – an opportunity for urgent goal-setting. Or for instant and powerful clarity. What have you been unable to see before, or not had enough information to confidently assess for yourself, that you can now see clearly enough to act on?
• Imposter syndrome – an opportunity for more focused curiosity. You know where you want to be or at least where you’re headed, because you’ve already advanced far enough into that environment to realize that you feel unprepared or unqualified to be there. This is good news because it means you’re probably surrounded by people who know what they’re doing well enough to teach you or model it for you. Conduct formal or informal informational interviews to figure out what people do, what are the minimum requirements of knowledge and experience. Find a mentor who can help you assess your place in this ecosystem by giving you honest and realistic, constructive feedback.
• Jealousy – an opportunity to be grateful or to set expectations – What have you neglected to be grateful for in your life? What can you better appreciate? Which of your expectations are not being met, and which expectations are unreasonable?
• Panic – an opportunity for intense and urgent connection with nearby beings or talking loudly to yourself, if alone
• Regret – an opportunity to reflect on your own recent growth or to teach others about
• Schadenfreude (or the anticipation of it) – a teaching opportunity or excitement at the possibility for a future empathizer – what have I learned that I want others to know? What is likely to (or already) happening to someone in my life that will make them better able to empathize with my past suffering?
• Self-righteousness – an opportunity to laugh at yourself.  Or to brainstorm alternative ways of living, doing business, or interacting with folks
• Shame – an opportunity to make amends to your broader community regarding your past behavior
• Sorrow – an opportunity to make a sincere apology or inspired work of art
• Suspicion – an opportunity to update your assumptions and beliefs or to explore a new aspect of the world

In Conclusion

Knowing there’s something to be done with any given feeling makes it easier to host and acknowledge the feeling. What gets in the way? Hopelessness, helplessness, and the like. Wrongly learned links between feelings and unwanted outcomes are part of what make feelings difficult. Once you’ve developed the capacity for a feeling and learned how to let your feelings guide you in constructive actions, you’re on your way to a much healthier and more enjoyable relationship with your feelings.

This post focused on some of the negative emotions because those are often the ones that trip us up. And while this list is nowhere near Martha Nussbaum levels of resolution in the gradation of feelings, it’s a reasonable start if you’re new to this type of thinking. Having spent many years now in academia, I had a lot of ideas for both frustration and imposter syndrome. You may wish to create your own action prompts based on your personality.