Most of us do our best to make good decisions and try to prevent negative experiences from unnecessarily overwhelming us. Sometimes, despite our best efforts and decision-making, our life circumstances can throw at us things that we never would have predicted or chosen. We feel that despite our best decision-making that we are overwhelmed with our own story unfolding before us.
Often when these unexpected and uncomfortable situations happen, we become flooded with emotions. I believe that the root of poor coping strategies comes from the inability to regulate the overwhelming emotions we are faced with. We find ourselves thinking a string of scary storytelling tales like, “well, if THAT happened, then surely THIS bad thing will happen, and if THIS bad thing happens, then I will feel like I am going to die.” This is called catastrophizing. And even though there is not an actual threat to our physical health, we can feel like it is impossible to cope with the insurmountable perceived emotional threats, and our body can’t tell the difference. So, what can we do?
- Do our best to build our own emotional resources and stress management capacity through daily and weekly self-care routines.
- Learning to allow others to help us regulate our emotions. Just like a child who’s mother or father is relationally available, attune, and non-intrusive, children can use her or him for emotion regulation when they are feeling bad. The mother or father can hear the awful tale, validate that it must be hard to deal with, and yet offer a different outcome than the imagined catastrophe which is soothing and offer’s hope. Relationships are important in helping to regulate overwhelming emotions and it is no wonder that relationships are one of the main survival and safety resources us humans have available.
If everything still feels overwhelming and you have used the resources you know in yourself and others, the right-fit Marriage and Family Therapist is a confidential resource you can use to work through what may feel like a pending catastrophe but not actually be one.
