What to do When You’re Feeling Low: 9 Tips
Feeling bad feels terrible! What can you do to feel better when you find yourself feeling low?
As a starting point, know that negative emotion can actually be your friend and serve you. In fact, know that:
Negative emotion is valuable.
You have the ability to move through it.
Relief and peace are waiting for you on the other side.
Begin to feel better today by embracing the following 9 tips!
Internal guidance
“Positive emotions” are pleasant feelings that people typically seek to cultivate and maintain and are characterized by their enjoyable or rewarding nature. They can include feelings of happiness, joy, contentment, appreciation, love, awe, amusement and other similar emotions. Positive emotions indicate your level of empowerment: the better you feel, the more empowered you are.
“Negative emotions” are unpleasant feelings that people generally seek to avoid or alleviate. They are typically characterized by their aversive or unpleasant nature and can range from mild feelings of discomfort or unease to more intense experiences of anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, guilt, shame or other similar feelings. Negative emotions indicate your level of disempowerment: the stronger the negative emotion (the worse you feel), the more disempowered you are.
Both types of emotions are part of a personal, internal guidance system that you were born with, and this guidance system serves as a valuable tool to help you better understand yourself and navigate your world.
Upside of negative emotions
Just like the numbers on a thermometer tell you how your environment is doing temperature-wise, your emotions tell you how you’re doing empowerment-wise. How great is that! You don’t have to go out and buy an expensive tracker (like a watch or a ring) to measure your level of empowerment. You were born with your “empowerment tracker” (or emotions) fully loaded. 😊
You access the information from your internal “empowerment tracker” by paying attention to how you feel. Both the negative emotions and the positive emotions are important readings on your tracker, as they provide instantaneous feedback about your internal state. Whenever you recognize that you don’t feel as good as you want to, you’re doing something right. You’re paying attention to your tracker and getting valuable information that lets you know you’re operating from a place of disempowerment. What a good thing to know, as you can then do something about it!
Downside of negative emotions
While negative emotions have their upside (serving as a critical part of an accurate alert system tied to our internal state), they also have their downside. Scientific studies along with our own experiences tell us that prolonged negative emotion is not good for us. Emotions such as anxiety, fear, and anger can trigger the body’s stress response, which causes an increase in cortisol and other stress hormones that have very detrimental affects on the body. Additionally, prolonged negative emotion can weaken the immune system, making the body more susceptible to illnesses and infections; it can affect the digestive system leading to all kinds of stomach issues; it can cause muscle tension, leading to headaches, neck and back pain, and other physical discomforts; and it can interfere with sleep, leading to insomnia and other sleep-related problems.
The moment we recognize that we’re not feeling as good as we want to, our negative emotions have served their purpose, and there is no need to continue on with them. However, as we’ve all experienced, it is usually not possible to just instantly snap ourselves out of our low-feeling mood and begin feeling good.
We can, though, make gentle and steady progress towards feeling better. The ability to guide ourselves to better-feeling states of being is a skill that can be learned and mastered and is one of the most beneficial life skills one can cultivate. Coaching certainly helps, but you can also make tremendous strides all on your own. Here are some tips to get you started!
9 Tips to Feel Better
Tip #1
Know that having negative emotion is a normal part of being human, so never criticize yourself for feeling low. Don’t set yourself up with the idea that you should feel good 100% of the time, as that is not possible, and you don’t want to inadvertently give yourself any opportunities to be hard on yourself when you fall short of your goals to feel good. You are not ever going to escape feeling negative emotions, so you might as well make peace with them. They are part of the human experience, and it is natural and healthy to have them.
Tip #2
Recognize that negative emotions are part of your built-in alert system to let you know how you’re doing empowerment-wise. The better you feel, the more empowered you are, and the worse you feel, the less you empowered you are. Whenever you feel negative emotion, congratulate yourself because you are being reminded that you have an internal guidance system that is working perfectly. You are also being alerted to the fact that you’re not currently connected to the wisest, most loving part of yourself. Take a moment to see if there is anything that occurs to you from knowing this. By stopping to reflect on the realization that you’re not currently operating from your most empowered place, you may receive some insight, which would be wise to follow.
Tip #3
To the degree you’re able, pay attention to how you’re feeling in as many moments of each day as you can, so that whenever you do dip into negative feelings, you recognize that you’re doing so as early as possible. It’s much easier to do something about negative emotion when you catch yourself in the early stages of it, as opposed to waiting until that negative emotion has blossomed into full-grown trauma. The longer negative emotion has to build, gain momentum and fester, the harder it can be to slow down and manage, though it’s still possible. You will make things easier for yourself by catching negative emotion early.
“Use pain as a stepping stone, not a camp ground.”
— Alan Cohen
Tip #4
As soon as you notice the “hit” of a bad-feeling emotion, feel it and name it. First, identify how it feels in your body: where is it (throat, stomach, head, etc.), and what does it feel like (a punch, a queasiness, a tightening, etc.). Then go to the Abraham Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale (pictured below) to identify the exact emotion. Doing these two things together (identifying how it feels in your body along with naming the exact emotion) sets you up to get really good at recognizing negative emotions in their earliest stages going forward. This self-awareness is a foundational step for genuine wellbeing.
Tip #5
As you identify the exact negative emotion, make sure to also focus on the reality of it, which is: it’s not going to last long, and when it does leave, there can be something better in its place.
“Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves.
Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined.
Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment;
out goes despair, in comes kindness.
No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate
is natural, constructive and expansive... The pain leaves you healthier than it found you.”
— Martha Beck
Tip #6
It never serves you to avoid your negative emotions, push them away, or pretend they’re not there; that can only make them grow into a bigger problem for you in the future. Instead, as much as possible, you want to be with your negative emotions just long enough to process them. You want to recognize them and give them a little room to peter out, so they lose their grip on you.
Be aware that whenever you’re feeling strong negative emotion, your body has released a cocktail of stress hormones (i.e., cortisol) throughout your being, and once those hormones begin to dissipate, you will start to feel better. So give yourself some time to “take the hit” of the negative emotion you’re feeling, allow it to play out, allow the stress hormones in your body to dissipate — and by doing so — you will be readying yourself to move into a better-feeling spot.
Follow your own instincts on how to process/release the bad-feeling emotion. Processing negative emotions can look like different things: it could be anything from talking to a trusted friend — to going for a long run — to letting yourself scream and yell and have a good cry. Try not to indulge yourself in the negative emotion long enough such that it fuels more bad feelings and tells your body to release more stress hormones (though sometimes that can’t be helped when there is a lot of momentum behind an emotion); you only want to be with that negative emotion long enough to tell it to go. When you start feeling slight sensations of relief and/or notice yourself breathing little easier, you’ll know you are right on track in ushering that bad feeling to the door.
Tip #7
Just by showing up, the negative emotion has served its purpose, and you want to move on from it as soon as you can. As you acknowledge it, name it, and give it some room to peter out, you want to also guide yourself to a better-feeling place. And you do that by making a conscious effort to move up the Emotional Guidance Scale, one step at a time. Find the place on the scale where that emotion resides, look at the rung or two that are right above that, and aim to move there. You do this by reaching for one or more thoughts that 1) feel better than the ones you currently have and 2) are just as true, if not truer, than the ones you’ve been thinking. Once you identify the better-feeling thoughts, practice them until you genuinely begin feeling better. After you gain your footing on that one-step-higher, better-seeking rung on the ladder, do the same thing again by going for the next rung above where you are.
Be aware that, depending on how strong a hold the negative emotion has on you, the trek up the scale may be slow; when that happens, take your time and congratulate yourself often, as even just one rung up the scale is progress! Ultimately, once you’re able to move yourself up to Rung #7, Contentment, you will find that you’re home free. You’ll also find that the more you practice this process, the easier and faster it will be to put yourself in a good-feeling state.
More information about how to move yourself up the Emotional Guidance Scale is contained in my 4-Step Formula for a Truly Happier and Wiser YOU. If you don’t already have a copy, you can get one HERE.
Tip #8
Sometimes, we can be at such a low place that we have no energy or interest in moving ourselves up the Emotional Guidance Scale, as described in Tip #7. When that happens, it’s okay. Before implementing Tip #7, it may be advised to first give yourself a break from thinking anything about the issue troubling you. If you’re in a really low place, cut yourself some slack and seek out some kind of pleasant distraction. Take a nap, pet your dog, listen to something interesting or relaxing that makes you think about something else that feels better. A temporary distraction can be useful, as it can put you in a little bit better-feeling place. From that better place, you can then proceed with following the guidance in Tip #7 and move up the scale.
Tip #9
Throughout this entire process, it is of utmost importance to show yourself compassion and love. Whenever you’re in a low place, it’s a given that you could certainly use some support and kindness. Can the person who provides that support be you? Show up for yourself the way you show up for other people, follow these tips, reach for and practice better-feeling thoughts, and then notice how much better you feel. With focus and effort, you can be operating from your kinder, better-feeling, healthier vantage point soon.