How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Negative Emotions: A Practical Mindset Shift

It was not a good day. After a series of failures, Nataniel felt awful. And just then- right when things were already rough- a police officer pulled him over for speeding.

“That’s it,” David thought. “Now my bank account is gone as well.” He felt terrible. But then, he imagined the counselor he’d met with the day before saying to him: “I understand you feel terrible. It seems like everything is against you and the world is crashing down. But let’s take a closer look: the fine you just got- it’s not small, true. But will it bankrupt you?”

“Probably not…but I still feel awful!” David continued the imaginary conversation.

“I hear you,” the counselor’s voice replied from deep within, “It’s never pleasant to get a ticket. But is it possible we’re amplifying the negative emotion? Maybe the situation is 60% unpleasant, but we're reacting at a 90% catastrophe level?”

“You’re right,” Nataniel admitted internally. “But still, it feels bad.”

“Agreed,” said the inner counselor, “Sometimes it’s okay to feel bad. That’s part of life. The problem is when we exaggerate our gloomy thoughts, and that intensifies the negative emotion. But that feeling will eventually fade because emotions don’t last forever. It’s okay to feel down sometimes, but feeling bad doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It doesn’t mean everything is lost.”

“In fact,” he continued, “maybe if your day hadn’t already started so poorly, you wouldn’t have taken the ticket so hard. 

“You’re right,” Nataniel said to himself in the imaginary back-and-forth. “And now that I think about what actually happened, I feel about 20% less awful. I still feel bad, but it’s clearly not the end of the world. I’ll bounce back. Really, just thinking that it’s not the end makes me feel better.”

In his next session, Nataniel told his counselor all about this little internal negotiation. He realized that his ability to reframe situations more effectively- and influence how he feels about them- was steadily improving. He definitely believed that with practice, his thinking would become more constructive, and his feelings would follow.

“You know, Nataniel,” said the counselor, “There’s something even more powerful: the more we can accept negative feelings, the less they control us. It’s a paradox, but it works!”

“You’ve got to explain that one to me…” 

Let me start with a personal story. Not long ago, I had to get some dental work done. You probably know the feeling- the shot, the drilling…but for some reason, I was more anxious than usual this time. The injection was being done in the front of my mouth, and it just felt more intimidating. I asked the dentist if it really hurts more in the front than in the back gums, and he confirmed it. “Yes,” he said, “There are more nerves in the front, so you’ll feel it more.”

Then I told myself: I have two choices here. I can brace myself with fear, cling tightly to the sides of the chair, and just wait for the pain to pass. Or, I can choose not to be afraid of the pain and I can allow myself to experience it. I can even listen to the pain with curiosity. I can accept that it will hurt, not try to distract myself, and just let it be.

I chose the second option of acceptance and I didn’t fear the pain.

What do you think happened? Honestly, I was curious in a professional sense. I wanted to experience what I teach others. There’s a therapeutic method called ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a close cousin of CBT, which is based on six core principles- one of them is acceptance of unpleasant reality. Studies show that this helps people overcome a wide range of emotional struggles. I sometimes use it with clients, but this time, I applied it to myself.

It wasn’t pleasant. But it also wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined. I felt strong in the face of fear. What’s the secret behind this approach?

Many times, our pain has two components. First, there’s the pain itself- “Something difficult happened.” But on top of that, we add another emotion: fear of the pain. We fear emotional pain. We feel stressed about feeling bad. That fear actually amplifies the distress.

The more we can reduce the fear and resistance around emotional discomfort, the less intense the emotion itself becomes. The technique here is simple: accept the uncomfortable feeling and don't run from it. When we sit with it- when we listen to it- we’re signaling to ourselves that we’re not afraid. If we were, we’d try to escape it. But when we allow ourselves to experience it, we are declaring: I’m not afraid of this pain.

When we stop avoiding hard emotions and face them instead, we build resilience. We gradually gain the ability to experience emotional discomfort, and it no longer controls our lives.

When there is fear to walk down the street because of a bully who terrorizes the neighborhood, and then one person comes along, stands tall, and faces the bully without fear. Two things can happen: either the bully walks away because he sees his intimidation isn’t working anymore, or he tries to hit the brave person. If that person isn’t afraid to “take a hit” and keeps returning day after day, eventually the bully gives up and his power is gone.

The same is true with negative emotions. When we stop being afraid of them, they lose their grip on us. Yes, we’ll still feel pain- but because we’ve stopped fearing the pain, and have faced it repeatedly, it no longer holds the same power.