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What are “difficult emotions?” And how do we make efforts to move beyond them? Think of the last moment in your life where you experienced a difficult emotion. Close your eyes for a few seconds and think back to what that moment felt like. Can you pinpoint an exact method you used to “move beyond” that emotion or experience a subconscious breakthrough to cope with difficult emotions? Most will have difficultly finding an exact method, so—simply put—they’ll say, “I just moved on.” If that is your response or something similar, ask yourself: What would I rather experience when coping with difficult emotions? What if you could sit in the difficulty for a short period of time to reach a point where the emotion no longer overwhelms you?

If I haven’t illustrated this clearly in my content already, or if you’re new to La.Rue, I’d like to point out that a great deal of Intentional Living requires mindful acknowledgment of the “difficult” emotions we sustain from a day-to-day. Much of the content I’ve published recently has discussed subconscious breakthroughs and has been incredibly well-received. Because of that, I thought I’d expand on the topic, particularly lending to the emotions we find difficulty in addressing. We can experience subconscious breakthroughs with any emotion, but it’s specifically grief, guilt, and regret I’d like to address today. I am not a licensed psychologist, and I do not have a degree in the field of emotional intelligence. My thoughts on these subjects are simply being written from my own experiences and the experiences of those who have shared their thoughts on these emotions with me.

The “Negative” Effect of “Negative” Emotions

Lately, a notable amount of my content has been highlighting this idea of a state of overwhelm. When we begin to be consumed by a particular emotion that we’ve established a negative connotation, like grief, it’s often because we’re completely overwhelmed by the emotion. First, I’d like to establish that I believe no emotion truly affects us negatively until we allow it. We feel these emotions because we’re human, and it only becomes “negative” when a deprived side of ourselves allows it to serve as a voice for all our emotions. So if we’re feeling consumed by grief and not willing to take steps to reach the other side of that grief, eventually, our grief will become our only voice, subsequently feeding into other “negative” emotions. Thus, we’re drained of motivation, inspiration, drive, passion, etc.– all of the things that serve our intention in life.

So, how do we get to this metaphorical other side? How do we climb the mountain of grief, guilt, and/or regret and reach solace? Go back to the thought you had at the beginning of this blog. I asked you to think back to the last difficult emotion you experienced. Now, picture that emotion as the metaphorical mountain you need to climb. Visualize your mountain: how big is it? Give it colors, depth, location. In the blog, How Emotions Cause Subconscious Breakthroughs, I discuss how to “sit” in your emotions to reach emotional freedom. Your mountain is your emotional freedom. Objectively, the only way to get to the “other side” of your emotions is to climb your mountain. We have to allow the state of overwhelm to happen without letting the emotion consume us. Let’s talk about this.

Overwhelm Your Mountain Before it Consumes You

To cope with difficult emotions is one of the most challenging facets of the human experience. Our emotions become submerged by the event through which they were triggered. To deal with grief means we’ve lost someone we love. To deal with guilt means we’ve wronged someone we care for and value. And to deal with regret means we’ve made a conscious decision that has negatively impacted our lives. All of these emotions resonate with a feeling of being consumed if they grow strength. If the person you lost is someone you really loved, if the person you wronged is really angry, or the decision you made was really bad, then the emotion consumes. So how do we reach the other side of that mountain? In the previous subconscious breakthrough blog, I discussed sitting in our emotions. I explained how to practice subconscious breakthrough techniques like meditating, EFT, manifesting, affirmations.

But how do we break through these emotions? Overwhelm your mountain. You’re probably thinking, “Lauren, what the hell does ‘overwhelm your mountain’ mean?” Well, to get “through” your emotion, you have to put in the work. If you’re one of the people who responded to a method of breaking through emotions with “I just move on,” or a variation of that, like, “time just passes,” then I can assure you the emotion is still within you. What happens when you don’t put in the work? I believe that the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, apply to every emotional mountain you climb. So, if you don’t put in the work to address whatever it is that’s consuming you, you get stuck at one of the stages before you reach acceptance. Acceptance of your emotional imbalance is the top of your mountain.

Descend Your Mountain with Emotional Freedom

Once you’ve reached the stage of acceptance, you’re free of your emotion. I’ll state this again; this isn’t to say you don’t experience this emotion, nor will you again. Freedom of an emotion means you’ve accepted its impact on your life in a moment of trauma or overwhelm through the cultivation of positive emotions that assist you in moving forward in your life. You reach a balance and synergy with your emotions that creates space for you to welcome new experiences and opportunities into your life. We cope with difficult emotions to transcend into a new alignment with our subconscious. Do this so that the next time you experience this emotion, overwhelm is a hill rather than a mountain, and the process of consuming is sand on the mountain next to yours. It is not your own, and doesn’t exist to you.