Emotional Detox To Feel Better
Emotional detox consists of learning to regulate our emotions, whether positive or negative, to prevent them from accumulating and overwhelming us. In this blog post, we will learn the main principles of emotional detox to feel better.
Origin of the term “emotional detox”
This term comes from Dr. Habib Sadeghi, the Los Angeles celebrity shrink, who wrote a book on the subject. His method having convinced Pénélope Cruz, Anne Hathaway and even Stella McCartney. It is a “method” or philosophy that aims to try to unload accumulated negative emotions.
How do our emotions accumulate?
We tend to let our emotions, especially the “negative” and unpleasant ones, pile up inside us, week after week, year after year. Stress, disappointment, frustrations, sadness, anger, jealousy. We don’t let much be expressed freely in this world where we must remain wise, polite, smiling, fulfilled. We tend not to let anything out but the emotions, which nevertheless exist, accumulate, increase the pressure (like in a pressure cooker) and sometimes explode. This sudden explosion takes the form of depression, anxiety attacks, midlife crises, etc.
Emotional detox to feel better: The four main principles of a good detox
A good emotional detox comes in the form of 4 main questions.
–Are there emotions that serve no purpose?
Emotions are necessary: all of them! If the idea is to get rid of all your negative emotions, that’s a bad start because emotions, whether positive (like joy) or negative (like anger), have a function. The idea is not to live in a world of care bears where we only experience pleasant and rejuvenating emotions. Life is 50/50; 50% positive emotions and 50% unpleasant emotions. The key is not to let yourself be overwhelmed by your emotions, nor to try to escape them at all costs.
First principle: each emotion has its function, even the negative ones: they signal to you that a need is not fulfilled.
–What are the different ways to react to emotions?
There are five main ways to react to the emotions that assail us:
- We catastrophize them: drama queen of emotion
- We run away from them: we break up, we move away, we cut contact, we withdraw into ourselves
- We distract ourselves: we eat, we watch Netflix, we zone out on social media
- We resist it: we act as if it doesn’t affect us, as if it’s no big deal
- We observe them and we welcome them: we recognize that we have this emotion, we do not make a value judgment, we welcome it as part of ourselves and we try to listen to what it has to tell us.
None of these reactions are inherently good or bad, rather the problem is when we use the same type of reactions all the time.
Second principle: flexibility! Let’s be flexible in how we respond to emotions.
What do we do with these emotions once we become aware of them?
Welcoming your emotion is good, but it’s also about being proactive. What is the unfulfilled need that this emotion indicates to me (need to meet, to respect, to rest, etc.)? Next, what changes can I implement? This can range from taking a nice bath, taking a nap, talking to my boss to moving or changing jobs.
Third principle: taking action is also part of the game.
How to prevent emotions from building up?
If you break down, it is because you have let the emotions accumulate in successive layers. We make a lasagna with a layer of anger, then a layer of guilt (“I shouldn’t be angry”), to which we add a layer of frustration, then sadness, etc. We don’t listen to the signals from our body, fatigue, stress.
Fourth principle: prevention is better than cure.
It can be useful to take a regular break to see where you are. What did we experience this day? Or this week? What emotions went through us? You can do this in writing, many studies have shown the benefits of keeping a journal or just in thought.
We can also take this downtime by doing an internal weather forecast: how am I feeling today? It’s also a very nice exercise to do at work at the start of a meeting, out loud between colleagues. This gives a completely different atmosphere to the meeting that follows.
Finally, listen to your body, watch your bad habits, take care of your meals, exercise, slow down the use of screens and above all, don’t dare to seek the advice of a professional if you are not feeling well!
For more mindfulness tips, click here.
I hope you enjoyed these main principles of emotional detox to feel better and found them useful. Comment down below what you think of this method, would you try it? Or share with us other ways you know of to detoxify our emotions.
Looking forward to reading your comments, sending you love and positive energy!!!
