3 Simple Steps to Balance Your Emotional State

We are emotional creatures.

If you are a human being, you know how hard it is to keep tabs on how you are feeling. Whether it be jealousy, anger, depression or anxiety, we all go through a constant cycle of emotions throughout our lives.

But, what happens when we feel out of balance with our own emotions?

Sometimes, we can have such strong feelings that we tend to start acting differently from how we would normally act. We can begin to not feel like ourselves and take it out on our loved ones. This constant roller-coaster can get tiring, especially if you are in constant search of a peace of mind, like myself.

So, how can we practice emotional balance to achieve better mental state?

There are a few mental tips that I find especially handy anytime I fall into an emotional whirlwind. These are my top 3 that I believe are the most practical.

Be Aware of it

This may sound very vague at first, but I truly believe self-awareness is an insanely important aspect of life. Someone who truly vouches for this is Gary Vaynerchuk.

I completely agree with him on striving to know who you are. Knowing yourself, in this case, can mean knowing your emotional state or your emotional patterns. When you have the skill to stop whatever you are doing for one second and recognize what you are feeling, you are a step closer to finding peace.

Now, when I say finding peace, of course, I do not mean “feel-good” peace. This obviously would not be the case. If you are feeling irritable, recognizing you are feeling irritable won’t make you feel “good” or “better”.

The problem arises when you can’t directly identify the emotion you are feeling at the time because you’re not aware of it. When you become aware of it, you can then step back from the emotion in a way and watch it come and go.

This is an important first step in achieving emotional balance because being aware and kind to yourself for feeling the emotional turmoil sets the base for change.

Read about it

When feeling emotionally out of balance, try to be aware of what it is you are feeling and what might be the root of it. Once you have the slightest understanding, use your phone or a laptop to look up how you are feeling. Search for blog posts you have already read or brand new information you have not read before.

A good tip is to bookmark some of your favorite pages that really speak to you. Once you begin to read or re-read an explanation of what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way, you can begin to shift your perspective.

You can begin to be objective and continue to disassociate from the emotions you are feeling. In another way, reading can also take your mind off of getting so caught up in your emotions and allows a mental break in a way. This mental break, for me, is usually what I need to put a halt to the rapid tornado of thoughts. Use the Internet to your advantage.

Talk about it

You might have heard this a thousand times, but this is one of the best ways to get a sense of closure. I used to always bottle up how I was feeling when I felt emotionally distraught or out of balance. Most of the time, I kept the mindset of “I’ll fix it myself”. I never wanted to come off or be seen a certain way by those close to me.

But, the more I accepted myself for who I was, the more comfortable I became to share my emotions with the people closest to me. I believe this is such an important part of balancing your emotional state.

When you talk about it, you are owning what you are feeling in a sense. You own who you are and how you are feeling and this makes you feel okay with what you are going through. It represents you making peace with the part of you that tends to get emotionally distraught from time to time. This also makes you feel not so alienated and different for the way you are feeling.

Listening to some advice your loved ones can give you might not directly help, but it assures you that you have people that care enough to be there for you in the first place. This reassurance of a support system can give you the courage to do your best in dealing with how you are feeling.

See Also: 5 Steps To Release Bottled Emotions And Live Happier

Conclusion

After completing one or all of these steps to the best of your ability, you should notice your emotional state slowly tilting back to equilibrium. Once this happens, I usually feel like more of myself again. I feel like I can finally think clearly.

Trying to think yourself out of an emotionally imbalanced state usually does not help and can actually lead to further turmoil.

That being said, all we can do is be as practical as possible with ourselves and our emotions. Understanding that we are imperfect beings and are not alone can go a long way. Emotions are what make us unique and human, so I guess we should try to be grateful for even the worst of them.