Strategies for Managing Emotional Symptoms

Strategy #1: Talk about it

A motor vehicle accident can be a stressful event for some people. Talking to others about what bothers us is a healthy way to vent our problems and get issues “off our chest”.

Action:

Give it a try. Talk to someone. Choose a friend, family member etc. Choose someone you trust and feel safe with, someone you can be your true and honest self with, someone who will listen, understand, and support you.

Benefits:

• Others can give us feedback
• We can determine if we are over-reacting
• We may find other ways of dealing with our troubles
• Sometimes just saying what we are feeling out loud and hearing ourselves talk about what is bothering us gives us insight into what we are really feeling.

Strategy #2: Write it down

If you are not one for talking about your feelings, journaling or writing about our experiences can provide some of the same benefits as talking about it.

Tracking our anxiety and our feelings before, during, and after can help us understand our anxiety better. Themes such as times of day, frequency and thoughts that occur when we experience anxiety can be tracked to help us uncover how anxiety creeps in.

Action:

Keep a daily log. Write about your feelings and experiences for that day. Pay particular attention to your anxiety – when it started, what you were thinking/feeling at the time, who was around, how it progressed etc.

Benefits:

• A good look at what you are really feeling
• Some perspective on the issue
• A historical reference to refer back to for charting emotional trends and common reactions
• A chance to know yourself better
• An opportunity to vent emotions

Strategy #3: Social Support

Social Support has a HUGE impact on reducing any emotional distress!

Action:

• Stay connected with family, friends and peers.
• Begin to make new connections.
• Stay engaged in your normal activities and interests.

Benefits:

• Emotional support – a shoulder to lean on.
• Assistance – with tasks you can't do right now.
• Mentoring – by talking to others who have been through similar experiences.
• Sense of Belonging – wards off loneliness
• Increase in Self-Worth – having someone call you a friend reminds you that you are a good person!
• Safety net – simply knowing that others are there for you can help you negotiate life's challenges

Strategy #4: Accepting our Emotions

“If we cope with our unpleasant feelings by pushing them away or trying to control them, we actually end up maintaining them” (Segal et al., 2002, pp. 292).

"If you don't let a feeling start, it can't end!" - Geneen Roth

Action:

• Stay in the now by using mindfulness, breathing, or grounding strategies so you can being to "notice" the emotion and observe what happens in your body when a feeling emerges. 
• Observe/notice by practicing COAL:
  • C = Curiosity
  • O = Openness
  • A =  Acceptance
  • L = Loving-kindness (be  gentle and compassionate with yourself)
• Use your thinking brain to just observe/notice and name the feeling
• Do not let your thinking brain judge, criticize, evaluate, analyzing, problem solve, or go into the story of the feeling- JUST notice with COAL

Benefits:

• Helps you to "see" the feeling and "not be" the feeling.
• Allows you to give up the fight against our experience and reality, which reduces the suffering associated with trying to avoid negative experiences and constantly striving to make things different from how they actually are in the moment.
• Permits understanding that emotions are just information about how we are doing, they aren't good/bad, right/wrong, they JUST ARE.
• By accepting the experience as it is, the additional stress, resistance, and tension are alleviated.

Strategy #5: Emotional Grounding and Soothing

It is important to provide our emotional experience with some comfort, self-care, and soothing as needed.

Benefits: 

• Provides an experience that is kind, soothing, and comforting. 
• Offers some emotional relief
• Allows you to stay in the now and shut-down your often tormenting thinking brain

Action:

• First practice step #4 above, to stay mindful in the now and notice/observe our feelings by practicing the COAL approach.
• Respond to your emotional experience with gentleness, self-compassion, and kindness.
• Engage in an activity that generates the opposite emotion from what you are feeling (adapted from LHSC, Traumatic Stress Services, 2010):
  
  • Examples: Watching a funny movie, dancing to your favourite music, exercise, spending time with a positive friend, playing with a pet… 
  • Also try some self-care or self-soothing activities such as taking a bath, getting a massage, butterfly hug, safe-place meditation, healing/relaxing meditation...
  • Practice positive self-talk, such as "I'm OK, nothing bad is happening, I am safe"