It is not easy to go through an emotional crisis. Understanding, love, and God, is a good summary of the elements that will heal the hearts and minds of traumatized people. But they will need cooperation and support.
If you have lived through a tragic event, you should know that the strength to get up is in you. And if you have seen someone you love to suffer because of it, the strength to guide them is also in you. So, I want to guide you to healing and also teach you how to guide.
How to recover from an emotional crisis
Recovery from an emotional crisis is possible, but you will need to focus on it to find the answers you need. Here are some tips to help you heal:
Minimize exposure to memories
If you are a survivor of a natural disaster or an accident, the media may report on that case. Likewise, social media has become a space to distribute this kind of information, so try to stay away from it all, so you don’t relive those memories.
Exposure to these kinds of memories needs to be limited because it is not healthy to reminisce over and over again about a tragedy. It does not let you move forward.
Accept your feelings
You’re very like experiencing emotions that you thought you would never experience due to traumatic stress. So, try to accept all those feelings, and understand that they are normal. It is normal to feel anger, guilt, or shock.
No one has the right to judge you for the feelings you have. On the contrary, it is healthy to surround yourself with people who want to offer you unconditional support. Keep in mind that God will always be by your side, and you can talk to him for encouragement.
Start challenging your powerlessness:
To overcome, you will have to face it, so start taking positive actions that will allow you to overcome all that fear, powerlessness, and hopelessness you may feel. It may sound simple, but believe me when I tell you it will make a difference.
Some people help people who have gone through similar situations as a way to heal and gain peace of mind. Others volunteer for those in need during traumatic events. Opening that door may be scary, but once you open it, you will realize how much good it can do you.
Exercise
Exercise. It’s not a joke, it’s advice! When suffering from the kind of stress generated by these events, one way to escape is to start exercising. Being in constant motion will help burn adrenaline and release endorphins.
Your mood will improve greatly, and so will your body. Your nervous system needs to be stimulated and by doing activities like walking, running, swimming, or playing a sport, you will be doing just that. For more complete results, focus on the physical activity you do, every step, every kick, and feel more in touch with your body than ever before.
Reach out to others
A man came into the world to live in a community, that was God’s intention. That is why, in difficult times, distancing ourselves from those who care for us is not advisable. Rather, you should do the opposite and unite with those who care for us.
A traumatic event can work to bring us closer to those from whom we have distanced ourselves for one reason or another. Just the simple act of talking face to face with someone else can trigger stress-relieving hormones.
If you are afraid to talk to those people about the event, you don’t have to talk about it specifically. You can seek solace in talks that help you feel connected, or chats that are “normal.”
Six essential tools to overcome the crisis
To conclude, I would like to give you 6 very useful tools to overcome a crisis:
#1 TIPP
Use the TIPP tool when you are close to an emotional breakdown. The name is an acronym for Temperature, Intense exercise, paced breathing, and Paired muscle relaxation.
Start by changing your body temperature by splashing water on your face. After exercising a lot, it is difficult to get upset when you are exhausted. Next is to control your breathing to decrease the emotional pain, and then relax your muscles, and let them rest.
#2 ACCEPTS
Similar to the previous tool, this is used to tolerate negative emotions until you have to face them.
You can use it by doing a healthy activity that keeps you away from negative emotions. Also doing something kind for someone else just for the joy it causes is part of this, which can help put your life in perspective.
If you feel distressed, you can invoke an opposite emotion to it. Other activities that follow in this tool include walking away from problems and replacing negative thoughts with positive ones.
#3 IMPROVE
This tool is perfect when you have no control over something but have to tolerate it. It uses imagination and meaning. In the first part, you must imagine yourself successfully dealing with the problem, and in the second one, you must find the meaning in the situations that hurt you.
Next is prayer. That’s right, prayer will serve to surrender your problems and allow you to tolerate the situation. You need to relax and let go of the past and the future. You should also encourage yourself with affirmative and positive phrases.
#4 LIST OF PROS AND CONS
If you want to make sensible decisions in difficult times, this tool will be useful. You just need to make a list of the positive and negative points of all the options you have.
When you finish, compare the options available to you. With this type of list, you will be able to control impulses.
#5 SELF-SOOTHE
The tool helps diminish the power of negative emotions. It advises you to focus on your senses to clear yourself of negative feelings.
Use your sight to focus on something, the colors on a wall, the pictures on an album. Use your ears to listen to birdsong or the flow of water.
The same will happen with your senses of taste, touch, and smell. Look for elements that are pleasant to you and put you in a good mood. Enjoy them. As a bonus, movement is included as a sixth sense. Move your body by dancing or walking.
#6 RADICAL ACCEPTANCE:
And if you will have to live an unpleasant situation that will not change, this tool is recommended. It serves to accept reality and move on.
In short, it will serve to get you to understand that even though the available options do not please you, you will have to choose one and adapt. Having distress over doing this is common and discouraging, but it will serve to control compulsive behavior.
