advocates & articles

3 Steps to Better Emotional Health

By Barbara McRae

Increasingly, girls are finding unhealthy ways to release pent-up emotions. Without good life coping skills, pre-teens and teens can accumulate an overabundance of negative feelings that can cause depression, eating disorders, or self injury (e.g., cutting or compulsive hair hair pulling). What’s a parent to do? We can take an active role in teaching our children how to better manage their feelings as they crop up — before they resort to harming themselves out of sheer desperation.

Often parents are at a loss of how to handle their own emotions; they either stuff feelings or dump them on others because they don’t yet have the skills to effectively manage them. Girls that have a parent or a trusted adult that they can turn to for support are less likely to want to hurt themselves. Parents who provide a safe environment for girls to talk and process their feelings do the following:

They are flexible in helping girls explore their needs for self-identity and independence
They ask about feelings and acknowledge them even if they don’t understand or agree
They allow girls to feel scared or frustrated while they listen without giving advice prematurely
They provide guidance and encourage girls to think for themselves and make many of their own choices
They let go of worrying and are at peace with themselves

How do you think you’re doing when it comes to conversing with your daughter about her feelings? If you already have smooth communications with your daughter, you can proceed to guiding her through the process of dealing with her feelings in a healthy manner. On the other hand, if you have trouble communicating, you’ll want to focus on the above bullet points first. And, if your daughter is already harming herself, get professional help right away. Don’t make the mistake of hoping that the situation will resolve itself. It won’t!

Knowing how to smoothly talk to your daughter about her feelings will create a safety net for her to reveal to you what’s really going on in her life. After you’ve successfully practiced the three-step sequence below for getting past your own feelings of disappointment or frustration, and after letting your feelings move through you, you’ll be ready and eager to share your discovery with your daughters.

Three-Step Emotional Release

1. Feel the feeling without indulging it.
Notice the feeling in your body. Feel it fully without trying to get rid of it. Then acknowledge it (out loud or in writing) like this: “I feel sad, alone, or (fill in whatever the case may be.”). In this way, you are accepting how you are feeling without amplifying or denying it. Accepting it allows you to be honest about how you are feeling. With acceptance, you can let the feeling pass through you much like a cloud passing across the sky.

2. Interrupt the pattern of emotional suffering.
Focus on your breathing. Consciously inhale and exhale normally to take in more oxygen. Increased oxygen restores the body’s equilibrium and clears the mind. This will interrupt your emotional pattern and allow you to return to feeling more in command of yourself. Do this as long as it takes for you to reach feeling relaxed and alert.

3. Reset your emotions.
Take a look at what triggered your emotional response. Then ask yourself:
What’s a better way to handle this?
What do I want to do differently next time?
What productive action is there for me to take, if any?
Perhaps, you’ll want to make a request, set or enforce a boundary, or apologize. Identify an appropriate action (if applicable) and make sure you follow-through.
Next select how you want to feel right now.

Get in the habit of checking in with yourself throughout the day. Ask, “What am I feeling?” If what you are feeling is causing you to be tired or irritated, use the above tools to find your center again. If you feel like crying, give yourself permission to cry for a set time (up to 15 minutes) and work through the steps again. You can prevent emotional overload by clearing your feelings regularly; if you don’t, it leads to feeling overwhelmed. Just think, you wouldn’t let your dirty dishes or filthy clothes pile up day after day, would you?

Keep in mind that by choosing to help yourself and your daughter cultivate effective life-coping skills, you will also be making a difference in how future generations respond to life’s challenges.

Do you share your emotions with your daughter?

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