How to deal with difficult feelings

Things you can do to deal with your difficult feelings :

- Allow yourself to feel what you are currently feeling. No need to do anything.
- Accept it. Thank it.
- Relax and deep breathing.
- Its just a temporary feeling. It will pass. Give it more time.
- Mindfully watch the feeling and associated bodily sensations without any labels, judgements, analysis, etc.
- Float right through it.
- Check for the underlying message it is trying to tell you.
- Go on with your normal life in-spite of the way you are feeling.

Things not to do :

- Fight it
- Avoid it
- Run away from it
- Suppress it
- Not want it
- Hate it
- Try to turn it off
- Forcefully trying to change it
- Push it away
- Be upset with it
- Wish you didnt have it
- Withdraw from normal life activities
- Worry about it
- Get obsessed with it
- Labeling them as good or bad

Thinking Styles

Catastrophizing : Jumping to worst possible conclusions.

All or nothing (black and white) thinking : Thinking in extremes, all or nothing terms.

Over-generalizing : Drawing generalized conclusions (always, never, etc) from a specific event.

Fortune-telling : Making negative and pessimistic predictions about the future.

Mind-reading : Jumping to conclusions about what other people are thinking about me.

Mental filtering : Focusing on the negative and over looking the positive.

Disqualifying the positive : Discounting positive information or twisting a positive to negative.

Labeling : Globally putting myself down in an extreme and self-attacking way.

Emotional reasoning : Listening too much to the negative gut feeling instead of looking at objective facts.

Personalizing : Taking an event or someones behavior too personally or blaming yourself.

Demands : Rigid 'should', 'must', 'ought', or 'have to' rules about yourself, other people or the world.

Low frustration tolerance : Telling myself that something is 'too difficult', or 'unbearable' or 'I cant stand it' when its actually hard to bear but bearable.