Anxiety? Stress? A Survival Guide to Relieve Negative Emotions

anxiety-stress-a-survival-guide-to-relieve-negative-emotions

Our negative emotions can lead to self-sabotage. We sought advice from Lara Pelagotti, author of the book “Psychological First Aid”, for tools to overcome challenging moments and enjoy life

anxiety-stress-a-survival-guide-to-relieve-negative-emotions

05/04/2024

By Caterina Salimbeni. Cover image by Antonella Ramos.

Anxiety & stress, relationships, envy and gratitude — these are all feelings and states of mind that accompany us throughout our journey in life. A good understanding of ourselves is the first indispensable step to facing and overcoming difficult moments, thus learning to enjoy the happy ones fully. We discussed this with psychologist and psychotherapist Lara Pelagotti, author of the book “Primo Soccorso Psicologico”, a practical, direct, and essential guide to overcoming the most delicate moments and enjoying well-deserved happiness.
“When we think of emotions, we often think of something volatile: emotion like a butterfly, arriving, descending, and then departing. Emotions can be intangible and untouchable, somewhat like sand slipping through one’s grasp, or heavy like a stone, a boulder, or a lump in the throat: I feel it, yet I cannot touch it, and that lump remains, neither rising nor falling.”

So, how can we define emotions as such anxiety & stress?

Emotions serve as our gateway into the world; they are internal states of mind that influence our relationships with ourselves and others. They’re true compasses, guiding us to understand what is truly important to us and what our needs are. Emotions have evolved with us; even the most unpleasant ones always serve a purpose and have a utility.
Let’s take a look at some of them.

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Antonella Ramos for I’M Firenze Digest

Let’s talk about anxiety & stress

It’s like a tug-of-war between my desires and my fears. One side of me wants things to go a certain way, while the other is afraid they might not. This internal struggle between what I want and what I’m afraid of causes anxiety. It triggers physical reactions in my body; I feel it in my heart, sweaty hands, trembling, and a sense of confusion. Despite common belief, anxiety isn’t always visibly apparent; some people can experience intense anxiety that doesn’t show physically.
It’s an emotion we tend to perceive as unpleasant due to the discomfort it brings, but in reality, as previously mentioned, it serves a purpose by shedding light on something important to us at that moment. Feeling anxious indicates that something significant is at stake! However, the problem arises when we try to push away our anxiety, which only amplifies a process called “monitoring” – the increased focus on our body and our physical sensations and thoughts, further exacerbating the anxiety.

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Anja Stroka for I’M Firenze Digest

What about anger?

The emotion that arises when we feel we have been wronged unjustly. Anger can be a highly energising emotion if channelled constructively, but at the same time, it can become explosive. Anger increases when we harbour ill will towards the person who wronged us, and it grows even more when we believe that person could have acted differently. For example, if someone rear-ends me and the driver apologises, saying they were rushing because they needed to get their child to the hospital urgently, I might get angry to a certain point. However, if the driver comes out visibly intoxicated, I could get much angrier.
They chose to drive while impaired and cause an accident. It’s often believed that getting angry is the problem, but it’s not. Anger, if expressed assertively (I tell you how I feel and why), is not destructive and does not push people away from us. In fact, the function of anger is to restore the right balance where I feel it’s been lacking.
Unfortunately, many of us grow up with the idea that getting angry is dangerous, so we tend to keep anger hidden. This isn’t very functional because, like any covered pot on the fire, it will eventually boil over uncontrollably.

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Rosy Ramirez for I’M Firenze Digest

Defining Shame

Shame is a social emotion because it arises from the fact that we compare ourselves to other people or situations. I could feel ashamed because I didn’t answer the teacher’s question correctly, but also because I don’t like my body or because I have to speak in a room full of people.
These are all different situations, but they have one thing in common: I feel ashamed if that situation has value or a certain importance for me. I feel ashamed in front of the teacher if the school context is important to me, I feel ashamed of my physique if the body’s appearance matters to me, and so on. But how could we define shame?
It’s like the rupture of our image. Imagine standing in front of a mirror and seeing your reflection, and suddenly, the image you see cracks, and you can’t repair this fracture! But what’s the use of such an uncomfortable emotion?
Won’t this serve a purpose, too? Well, yes, its purpose has always been to modulate our presence in groups. Since we are social animals, in primitive times, we would have died without others. Shame allowed us to control our behaviour so as not to be thrown out of groups. It’s essential to learn to speak to oneself in a welcoming and non-self-critical way. A fair amount of self-criticism is fine, but it should never be ruthless. Welcoming ourselves and our vulnerabilities, which are then common to those of other people, allows us to modulate this uncomfortable emotion.

Is Sadness a box to contain bad emotions only?

The emotion of loss and pain. We feel sad when we feel we’ve lost something or someone important. If this loss is permanent, we end up feeling something beyond sadness; it’s called “depression”. It has nothing to do with illness in this case, but it’s the emotion of loss, sadness, just more intense because the feeling of loss is permanent, and it seems like we can never recover that person or that situation. Sadness is an uncomfortable emotion.
Nobody wants to feel sad because of the fear of sinking into a mental disorder and not being able to get out. However, learning to sit with pain, to make space, as we say in psychotherapy, helps us understand that if we go through it, like every emotion, it will dissipate much more quickly than we believe. Furthermore, sadness is the emotion that slows us down (that’s its usefulness); it makes us stop and emphasises where we are and what is essential for us from that moment on.

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