We all experience the emotional roller coaster ride through our very own events and experiences, the positive ones are not of a concern, but the negative ones are of course the ones that may continue to linger on and on if we don’t allow ourselves to take control.

Our negative emotions and feelings then become a vicious cycle of mixed-up emotions anywhere from feeling unworthy or feeling anger, even feelings of shame or guilt may play a huge role with our emotional roller coaster. These emotions may arise from experiences of our past and also future experiences that has not even happened yet!

We suffer with pain whether it is an emotional pain, or it may even be a physical pain, but the great news is that we can help ourselves by the following 4 ways of responses.

The first response is when we suffer with this pain, we tend to try to always mask things up by trying to keep ourselves busy and this could be through a process of overeating, drinking alcohol, using drugs, becoming a shopaholic, becoming medicated, becoming anxious or it could be something else of an addictive manner. This of course is not addressing our emotional ride; this is more like making ourselves feel numb, so we do not need to deal with what we are going through.

The second response is the heaviness of one’s pain, feeling consumed and overwhelmed from our own actions, we become disoriented from our own fears and judgments. We then add more pain on our selves by putting ourselves down, feeling powerless. This is then when we feel depressed and have feelings of doubt.

These first and second responses usually travel back and forth, swinging side by side from feeling overwhelmed to then overindulging ourselves by masking up our issues with what we think makes us feel good at the time. This then becomes a vicious cycle. This is were most people become stuck in their lives.

The third response is by practising awareness of oneself, this is about letting go, the power of being aware of your own breathing, its okay to acknowledge your feelings and hurt, then through the practise of pure awareness this will help to strengthen your own ground and stability. This will help you to explore your own difficulties through silencing the mind and staying present through awareness.

The fourth response is about acceptance. This might be difficult at first but sometimes we need to go back to that dark place where it was that made you feel the emotions you are feeling, having an attitude with an open heart and curiosity, and accepting what is and telling yourself it is now time for me to “BREAK FREE”!

This may take a lot of practises but listening to tranquil meditations can help with this response. This is well worth the practise for anyone’s mental health as we all do experience difficult times throughout our lives.