Dr. Z recently contributed a blog post for welldoing.org that introduced her work with superfeelers and the approach taken in Escaping the Emotional Rollercoaster.
Within this short article, she briefly explains how behaviors can often be a “bandaid” for an emotion that feels overwhelming, but that in the long run, that bandaid does more harm than good. In introducing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, she says,
Within ACT, values are not goals, feelings, wants, or needs, but rather life principles that a super-feeler wants to stand for.
She also provides 5 steps for learning to manage those overwhelming feelings to come up with a better long-term way of coping than that bandaid:
Five ways to manage overwhelming emotions:
- Consciously notice and give names to the negative thoughts and emotions you may experience daily
- Check your go-to actions; what is your emotional machinery pushing you to do?
- Check the workability of those go-to actions: Do they take you closer or further away from your values?
- Check what’s truly important for you each particular situation. Step back and ask: Who do you want to be in these moments?
- Choose a values-based behaviour. Take a step towards what actually matters.
