Let’s get real here. For most of us, life is a fast and never-ending cycle full of work, stress, and social relationships. This added to the ever-increasing pressure of technology and social pressure can really take a toll on our emotional and mental health.
It’s difficult to deny that we live in unprecedented times. Now, even though the word has been overused in the last few years, there’s genuinely no other term to define what we are going through. Amidst this, all our emotional and mental well-being is of paramount importance.
The overwhelming emotions of anger, fear, confusion, sadness, and loneliness, to name a few, need to be dealt with.
Undoubtedly we have all asked ourselves the question of ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally.’ Let’s take the question head-on and devise ways to heal our mental and emotional health.
How To Take Care Of Your Mental And Emotional Health?
Mental and emotional health is extremely important for our well-being. It helps build our confidence and gives us the ability to face the challenges in life head-on. It also helps us look at ourselves from a different perspective. It allows us to look at ourselves as equals to the rest of the world.
Simply said, you are stronger and fearless when your emotional strength backs you. It prevents negative thoughts to have their way with your mind. It prevents you from wallowing in self-doubt and doubting your abilities.
Now that you hopefully realize the importance of emotional well-being, let’s derive some answers to the age-old question – ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally.’
1. Know that it is NORMAL to experience a range of different emotions.
Wondering ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally?’ Well, the first step is ACCEPTANCE. Dealing with emotions is difficult; we get it. But not dealing with them is even worse. When we bottle up our emotions and refuse to feel them, we let go of the chance to live our lives fully.
We are humans. And it is only humanly to deal with emotions. What is life if you don’t know how you feel? Are you sad? Scared? In love? Excited? Throughout our lives, we will feel different emotions that will somehow shape us into the people we will eventually become. So when you don’t allow yourself to fully feel your emotions, you lose a chance of being the true version of yourself.
So let us normalize feeling a range of emotions. At the end of the day, in place of putting the energy into blocking your feelings, allow yourself to rationalize your situation. Think about how you would make your way out of the situation. Let’s think and feel and navigate our lives to the fullest of our capabilities.
2. Take some time out for yourself.
Between work, family, and friends, and maintaining our lives, it gets increasingly difficult to take some time out for ourselves.
Sometimes it is important to prioritize ourselves. We need to put our well-being and needs above other things. And it’s not selfish. No matter how much importance you give to other things or people in your life, if you feel empty inside, you will never be able to be anywhere fully.
So on some days, wake up just for yourself. Make plans with yourself. Avoid feeling guilty and eat that cake once in a while. Visit your favorite place. Spend time with the people you love. Just do the best for yourself and don’t feel guilty about it.
3. Find healthy ways to cope with unhealthy emotions.
Another definitive answer to ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally’ is to learn how to cope with negative emotions.
All of us fully realize that life is not always jolly and fun. Things get messed up more often than we would like to admit. So when the going gets hard, we need to accept and deal with our emotions. Now that we’ve already addressed the accept part in point #1, let’s discuss the dealing part.
What do you do when you feel stressed or overwhelmed? Do you go on a drinking marathon? Do you eat while you’re stressed? Do you start overthinking when things go wrong?
We have all been in these situations more than once. And we can all accept that it is so damn easy to fall back into unhealthy habits under challenging times.
That is why we need to find healthy coping with emotions. Because let’s accept it. The things we are already doing might make us feel better right now but will leave us feeling worse off later.
But don’t worry. There are various healthy coping strategies to get through. Some of them include:
- mindfulness meditation,
- physical exercises,
- journaling techniques,
- mental health self-care kits,
- art therapy, etc.
Try to find something that works for you. Don’t worry if something works out for others but not for you. Every person has a different way of handling their emotions. Therefore, you need to find what works best for you.
4. Re-teach yourself how to feel.
The answer to ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally’ lies in finding a way to re-learn how we feel. We are so invested in our past experiences that they have become ropes holding us back from achieving our full potential.
You are fighting a lot of inner battles. And that means that they might leave permanent impressions on your mind. You have to continue telling yourself that you are more than these. You have to teach yourself that nothing lasts forever. Teach yourself the true meaning of strength and the importance of accepting change. Try to give yourself constant reminders about who you are. Finally, just try to love how you evolve through this journey.
5. Let go of the quest to control your emotions.
The key to properly dealing with your emotions is to let go of the need to control them. Instead of controlling them, try to be open and accept the outcome. Step outside of yourself at try to look at things with a wider lens. This will let you have an in-depth understanding of your emotions. Be kind, patient, and compassionate with yourself.
We need to understand that we can’t really control our emotions and how we feel. All we can do is rationalize how we react toward them.
And in the process, we hope you become more understanding toward yourself. We hope you can be less judgemental and harsh toward yourself even when you feel something you don’t really want to.
Conclusion
Truly accepting ourselves means accepting our whole selves along with our emotions. We can’t deny the existence of our emotions. They exist to teach us something – sometimes just our triggers. They are reminders of the things that we haven’t dealt with properly. In order to wholly be ourselves, we need to sit with our negative emotions and understand the reasons behind them.
Hopefully, by now, you have the answer to ‘how to fix myself mentally and emotionally.’ As you embark on the journey toward knowing yourself fully, we hope these tips might help you.
After wholly accepting your emotions, the next step is to work toward regulating them properly. To learn more about emotional regulation skills, click here.
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