Mental Health for Men: What to do With Emotions

I hope you’ve been following along with the blog and reading, or skimming, each blog post. I think each blog is filled with little nuggets of mental health gold. With that said, I’ve been running more and more into the question of, “What do I do with my emotions?” In this blog post, I’ll give you a solid game plan to address your emotions.

Before we start, I want you to check out a couple of blog posts. If you’re like many other men out there, this blog may speak to you. The TLDR of the blog is that people do not address their emotions. People choose to place their emotions into a ‘box,’ close it up, and only open it up to put more emotions inside. One day, the ‘box’ becomes overstuffed with unprocessed emotions. Their mental or physical health starts to take a toll. Also, this other blog might speak to you. The TLDR of that blog is you might be checking out of your relationships when you need to lean into them. Finally, there is this blog here, that talks about the RAIN Technique.

Look, you have the skills to 100% recognize that you are emotionally activated. In many cases, when you are emotionally activated, you feel something. This is when many men put their emotions into a box. Or they decided to check out of the situation. In many cases, many men think of this as emotional uncomfortability. This is when you are emotionally activated. In some cases, people don’t feel anything at all. This could be a numbing of emotions or a dead feeling inside. This also means something. It could mean that a person has squashed their emotions for so long that they no longer feel. This could be a self-preservation technique. This is not where people fall off with their emotional health. Almost everyone can recognize they are emotionally activated.

People start to fall off with their emotions in this next part. What do you do when you can recognize your emotions? Acknowledge, accept, and experience the emotion. Hold on, Chris. I’m not following what you are putting down. I can recognize emotions and acknowledge them. How the hell am I supposed to accept and experience them? Here’s a quick education piece. What is the point of emotions? Your emotions are a notification system. Emotions tell you something is going on right now. Whether you find the emotions enjoyable or not, your emotions are notifying you that you are experiencing something. Your emotions are telling you to pay attention. It’s your job to take that emotion and interpret it. Before you interpret your emotion, you have to slow down, accept, and experience the emotion. The step where we accept and experience emotions is where many, many men attempt to skip. Or place it in the box. Or check out. They jump straight to introspection and interpretation. Sorry, you do not pass go. You do not get to move forward without experiencing the emotions. 

You need to accept the fact that you are experiencing your emotions and sit with them. PERIOD. Yes, you need to sit with that uncomfortability for a while. Yes, it is uncomfortable. Yes, nobody likes to be uncomfortable. Will this work? In most cases, yes. 

Here is what happens when you sit with those emotions. I’ll use the feeling of happiness as an example. When you are feeling happy, you may be energetic, euphoric, or filled with delight. You are feeling pride, joy, or optimism.  Great, you can recognize that you are feeling this emotion. Now, you allow yourself to experience the feeling of happiness. You don’t try to hold onto that feeling. You don’t try to push that feeling away. You make space for it in your life and just be with it. You experience that emotion just like how you experience breathing. It just happens. As time progresses, the feeling of happiness or emotion may fade away. You’ve now experienced that emotion of happiness. You don’t need to do anything with your emotions besides experience them. Emotions will fade away and you will go back to your baseline emotional state. If our mental health is off, we don’t go back to our baseline emotional state. 

Many men can move to the next step of reflecting and introspection as to why they experienced that emotion and where that feeling came from. This is more of a cognitive exercise. This is where many men head to. Men are excellent at explaining what’s going on and why they are feeling this way. It’s that previous experiential piece that many are missing. Many men are up in their heads rationalizing what happened versus being with their emotions and letting them pass through. 

In the final analysis, what do you do with your emotions? You acknowledge them, give them space, and experience them. In time, they will usually pass. Don’t reject them. Don’t force them into a box. Don’t check out. 

Improve your Mental Health

Stop struggling with your mental health. Put in the work today with therapy with Chris Rabanera. Take the first steps with a free 15-minute consultation. I offer online therapy in California, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, and Utah. As an experienced therapist, I specialize in physician burnout, grief counseling, anxiety, and depression. I also provide tailored mental health treatment for men.