Colorado recently issued the official stay-at-home order. For most of us, we know that means we can go to essential businesses like the doctor, bank, and grocery store but nowhere else. Fortunately for me, the Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A drive-throughs are considered essential. đ With all the transitions and uncertainty comes a range of emotions. On one end we have the (very understandable) anxiety and panic over the fear of transmitting COVID or the instability that comes along with losing jobs and staying at home. For others, there may be less panic and more annoyance or frustration with the changes, or maybe even relief or enjoyment at finding yourself with some downtime!
No matter what the emotion, it can be rough when we still have to function but are trying to keep our overwhelmed feelings in check.
To help in that effort, Iâd like to share one powerful technique I and my clients use to help manage overwhelming emotions. This exercise is one of a broader category of emotional regulation exercises called Containment Exercises. What containment exercises do is help us tap into our inner superpowers of dissociation. To clarify – clinical levels of dissociation that result from complex trauma are not what I’m going to be teaching you today. (Wouldnât that be impressive! – Check out my blog/vlog for more content on dissociation.) Instead, we will be tapping into a skill that people who dissociate have already learned. And that is, our bodies have a natural coping ability to contain and set aside really painful and overwhelming feelings when we need them to.
But before we jump in, letâs take a moment to validate our emotions. Why? Because itâs easy to skim over and try to get past painful emotions (understandably, because who really wants to just soak in their pain), but if we jump too quickly to getting rid of our painful emotions we can miss the important information they are trying to communicate to us.
What do you mean my emotions are trying to communicate? Like in that Pixar movie?
Emotions like sadness and anxiety serve a very important function in our bodies. These emotions are the bodyâs alarm system that alerts us to problems and risks. Think of them as your bodyâs home-security system warning of dangers. Except instead of a robber breaking into your house, the dangers may be things like overwork, exhaustion, the financial stress of losing your job, the potential physical harm of getting sick, etc. Especially now, you can start to see why your body may have a few extra alarm bells going off.
So Congrats! If you are experiencing anxiety or other overwhelming feelings right now your body is doing its job in trying to protect you! It is keeping you alert and on-point so you can manage all the risk factors being thrown your way. And with everything you have been through/are going through now, NO WONDER you are feeling overwhelmed and anxious!
So what do we do with these really painful emotions? Well first of all let me say that the answer is not always to contain them. If and when you have the space – the first thing you do with those alarm bells of overwhelming emotions is to listen to them, validate them, and then ask yourself âWhat is it that I need to do in response to these alarms?â If itâs stress – How will I destress and take care of my body? If itâs financial concern â what do I need to do to see if Iâll be ok for this month? If itâs loneliness and isolationâ How can I reach out and ask for some support? In summary – if you’re feeling really anxious the answer might not be to contain those anxious feelings and ignore them, the answer might be you give yourself a break today and respond kindly to the needs your internal security system is alerting you to.
But what do we do when we are experiencing overwhelming emotions and for whatever reason we cannot afford to take the space to listen to, validate and respond in the ways that our body needs right this moment? Or when we are so upset by a situation it makes us paralyzed? That’s where containment can be helpful!
The exercise:
Start by taking a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Sometimes people like to close their eyes and sometimes not. Do whatever feels most comfortable to you. Focus on getting into a relaxed seated position. When you are ready, start by thinking of the main thing that you are most stressed by right now. It doesn’t have to be a particular event or circumstance. It could be specific, but it could also be a general feeling. So whatever it is for you, narrow it down to the event, person, or feeling that you want to contain and not feel as overwhelmed by. Once you have the stressor identified, in your mindâs eye imagine this stressor taking a form or shape. For example, some people say it’s like bullets coming at them or a red toxic mist that hangs over everything! Whatever form your stress seems to naturally take, visualize it in your mind. As you think about that substance and you’re visualizing it in your mind, notice your body right now and rate from a level of zero to ten (ten being the worst you’ve ever felt and zero being I feel no stress) how strong is the feeling or the fear anxiety that’s related to that thing.
Once youâve noted the level, bring your attention back to the form and as you do, call to mind some kind of container that could hold the form. Is it a cage? A vault? A box? An underground cave? The container can be whatever comes to mind as the place where the form will be securely put away. Then imagine the stressor being put inside of that container and when you are ready, close the lid/door/forcefield/etc.
See that container really vividly. Try describing it to yourself – what color is it? what is the texture? What does it feel like? Smell like? Once you have the container described, mentally walk around your container and see if it needs any reinforcements. Does your box need duct tape? Are there cracks letting out the substance? Is there a force field needed to provide extra protection? What kind of reinforcements need to be put in place that will really contain that stress? For some people at this point the container doesnât seem to be working â either the form is escaping, or something else is entering the visualization to mess things up! If this is happening to your visualization keep going adding elements, reinforcements, or barriers until you reach a point where the stressor finally feels set aside and less present.
At this point, it can be helpful to take another deep breath and let it out slowly. Then check in with yourself again and see how strong the feeling is that you measured before on the 1 to 10 scale. If that feeling is just as strong as it was before, you might need to go back to your visualization and keep adding reinforcements. If reinforcements donât seem to do the trick, try getting creative and adding other elements â do you need an ally or protector in your visualization? Do you need to delay/inbihit the form in any way? What about taking a giant step back from the form and thinking about it from some distance?
Hopefully you’ve found with using this containment technique that those feelings of anxiety and stress have really lessened. It can be amazing to see how much better we feel after simply mentally containing our stress!
Bonus Step:
So that is a containment visualization! This is often where the visualization ends. We feel better and are able to move on. But what I want to encourage you to do is think of a time where, if relevant to your stressor, you can give space to this need. This may mean taking an evening to yourself to relax and de-stress, talking with a friend to help you get on a budget, or scheduling a therapy appointment to start working through some of those lingering struggles you have been facing. Ask yourself âWhere I can give space to this anxiety, validate it, listen to it, ask my body what it needs, and then respond to those needs in compassionate ways?â The goal of a containment exercise is not to contain our emotions and forget about them. But instead, containment helps us manage emotions until we can come back to them at a more helpful time. Therapy can be an awesome way and place to do that! If you or someone you care about could use that extra support therapy provides, I am now offering telehealth sessions online! You can visit my website (www.allichristiecounseling.com) to schedule a free phone consultation or reach out with other questions.