5 Healthy Ways to Express and Release Emotions

5 Healthy Ways to Express and Release Emotions

Published March 2020

Drugs and alcohol suppress the way you feel authentically, causing you to have midstride and confused thoughts or feelings of your emotions and reactions to situations or symptoms in your life. When you get sober, you will most likely discover a wave of freedom to feel everything for exactly how it truly is. This is often overwhelming for new individuals in recovery because they are not used to feeling all the natural highs and lows of people who don’t numb their pain with drugs and alcohol. It’s a new and different way of experiencing life, and there is nothing better than feeling completely connected with your mind, body, and spirit.

The number of emotions we feel is limitless. From anxiety, sadness, fear, happiness, anger, frustration, irritability, loneliness, confusion, excitement, nervousness, worry, and the list goes on. Therefore, we must keep our emotions balanced to remain clear-minded and focused.

Dealing with all these emotions healthily and constructively is essential in making the most of our ability to grow in sobriety and become our most authentic selves. Here are five helpful ways to express yourself positively and release any pain, tension, or over-excitement.

1. Pause for a full minute. Close your eyes and take three long deep breaths. Exhale and push all the air out of your lungs after each breath. Then gravitate back to the center in your core. Imagine your heart-centered balance recalibrated.
2. Identify what emotion you are feeling. Point out where in your body the emotion is affecting you. Take into consideration the root cause of this emotion. What brought it on, and why your reaction to the feeling is what it is.
3. Accept what you feel. Be honest with how you feel. Talk it out or write it down. Be truly honest in what you are experiencing emotionally, and then set it free. Let the feeling fly free and release it after you have felt it all the way through. Do not bottle things up or hold on to them. Let it go.
4. Embrace creative your creative side to express emotions. So get your painting supplies, journal, computer, and a basket of crafting materials, and start creating. Using art, writing, pottery, poetry, gardening, design, or scrapbooking as creative outlets is a great way to express your internal mayhem.
5. Break a sweat. As I mention in many of my blog posts, working out is one of the best ways to let out all of the funkiness you’re feeling. Whether you are happy, sad, mad, or overly excited, working out helps release endorphins to help keep you in shape and forces you to BREATHE. Breathing helps provide more oxygen to your brain and pushes your blood flow to help you think clearly and make more intelligent choices.