Emotional Cycle

I had spent a lot of time in my life resisting difficult emotions. When anger, sadness, jealousy, etc came I would often attach stories to those emotions as to why I wasn’t a good person because I was having those feelings. I felt “on” or “up” when I was happy and “off” or “down” when I wasn’t.

I feel like my true emotional freedom came when I realized I wasn’t up or down, on or off, but that emotions were like a cycle that would be part of my life forever and come in and out like waves. They weren’t a burden, they were a beacon. My emotions were messengers delivering important information about who I was and what I held most important in life.

As a new mom I wanted to teach this idea to my kids. To embrace all emotions and not run from them. And most importantly that if we felt difficult emotions, we could recognize them early, see them as messengers, deal with them in a healthy way, receive the message, and be on our way.

This little picture helped us recognize and process the emotions that were happening inside of us and deal with them in a healthy way. And if we found ourselves in the Red Zone, we knew how to get make amends, and come back to feeling in the Green Zone.

The Cycle Explained

Green Zone: “Good to Go” Where we feel content, satisfied, peace, confidence

Orange Zone: “Uh-oh” We are triggered, bugged, big rush of emotion (even happiness) but we are still in control of our behavior.

Star: “Self Care” We know how to calm ourselves. We can take proactive measures to process the emotion in a healthy and constructive way. Which then avoids the Red Zone.

Blue Zone: “”Make a Plan” We are able to use our words to express our feelings and what triggered them. We can calmly make a plan to move forward. We learn a lesson the experience and can eventually make our way back to Green Zone.

Red Zone: “Danger Zone” We let our emotion become extreme and we are not in control over our behavior. We are destructive, out of control and need a hard stop in our behavior. Have a place, routine, whatever where you can physically stop and reset. Seek out therapy or outside help if needed. Also remember this isn’t necessarily meaning anger, sadness, fear…but also happiness or confidence can become extreme where we can also produce negative behaviors.

*Note: Remember emotions are not bad! They are neutral. They are messengers. They need to be heard or they will only get louder, often resulting in physical pain or other symptoms to get our attention. While we welcome all emotions, we are responsible for our behaviors. Our behaviors can be positive or negative. You can feel angry AND deal with it in a healthy way. Just like anything new, it takes time and practice and patience.

Be kind to yourself and others as we navigate the world of mastering our emotions :)

Use the printable to make your own plan when feeling your emotions. Having a plan will help you know that even though you won’t feel good all the time, you have confidence you know how to deal with difficult emotions and process them in a healthy way.

Sending sunshine vibes your way!