“Riding the Wave“ of Big Feelings
MEGAN DAVIES, MA, REGISTERED CLINICAL COUNSELLOR - VITALITY COLLECTIVE VANCOUVER THERAPIST
Have you ever felt such a BIG emotion that it completely overwhelmed you?
Has anxiety ever gotten so loud, it’s hard to function? If yes, you are not alone. Not to mention this time of year, they can definitely come out. Our instinct may be to push away, avoid, suppress, ignore or fight. As big emotions are pretty painful and uncomfortable. Sometimes this is a biological response to protect ourselves. Other times it is a tendency that may be rooted in our histories or how we were taught/modelled processing emotions. The important thing to remember is that emotions are like waves, they surge in intensity and then crash.
What does "Riding the Wave” mean?
A surfer doesn’t fight the powerful ocean wave; he moves with the wave riding its natural tide. “Riding the Wave” is a therapeutic tool for surfing your own powerful and negative emotions. Fighting emotions such as sadness and anger delays the acceptance of these emotions. Riding the wave is about allowing your emotions to be with you without acting ineffectively. Like a tidal wave coming and going, you will get back to a place of calm rather than emotional turmoil. Just as the waves in an ocean change, so do your emotions. Like waves, your emotions might be calm and peaceful one moment and at another rocky and unpredictable. In times of distress, one can experience emotional hyperactivity, also known as dysregulation, and cope with intense emotions in a harmful or ineffective way that can make the situation worse and cause someone to neglect long-term priorities, goals, and values. When you become dysregulated, it’s challenging to control and manage intense emotions.
“Riding the Wave” encourages us to experience our emotions like waves in the ocean. This skill is like riding a surfboard during the emotions- knowing that it will last only a little while and then will subtly subside. It’s challenging to accept our thoughts and manage our emotions, but if we can learn how to ride the wave, we can prevent our urges from dictating our behaviour.
Here are a few tips to help you practice “Riding the Wave”
W- Welcome: Notice the feeling and acknowledge it, you can’t stop waves from coming towards you. Like a wave, try not to push away or take hold of the feeling. Trying to control a strong wave makes for a losing battle. We want to welcome feelings, urges, and reactions; allow yourself to open these sensations, thoughts, and urges without acting.
A- Attend: By giving full attention to this experience moment to moment, you are not reliving the past or trying to predict the future. Stay present with the full experience by naming and describing what is happening inside the body and mind.
V- Validate: Identify the truth in your experience by understanding the thoughts, beliefs, and how your past experiences may have resulted in the emotion arising. Your feelings are valid, they belong to you, and you have a right to feel them.
E- Exhale: Let go of the energy created by the emotion, or any resistance to feeling the emotion. Allow the body to soften and settle with exactly what is happening in the present moment. This would be a good opportunity to practice self-compassion and kindness towards yourself as a way to restore the body after strong emotional waves.
Just like any skill, this takes practice! It is not easy to surf, and learning to surf emotions is not easy. To become a skillful surfer of emotions, repeat the WAVE over and over. With practice, you will grow stronger, more skillful and build confidence in your ability to feel your feelings without reacting and can help painful moments pass without turning into suffering. Nonetheless, remember, you are human, and humans have feelings. They feel a lot.