Emotional Spiral
14 Jun 2024
How to stop emotional spiralling?
Just watched an interview about a gentleman’s life reflection. He is a public figure. Since four years ago, he has lost all his job opportunities due to extra marital affairs. Couple with the public sentiments, he has experienced a heavy and difficult mental and psychological time.
During the interview, this gentleman has sincerely shared how he had escaped and withdrawn himself, shut himself in the flat from all for months; and how he has managed to face life and refresh his willingness to live again.
With his sharing, I am reassured about the importance of companionship – i.e. experience life especially the difficulty times with people whom one trusts, as well as life values.
Everyone will make mistakes in life, no matter it’s intentional or unconscious. If we use metaphor, perhaps mistakes in life – the difficulty times in life, could be seen as the curves of life. Perhaps no one will have a simple and straight path in life. Everyone would have experienced some curves of life.
When we walk in the curves of life, perhaps we could manage to make the turn on our own. And yet when the curves of life are the biggies - they are much deeper, steeper and longer. Everyone would have the moments of tiredness and weakness. If we still continue walking alone, it’s much easier for us to fall into the emotional spiral. At times, we might even fall again and again, to a point that we could not longer find the way out by ourselves.
From a clinical psychological point of view, perhaps we could try to share some of our feelings with our trusted one(s) when we are walking in the curves of life. Yup, others might not be able to understand us totally – still we learn to allow our trusted ones to care us and to listen to us!
Allowing others to walk with us during the curves of life, we would likely stay in the the emotional spiral, at a shallower spot and for a shorter time. Yes, it’s true that we might still experience the fall into an emotional spiral when we allow others to walk with us. The difference is : we would have the chance to be listened, accompanied and cared! Magically, the feeling of loneliness is less intense, capped in a certain level or at least grows in a much slower pace. When the right time comes, we could see clearer what really matters in our lives – whom we really value; what we really prize. Life begins anew!
