Emotional outbursts

Firstly let me define my understanding of an emotional outburst. Having emotions are normal and when I speak about emotions I refer to the entire range from anger and frustration to sadness, disappointment and depression. It also doesn't mean that you necessarily burst into tears, not all emotions make you want to cry.

Every day things happen which trigger our emotions. The red light for an emotional outburst should flash when your reaction is not justified by the situation, thus when you overreact in a specific situation. For example, if you scream at a shop attendant, because a product is out of stock. It is normal to be slightly irritated, but screaming is overreacting. Maybe a colleague’s rude remark leaves you wanting to break a coffee mug or everything about someone is just annoying you constantly. This might indicate that it’s time to have a look at yourself and what’s going on inside. You might notice your emotional outburst immediately or you might have been overreacting for many years in certain situations and not even realised it. In those situations we can become aware of it by looking at the reaction of others around us to indicate to us that our reaction might have been excessive. This is not easy, because you might have already accepted that you just “have a bad temper” and that it‘s part of your personality, which it is not by the way...

Emotional outbursts happen when our internal emotional buckets are full and we have no more capacity to deal with new emotions. When new emotions are triggered, our buckets overflow and we often act in a way that we do not even approve of. You know that you are not an angry or depressed person, but you just can't seem to stop yourself from reacting in that way.

Emotional outbursts are our bodies' way of telling us that there are emotions bottled up which we have not been dealing with. It's not something to worry about, but it is great to become aware of the situation and empower yourself to manage it better. This will enable you to set yourself free from being controlled by underlying emotions and it will be less likely for your emotions to catch you off guard. It also gives you the opportunity to fill your bucket with pleasant emotions such as love, peacefulness and joy.


Don’t be intimidated by your emotions. Write them down, take the situation to your coach or have an honest chat with a trusted friend. Get some insight into the origin of the underlying emotion and learn to empty your emotional bucket. Emotional outbursts are opportunities for personal growth. By identifying the emotion, you can validate it and let it go, leaving you feeling freer, less wound up and less overwhelmed. Being honest with yourself and dealing with certain emotions are not easy, but you will always be better off afterwards. 


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