“Feelings, nothing more than feelings” – Morris Albert It’s been a week where I’ve had to deal with “nothing more than feelings” in a very public way, speaking as I have at my father’s funeral. An event of this magnitude can bring up many feelings and I think it would be fair to say I’ve experienced the whole spectrum - feelings of sadness and grief but also gratitude and joy as we celebrated as well as mourned Dad’s life. “And feelings like I’ll never have you again in my life.” Morris Albert And yet amidst the on-going sadness Kathryn and I have also experienced other feelings like accomplishment when we recorded 8 videos in 2 days for our business and happiness and gratitude when Kathryn’s podcast, Podcast Divas hit the top of New & Noteworthy in iTunes in 4 categories. So it seems fitting therefore to think about the process of dealing with feelings. Last week we asked what are feelings, what purpose do they serve, and how do you recognise and own your feelings? Now it’s all very well recognising you’re having them but when you’re in the presence of intense feelings, what do you do next? Whilst it’s true you can’t always choose how you feel, you can choose how you respond to how you feel, and that’s what we’re talking about today, dealing with feelings. So once you’ve recognised you’re feeling something there are a number of choices you can make with how you go about dealing with them. Here’s five ways. 5 ways of dealing with feelings Express your feelings – in other words let them out. So if you’re angry, you might smash something, or shout. If someone has upset you, you might tell them how you are feeling: “I’m really hurt by what you’ve said, and right now I’m feeling resentful.” Now this can be helpful in that expressing your feelings can give a sense of release, and clarify how you feel. It may also prevent you getting more embroiled in a situation because you have expressed it in the open. Plus, it can make others more sympathetic to you. It may encourage them not to take how you are behaving personally, if they realise that they are not the cause. But expressing your feelings, especially if forcefully, can alienate people, could potentially lead to violence, and can be bad for your health. We all know of people who frequently ‘lose the plot’ in their anger and can only imagine the longer term consequences of these outbursts to health. Channel your feelings – into some other activity of your choosing. Like going for a run if you’re feeling frustrated after sitting all day in front of a computer screen in your office! Or perhaps channelling your anger into more logical ways of thinking about the subject. Writing that letter to an authority, if you’re feeling frustrated about an aspect of service. Many of us channel feelings constructively into creativity or sporting pursuits. But be aware too of the potentially destructive side of always channelling your feelings into something else – feelings do sometimes need to be dealt with. Switch from one feeling you’re currently having into another feeling of your choosing. You know the sort of thing: “I know I’m angry about this, but I can either get really worked up about it or I can just choose to laugh it off.” Switching your anger into laughter can be highly appropriate as a release mechanism in moments when we’re feeling tense. But we’ve all been aware of when we’ve inappropriately got the giggles at an event where we’d rather not have had them. And taken to extremes - switching feelings of jealousy to anger or revenge, or expressing a feeling inappropriately like laughing at someone’s misfortunes is the flip side to switching feelings constructively. “Teardrops, rolling down on my face, trying to forget my feelings of love.” Morris Albert Controlling y