Thought and Emotions are like Snowballs by Bella


Thoughts and emotions are like snowballs; if you don’t stop them from rolling down a hill, they get bigger. If you’re upset, but you don’t find the cause or solution, and leave it lingering instead, then it will keep getting bigger and bigger until it smacks you in the face, hard. However, if you stop the snowball, you can stop the negative emotion or thought. But snowballs aren’t all bad. Sometimes they can be good, like when you’re with a really good friend, and you tell an inside joke and you both start laughing. You’re bouncing off of each other’s energy and happiness, and you can’t stop laughing. That’s also the snowball effect.
 
It might be hard at first, but one way to control your thoughts and emotions is by trying to become more self-aware of them. To really try to identify why you’re feeling a certain way, and really be in the mindset of ‘Okay, so I’m feeling this way, why am I feeling like this?’ Once you’ve answered that, you can move on to asking yourself ‘What can I do to make myself feel better/calm myself down?’ I know that for me this was really hard at first, and still sometimes is, but I got into the routine of doing this and I’ve definitely gotten better at it.

I first learned about trying to be aware of my emotions in a workshop called ‘How DO You Feel?’ It taught us to become more self-aware of our emotions to help us with our ‘How do you Feel’ survey that we complete every morning, so we can be more efficient with really dissecting our emotions, and trying to find good words to describe them.

In the workshops, we discussed the phrase: “Name it to tame it.” This phrase illustrates that if you can perfectly name your emotion, then it will be easier to tame that emotion. For example: if the only words you have to describe your emotions are angry or sad, but you’re actually feeling more anxious, it’s good to be able to really tell exactly how you’re feeling. Being able to name your exact emotions helps you to become more emotionally intelligent.

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This graph, like it says at the top, was a study conducted at UCLA that uses fMRI to look at participant's  brains as they named their emotions. Along the X-axis is the cortex - or thinking brain - activity. Along the Y-axis is the amygdala - or emotions centre - activity. As the participants named their emotions, their amygdala activity went down as their cortex activity went up, which shows that naming your emotions really gets you thinking.

Another way I like to control my thoughts and emotions is doing things I love. Like for example, I really love TaeKwon-Do and it’s a really good way for me to calm down and relax. I’m aware this sounds strange, as it is a sport where I kick things, but it really helps me. Exercise also helps to get blood flowing to your brain, which sparks you thinking and sharpens your senses.

One more way I can control my thoughts and emotions is to journal, or write about how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking, almost like the paper and pen are my therapist, I can tell them anything. Every night before bed, I write about my day. I learned this practice from my aunt. Writing helps me take a weight off my chest.

As a quick recap; some ways I like to control my thoughts and emotions are: Naming them, this helps to distance yourself from them. Once you have named exactly how you are feeling, the feeling sort of goes away. The second is doing something you love, this calms and relaxes you. The final one is to write or journal about your day. Kind of like naming them, once you put your emotions on paper, they go away.

Comments

  1. I love this "Thoughts and emotions are like snowballs; if you don’t stop them from rolling down a hill, they get bigger"

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    1. My favourite part of the post was the graph explanation. You talk about the y and x axis. You also talk about the amygdala activity and I like how you show the coinciding relationships as naming the emotions. I like it because it is concise and gets the core ideas out and you aren't just rambling on about unnecessary things.

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  2. Wow Bella! This is really good!
    I like how you gave examples and how you described things in a way that everyone can understand!

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  3. Bella, You are such an amazing writer! I learned so much about you and that I would have never knew if not reading this. I have also learned that we have a lot in common like how we both poor our hearts and soles into our writing. I often have terrible thoughts to and what really helps is in the margin of my journal, I write three things that I am grateful for. This helps me have a positive out look on the world. If you would like, you can try it, it really helps me. Thank you for being so brave and sharing about your thoughts and feeling, and skills that can both help me and others. Keep fighting those negative thoughts because you are amazing!
    - Grace

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Thanks for the suggestion!

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  4. Very well done Bella, I like your writing style! And pulling in a reference to a real study is a very good skill in persuasive writing :)

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  5. Hi Bella! Great article! Sometimes I obsess about things too. I find writing and drawing help me, as does walking. My daughter is like you, and says kicking and punching help her find calm. She asked for a bag and gloves for Christmas.

    I'm really glad you have discovered blogging! I used to blog and I found saying something publicly was an excellent release. I think it helped me out things in perspective at times. It was also find that you could get feedback right away. So keep going! Thanks for sharing this today.

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    1. *PUT things in perspective.

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    2. Also *fun, not find. Lord gracious, sorry. Missing that "edit comment" button.

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  6. Wow, this is amazing, Bella, I never knew you could write like this! I loved how you included research and workshops that we have done!

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  7. first of all i love the way you explained emotions as if they were snowballs, i also love how you shared the strategies you use to calm down. personally i struggle with a lot of anxiety and emotions that just aren't that great so its nice to read this and to me the way you explained it makes if feel like its not as big of a deal as my brain makes it out to be

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