Coaching practices for What to Do When Emotions Are Overwhelming

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What to Do When Emotions Are Overwhelming, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I keep circling the same painful thing for hours and every loop makes it worse
• I’m so flooded right now I can’t think
• Every instinct I have right now is telling me to cancel, to hide, to not pick up the phone
• When a big feeling crashes over me it’s like I become it
• Every time I try to face the hard stuff I go straight at the worst of it to just get it over with, and it floods me

Practices that may help

1. ACCEPTS — structured distraction from crisis
   Use Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Pushing away, Thoughts, and Sensations to redirect attention during a crisis.
   Distress Tolerance Skills, Made Practical
2. TIPP: Rapid Physiological De-escalation for Intense Distress
   Use Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, and Paired muscle relaxation to bring crisis-level emotion down quickly.
   The STOP Skill: A DBT Technique for Crisis Moments
3. Opposite action
   When an emotion doesn’t fit the facts or is unhelpful, act opposite to its urge — fully and wholeheartedly.
   DBT Emotion Regulation Skills, Made Practical
4. Mindfulness of the current emotion
   Observe the emotion as a wave passing through — without judging it, feeding it, or running from it.
   DBT Emotion Regulation Skills, Made Practical
5. Titration (work in tiny, tolerable doses)
   Approach a hard sensation or memory in small sips, not all at once, so you stay regulated.
   Somatic Experiencing, Honestly Explained
6. A — Allow the experience to be as it is
   Let what is present be here, without pushing it away, numbing it, or elaborating it.
   RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
7. O — Observe: Notice What Is Actually Happening
   After the stop, observe the situation, your emotions, and your urges — without judgment and without acting on them.
   The STOP Skill: A DBT Technique for Crisis Moments
8. Riding the emotion wave with anicca awareness
   When a strong emotion hits, track it through its full arc — notice it peak and fall without fleeing or amplifying.
   Anicca: Working Practically with Impermanence
9. Observe the emotion without feeding it
   When a strong emotion hits, watch it without adding the story that keeps it going.
   The 90-Second Rule, Made Practical
10. Recover and recharge after intense emotion
    After an emotional peak, deliberately allow recovery time — intense arousal depletes resources.
    The 90-Second Rule, Made Practical

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