Coaching practices for I Keep Trying to Shove This Feeling Down or Talk Myself Out of it and the Harder I Fight it the Worse it Gets I Think I Have to Stop Wrestling it but I Don't Know How to Just Let it Be There
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Keep Trying to Shove This Feeling Down or Talk Myself Out of it and the Harder I Fight it the Worse it Gets I Think I Have to Stop Wrestling it but I Don't Know How to Just Let it Be There, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep trying to shove this feeling down or talk myself out of it, and the harder I fight it the worse it gets
- I spend so much energy trying to push down or get rid of what I feel, and it just comes back stronger
- The second a hard feeling shows up I clamp down on it and shove it away, but it just keeps coming back louder
- The moment a hard feeling rises I clamp down against it and brace, trying to push it away
- I just feel awful and stuck in this fog of emotion, but I can’t put my finger on what it’s actually pushing me to do
Practices that may help
- 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 - Acceptance (willingness)
Make room for unwanted feelings instead of struggling against them, so they stop running the show.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Made Practical - RAIN — Allow the experience to be here
Let the feeling exist as it is for a moment, without pushing it away or feeding it.
Radical Acceptance, Made Practical - Expand into difficult feelings rather than contracting away
When discomfort arrives, consciously make room for it rather than tightening against it.
Psychological Flexibility, Made Practical - Identify the action urge
Name exactly what the emotion is pushing you to do, so you can choose the opposite.
Opposite Action: Acting Against the Emotion’s Urge - Surf the urge instead of fighting it
Urges are waves — they rise, peak, and fall without action if you observe rather than fight them.
The Willpower Instinct: What Self-Control Actually Is - Mindful awareness of suffering
Hold painful feelings in balanced awareness — neither suppressing them nor being swept away by them.
Self-Compassion, Made Practical - Apply paradoxical intention to forced attention problems
When you cannot stop thinking about something, try to think about it even more — notice whether you can sustain the deliberate version.
Logotherapy: Paradoxical Intention - Relax and release stuck energy
When emotion grips, consciously relax and let the energy move through instead of clamping down.
The Untethered Soul, In Practice - Observe without obeying
Watch the urge fully — feel its pull, note its strength — without doing anything it demands.
Ride the Wave (Urge Management), Made Practical
Related concerns
- When Acceptance Commitment Therapy Acceptance Willingness
Make room for unwanted feelings instead of struggling against them, so they stop running the show.
Acceptance (willingness)
- When Psychological Flexibility Expand And Breathe
When discomfort arrives, consciously make room for it rather than tightening against it.
Expand into difficult feelings rather than contracting away
- When Dorsal Vagal Shutdown Titrated Approach Shutdown
Bring brief, curious attention to the shutdown itself — then return to ground — rather than fighting or fleeing it.
Approach the shutdown experience in small doses
- When Logotherapy Paradoxical Intention Intention Vs Attention Paradox
When you cannot stop thinking about something, try to think about it even more — notice whether you can sustain the deliberate version.
Apply paradoxical intention to forced attention problems
- When Lojong Mind Training Tonglen Sending Taking
Breathe in suffering (yours and others’); breathe out relief and well-being.
Tonglen: sending and taking
- When Non Dual Awareness Welcoming Experience
Shift from trying to control or fix your experience to meeting it with open, allowing awareness.
Welcome experience rather than manage it
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