Attaining emotional balance is important. But how to overcome neuroticism and emotional instability? Let’s find out.
You must have heard about the big 5 personality assessment. Yes, the one which is scientifically validated by many psychologists and neuroscientists. It has some defining characteristics that judge people based on some traits.
Most importantly, it consists of the 5 traits, namely openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. People take these assessments to know how much they score on these traits.
However, the last one, i.e., neuroticism, is a bit different than the rest. To be precise, this specific trait is difficult to understand and utilize in our lives. Now, it isn’t just about emotions and feelings, which people find irrational.
It is more about how we balance our emotions without giving in or submitting ourselves to them. Besides, it helps us deal with the everyday issues that stimulate emotional reactions.
In other words, if our emotions are too complex to understand, it becomes difficult to deal with them. Belonging to the clan of highly sensitive individuals, I suffered a great deal due to my intense emotions and feelings that never stopped chasing me.
I scored high on neuroticism and found out that I was emotionally unstable, which is not a desirable thing. Therefore, I utilized some ways which could help me get out of my emotional vulnerability. However, I was unaware of how these would turn out in the end.
So, “How to overcome neuroticism and emotional instability?”
Many emotionally sensitive people seek an answer to this question. Hence, here we are going to understand how neuroticism affects us and what should we do to overcome it.
Why many people score high in neuroticism?
It isn’t surprising to know that most people are highly emotional. We are emotional beings, right. So, emotions will control us no matter what. Even the most logical person in the room falls for emotional ups and downs.
But then it isn’t necessary that our emotional responses have to be intense enough to make us sound like an irrational kid crying for attention. Besides, the understanding of emotions is far difficult than people believe.
We have high neuroticism, and that is the reason why most people score high in it. It is the truth that everyone ultimately accepts because emotions find ways to get in our heads. To be honest, we let them eventually.
Emotional instability is the result of a lack of inner peace or harmony that comes with balancing our negative and positive emotions. Unfortunately, most people do not know how to balance them.
So, “why do people face issues in balancing their emotions?”
The reason is, everyone tries to run away from their negative emotions of depression, anxiety, fear, and distress as a coping mechanism to tackle emotional vulnerability. They believe that doing so would help them to be at peace with themselves.
However, it causes more damage than cure as without experiencing the full range of the emotional spectrum, you cannot control or balance them. For instance, the tree grows both up and down with branches and roots, reaching new levels of sky and ground, respectively. It isn’t limited to just one side.
Hence, we must understand how emotions work under the surface to balance them with our positive ones.
How to overcome neuroticism and emotional instability?
Until now, we have discussed a lot about emotional instability and neuroticism. We have also come across the various reasons why most people are emotionally unstable.
Now, let us discuss how to overcome neuroticism and emotional instability.
So, here are 6 effective ways to overcome neuroticism and emotional instability.
1. Face your dark and disturbing emotions:
The road to emotional balance goes through dark and disturbing emotions. No matter how irrelevant it sounds, yet we cannot overcome emotional instability without routing for such emotions.
We fear that we might succumb and make it even more difficult for us to deal with them. As a result, we bottle up our feelings and remain neurotic.
Therefore, we must try to face the dark and disturbing emotions to overcome high neuroticism.
2. Practice self-compassion:
Self-compassion is the key to a healthy and happy life. There are many benefits to it that we simply cannot ignore. For instance, it helps build self-esteem and inner harmony.
Even though it has some drawbacks to it, yet self-compassion helps us in overcoming neuroticism by accepting the emotional surges that make us feel depressed and anxious. Moreover, it provides us with positive affirmations to balance the negative emotions with positive ones.
Hence, we must practice self-compassion to overcome high neuroticism.
3. Express your emotions more often:
Most people suppress their emotions and do not express them to society. This emotional suppression is the result of stereotypes concerning the idea of experiencing them in the full spectrum.
However, it is difficult to open up to others due to constant fear of judgment, which affects our sensitive nature and brings us to a vulnerable state. Besides, it also curbs our freedom to express emotions.
Therefore, we must express our emotions often to overcome high neuroticism.
4. Face your insecurities:
Insecurities are a part of human nature. No man can ever be fully secure as the world we are living in is also filled with vile and narcissistic people. When we come across our insecurities, we try to hide those by putting on a mask to fool others of our perfectionist nature.
But, the inability to deal with them is responsible for low self-esteem and respect. Moreover, this inability also influences our deepest fears and secrets. Therefore, facing our insecurities is important to build a healthy self-image and personality.
Hence, we must face our fears and insecurities and be brave enough to overcome high neuroticism.
5. Explore multiple alternate solutions to problems:
If you are willing to look beyond your emotions and feelings, then it is a good thing as it helps us navigate through alternate solutions. By solutions, I mean the alternatives or multiple possibilities to understand and comprehend the events around us.
When we know of various sources that influence our emotional reactions, we will be prepared to face anything. Besides, we will get an idea of how these sources work together to stimulate reactions.
Hence, we must explore multiple alternate possibilities for problems to overcome high neuroticism.
6. Actively engage in your hobbies:
Hobbies distract us from negative feelings and emotions as we lack the time to ponder. Besides, actively engaging with hobbies also helps us rewind and relax in our free time.
As a result, we do not give much thought to painful memories and overwhelm ourselves with intense emotions. Instead, we become more mindful and practical than sitting ideally and wondering over fruitless situations.
Therefore, we must actively engage in our hobbies to overcome high neuroticism.
Final Words:
To sum up, neuroticism is a trait responsible for maintaining the emotional balance without disturbing the inherent sensitivity to them. Tranquility is also related to emotional balance and serenity. However, we are still far from achieving anything to improve emotional instability.
Nevertheless, neuroticism is just a characteristic and can be overcome by following the above-mentioned ways.