Emotions Elevators: Anger and Anxiety Management
If you’re searching for anger or anxiety therapy in St. Louis, you understand how big your emotions can get.
Anxiety and anger can feel huge and overwhelming. They can get so big that it seems like you can’t get past them. They can take over your brain and your body and leave you feeling totally helpless. But even though these emotions can feel so gigantic, they’re not big all the time. And that comes down to our emotions elevators.
We all have different levels of emotions.
Emotions can seem really, really big, or they can feel pretty small. And the cool thing about emotions is, even when they feel overwhelmingly huge, we know they’re not going to stay that way forever. When we get heated up, or we lose our cool, eventually we calm back down.
In fact, our emotions are a lot like elevators.
And emotions, just like elevators, go up and they can come back down.
If you’re a kid, teen, or college student with anxiety or anger issues, it’s really important to start noticing the level of your emotions. The more you can notice the small differences in your emotions, the easier it is to:
Catch yourself before you’re too overwhelmed
Lower your elevator
And build up your coping skills to find the most effective strategies for you
If you want to dig into this more, check out When Anxiety Makes You Angry, my self-help book for teens and college students.
Within the book, I walk you through the very same strategies I build during therapy with my favorite clients. And one of my super duper favorite activities is the emotions elevator.
Let’s start by drawing out one of your emotions elevators.
Start by drawing a long, vertical rectangle and label the elevator on a 1 to 10 scale, where 1 represents just a little bit of that emotion, and 10 represents all the way at the top - like this!
You could make an elevator for every single one of your emotions, but let’s start with the emotion that probably feels the hardest to deal with: anger.
Think about the last time you felt really, really angry.
How did you look on the outside? What was your body showing? And, how did you feel on the inside? Where did you notice that angry emotion? (Check out the body clues activity if you need help with answering that question).
Whatever you notice, mark down those clues at the top of your elevator.
Next, think about the last time you felt just a little bit angry, at the bottom of your elevator.
Again, take notes of your internal and external clues.
Then, think about what you notice more in the middle of your elevator, around a 5 or 6.
When your medium angry, what do you feel internally? What do you show others externally? And continue to fill in your elevator with other clues you see and feel throughout that elevator.
Once you’re finished, you’ll have an elevator that looks something like this.
As you complete your emotions elevator, you’ll learn about your anger management needs.
You can see how the anger builds on our anger elevator example. Fists lead to a tight jaw, then leads to a tight stomach, then finally leads to using those muscles to break or punch things at the very top of the elevator.
There’s a story of muscle tension happening on this anger elevator. As an anxiety therapist specializing in anxiety-driven anger, this elevator would suggest that relaxation skills focused on lessening muscle tension would be crucial.
As you examine your emotions elevator, let’s ask a few questions:
Where’s your tipping point on your anger elevator, the point where it feels really hard to turn back without exploding, at a 10 out of 10? The more you practice coping skills, the easier it is to keep from reaching that point.
What’s your first clue that you’re starting up your anger elevator? What’s a good way to cope at this level and stay at a 1 or 2 out of 10?
Some people go up their elevator so quickly that it feels hard to turn it around. Some people notice that they move slowly and steadily up their elevator. Some people it’s slow to a point, and then it explodes. How do you think you move up on your anger elevator?
Remember, there’s nothing wrong with anger or anxiety. Anger and anxiety give us really important information. They let us know we don’t like what’s going on.
But if anger and anxiety feel really too big for you, or feel hard to calm down, you may benefit from anger counseling with a trained therapist.
Further reading:
Spotlight on: Kelsey Torgerson Dunn
Anxiety Therapist, Author
My approach focuses on building relaxation skills, digging under the surface, and helping you honor how you’re feeling (even when you’re feeling anxious, angry, or inadequate). I want to help you move forward with your life with clarity and confidence.
Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We love helping with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website.