How to Improve Your Emotional Wellbeing
October 13, 2023
Your emotions are tied to our overall health and wellbeing. After discovering your significant other has been hiding compulsive pornography use, your emotional wellbeing suffers. Negative emotions like anger, frustration, shame, grief, sadness, fear, and hopelessness become the norm. When you become overwhelmed by negative emotions, you experience distress.
Understanding your emotions and being able to accept the full range of emotions you experience helps improve your emotional wellbeing. When you feel in control of your emotions, you feel comfortable expressing them. You trust yourself to respond appropriately in any situation you face. You might even find that it’s possible to feel good despite the circumstances in your life.Â
Processing your emotions
To move beyond the trauma of discovering his secret obsession with pornography and heal the emotional pain it caused, you need to process your feelings and let go of the negative emotions. Processing them helps you reach a state of acceptance.
The first step is paying attention to how you feel at the moment and noticing when negative emotions are present. Then explore the feeling. It might be helpful to journal your thoughts and feelings. Getting them down on paper helps you look at them objectively.Â
You need to create emotional stability and a feeling of safety. It requires vulnerability. As you process your feelings, look for the lessons in each one and regain emotional control, you also rebuild trust in yourself. Take your time. You’ve been through a lot, and it will take time to rebuild your emotional wellbeing.
More ways to improve your emotional wellbeing
Seek support from others. Friends, family, a partner support group, therapist, or a coach can be safe places to express your emotions and work through them positively.Â
Be honest with your yeses and your nos. Say yes to things that are good for you and things you enjoy. Say no to things that don’t add value to your life.
Take time to rest, relax, and recharge. Navigating the aftermath of discovery is exhausting. Give yourself time to calm your mind and replenish your energy.
Engage in healthy habits. Get enough sleep, even if it means you have to nap during the day. Move your body. Exercise is good for your mind and your body. Give your body the nourishment it needs to support you.Â
Practice forgiveness. Holding on to the pain from the past keeps you stuck and keeps the negative emotions alive. Let it go. Forgiveness can lift the emotional weight that’s been holding you back from stepping into the future you want and deserve.Â
Improving my own emotional wellbeing
In the years following my own discovery, I had to implement these same practices to improve my emotional wellbeing. The negative emotions took their toll on every area of my life and frankly, I was tired of it. I had felt bad for so long, and I just wanted to feel better. One step at a time, I started to take action. Getting support from a therapist and support groups was helpful, but I still had a lot of work to do on my own too.Â
Processing my feelings had the biggest impact on my emotional wellbeing. Instead of avoiding my feelings, I explored them. Instead of starting to feel something and then quickly shifting into fix-it mode, I sat with the feeling for a while.Â
My feelings weren’t a problem to be solved, they held a lesson for me to learn. Many times, my anger was really fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being enough. Fear of the unknown. A lot of my negative emotions stemmed from triggers. Processing the feelings helped me recognize my triggers, so I could manage them and my emotional response to them.Â
Exploring the negative emotions opened the door to heal them. It helped me regain the emotional stability that discovery took from me. With my emotions under control, I could focus on doing what was best for me like engaging in healthy habits, doing things that I enjoy, and living a more peaceful life.
In summary
Positive emotional wellbeing helps you handle the shock of discovery and the chaos it creates in your life. It also helps you handle the normal everyday stressors that get piled on to this challenging time in your relationship and life. You’re able to cope with the stress and turmoil better. Â
As your emotional wellbeing improves, you will feel more confident and find yourself making better decisions. You’ll begin to feel more optimistic and satisfied with your life. You might even begin to experience true happiness again.