How To Overcome The Fear of Losing Emotional Control
Feeling overwhelmed by your emotions can be frightening, especially when it seems like even small shifts inside you signal that something is wrong. Many people who struggle with anxiety or are going through a stressful period develop a fear of their own internal experience. They begin monitoring every sensation, every mood change, every flicker of discomfort… and before long, normal emotions start to feel like warning signs.
What this means is we become internally hyper-vigilant. We become highly aware of our internal experience. We closely monitor our internal emotional state, scanning for any sign of discomfort.
When this happens, emotions that are normal and temporary may start to feel dangerous, overwhelming, or out of control.
The Core Belief: "Negative Emotion = Losing Control"
Many people who experience internal hypervigilance hold an automatic belief that they may not be aware of, such as:
“If I’m feeling something uncomfortable, it must mean something is wrong.”
“If this emotion grows, I won’t be able to handle it.”
“I can’t let myself feel this — I have to stop it.”
Because of these beliefs, even mild emotions can create distress.
The Urge to Act Immediately
Internal hyper-vigilance often creates a sense of urgency:
“I MUST do something about this emotion right now.”
This urgency can lead to:
Overthinking
Checking sensations repeatedly
Avoiding situations
Trying to suppress feelings
Reassurance seeking
Googling / chatgpt-ing the experience
Worrying about having them
Trying to problem solve emotions
Ironically, these attempts to control emotions often make them stronger and longer‑lasting.
What Actually Happens in the Body
Emotions rise, peak, and fall naturally, like a wave. When we’re going through challenging periods, we tend to become more aware of difficult emotions.
However, even uncomfortable feelings (anxiety, sadness, frustration) follow this pattern:
They are temporary.
They do not mean danger.
They do not require immediate action.
Hypervigilance can freeze you at the peak of the wave, making the emotion feel stuck.
Reframing the Experience
Instead of: “Negative emotion = losing control”
Try: “Negative emotion = my body sending information = I can observe it without acting.”
Instead of: “I MUST do something about this feeling.”
Try: “I can pause. I can let the emotion move on its own.”
The 90-Second Emotional Processing Window
Research on emotional neurobiology (popularised by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and supported by affective neuroscience findings) suggests that when we allow an emotion to arise and run its course without resisting, feeding, or escalating it, the physiological component of that emotion typically lasts about 90 seconds.
What This Means:
An emotion naturally activates and then begins to settle within a minute and a half.
What keeps the emotion going longer is the story we tell ourselves, the monitoring, and the fear-based interpretation.
Hyper-vigilance Extends the Emotion
When you become alarmed or concerned about what you're feeling:
You send an internal signal that "something is wrong."
This triggers additional stress responses.
This creates a feedback loop that reignites the emotional wave again and again.
In other words:
The body generates the emotion.
Hyper-vigilance re-generates it.
Allowing the emotion to be present - without judgment or urgency - lets the body complete the 90-second cycle.
The Snow Globe Analogy
Imagine your mind and body as a snow globe.
When an emotion is triggered, the globe gets shaken, and the snow begins swirling.
If you immediately panic and keep shaking the globe (hypervigilance, checking, worrying, reacting), the snow never settles.
But if you place the snow globe down and simply observe, the snow settles on its own — usually within about 90 seconds.
Key idea: Trying to control the emotion keeps shaking the globe. Allowing the emotion lets the snow settle naturally.
Ok, But… How Do I Actually Accept an Emotion?
Acceptance is not approval, liking the emotion, or wanting it to stay. Acceptance is the skill of letting the emotion be present without trying to control it. Techniques for this are best learned in therapy or with a therapist, but here are three areas to practice acceptance: thoughts, body, and behaviour.
1. Cognitive Acceptance (Thought Level)
Shift from resisting thoughts to allowing thoughts.
Try phrases like:
"This is an emotion. Emotions come and go."
"I don’t have to solve this right now."
"This feeling is allowed to be here."
"I can ride this wave."
Acceptance thoughts reduce the internal alarm and prevent the emotion from reigniting.
2. Physical Acceptance (Body Level)
The body often responds to difficult emotions with bracing or tension. Acceptance includes noticing and allowing.
Check in with your body:
Am I tensing my shoulders?
Am I clenching my jaw?
Am I holding my breath?
Then gently release:
Loosen muscles.
Exhale slowly.
Drop your shoulders.
Physical softness signals safety to the nervous system and allows the emotion’s natural cycle to complete.
3. Behavioural Acceptance (Action Level)
Acceptance means not acting on the emotion in ways that reinforce fear or avoidance.
This includes:
Not trying to fix or suppress the emotion.
Not escaping the situation just to avoid the feeling.
Not engaging in reassurance-seeking or checking behavior.
Not replacing the emotion with distraction immediately.
Instead:
Continue doing what you were doing.
Stay present.
Allow the emotion to be there while living your life.
Behavioural non-reactivity communicates to your brain: “This emotion is not a threat.” This is what truly weakens the emotional alarm system over time.
If your emotions feel overwhelming right now, there is nothing wrong with you, you’re not “too sensitive,” “broken,” or “out of control.” You’re simply caught in a pattern where your brain has learned to treat normal internal experiences as potential threats. With understanding, practice, and compassion, that pattern can change.
Reconnecting with your emotions doesn’t mean being consumed by them. It means learning to let them rise and fall naturally, without panic, judgment, or urgency. When you stop fighting your feelings and start allowing them, your nervous system learns something powerful: you’re safe, even when emotions feel big.