Painful Feelings

Painful feelings like fear, anger, and loneliness are a normal part of life, but sometimes managing these emotions may cause you to adopt harmful coping strategies. The following resources will provide you with tools to increase healthy coping mechanisms.

If the resources and tools provided do not help you, reach out to Student Counseling Services to get the support that you need.

On This Page:

Return to the Self-Help Library

Feeling Hopeless

Feeling Shame & Guilt

Guided Meditations

Insight Timer Meditations

Metta Meditations

Feeling Anger

Anger (PDF)

Relaxation/Mindfulness

Feeling Distress

Distress is any emotional, social, spiritual, or physical pain or suffering that may cause a person to feel sad, afraid, depressed, anxious, or lonely.

Hardship/Adversity
Hardship and/or adversity impacts mental health in various ways, as this tends to involve a lack of access to necessities such as food, shelter, transportation, etc. Financial instability would also be included here, as money is required to be able to access the above mentioned basic necessities.

Malnutrition from lack of access to food and or of access to nutritional foods have negative physical and psychological effects. Nutrients are needed for the brain and other bodily organs to function properly. This can lead to mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, irritability, sleep issues, apathy, and concentration difficulties.

Housing insecurity negatively impacts mental and physical health via the levels of stress consistently experienced by those individuals struggling with this. These circumstances can exacerbate chronic conditions, as well as contribute to the emergence of new conditions (both physical and psychological). Additionally, these individuals may be increasingly exposed to traumatic experiences. The stress of unstable housing can interfere with consistencies in employment, social support systems, education, and access to services. Mental health symptoms that can arise in relation to this hardship include depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, trauma, and substance misuse.

Financial Instability:

Transportation Access:

Hardships and/or adversity can be barriers to mental health treatment.

Feeling Lonely

Loneliness

Barriers of Shyness and/or Social Anxiety:

Improving Your Relationship with Yourself:

Relationships:

Feeling "Weird" or "Off"

If you are feeling “weird” or “off”, and the resources provided are not helpful, please consider seeking a medical evaluation.

Feeling "Weird" or "Off"

Brain Fog

Interventions
Body Scan/Emotional Awareness

Journaling

Self-Care

Feeling Apathy

Additional Self-Help Resources

Relaxation & Mindfulness

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Exercises M1 through M10 are often interconnected. While they can been done separately, it may be beneficial to try various exercises outside of the ones explicitly recommended here:
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Books

by John Bradshaw
Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures.
by Shasta Nelson
Shasta explores the most common complaints and conflicts facing female friendships today, and lays out strategies for overcoming these pitfalls to create deeper, supportive relationships that last for the long-term. Shasta is the founder of , a community of women seeking stronger, more fulfilling friendships, and the author of Friendships Don’t Just Happen. In Frientimacy, she teaches readers to reject the impulse to pull away from friendships that aren’t instantly and constantly gratifying.
by Rachel Wilkerson Miller
If you’re having trouble connecting with those around you, know that you’re not the only one. Adult friendships are tricky! Part manifesto, part guide, The Art of Showing Up is soul medicine for our modern, tech-mediated age. Rachel Wilkerson Miller charts a course to kinder, more thoughtful, and more fulfilling relationships—and, crucially, she reminds us that “you can’t show up for others if you aren’t showing up for yourself first.”

Videos, Blogs & Podcasts

Podcast
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