How to Ride Emotional Waves: 3 Steps to Turn Overwhelm Into Growth

The Dream That Showed Me the Truth.

I’ve had the same dream over and over throughout my life. I’m in a coastal town — familiar yet somehow vast and unknown — and a massive tidal wave hits. No matter how hard I try to outrun it, the fear is always the same. I always manage to get to the top of a tall building just in time to survive, but I wake up shaking, heart pounding, mind flooded with everything I felt.

Looking back, I can see those tidal wave dreams always came during the most emotionally overwhelming times in my life — when I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling day to day. I didn’t know how to meet emotions in real time, especially the big, heavy ones like fear, grief, anger, or shame. So my system did what every intelligent system does: it brought that energy forward at night, in my dreams — trying to move what I couldn’t face while awake.

The truth is, when emotions stay unprocessed for too long, they don’t just disappear. That energy has to move. If it doesn’t, it seeps through in small moments — sudden eruptions, outbursts, or shutdowns that feel like they come out of nowhere. Without a safe way to meet them, they build up inside and eventually cause harm.

You Know That Feeling?

You know that feeling — when a tiny comment or memory sparks something and suddenly you feel flooded with emotion. The same argument replays in your mind over and over. The fear creeps in at 2 AM, whispering all the reasons you’re not enough. You lie there, wide awake, mind looping, heart racing — and no matter how much you want to sleep, you can’t.

Or maybe it’s the opposite. You go numb. You scroll. You snack. You pour another glass of wine. Anything to soften the wave because it feels too big to hold. And then the smallest thing sets you off — a mess on the counter, a question, an innocent request — and you snap or shut down. Then comes the shame spiral: Why am I like this? Why can’t I just be normal?

The Truth About Your Spirals

If you feel like your emotional waves are too big to manage, remember — your system is not broken. In fact, your inner system is the most powerful, supremely intelligent living system you’ll ever have access to — the most advanced technology on Earth.

Think about it:

• Your nervous system scans for danger every second, keeping you safe without you thinking about it.
• Your heart keeps beating. Your lungs keep breathing. Your cells keep regenerating, even when you’re asleep.
• Your mind stores memories, forms protective patterns, and runs programs to shield you from pain you didn’t yet have the capacity to handle.

Your entire inner world is designed to protect you — to keep you alive, safe, and evolving. So when you feel emotionally flooded, it’s not because you’re failing — it’s your system doing exactly what it was designed to do: bring up what needs to move so you can grow.

The real problem? You’ve never been shown how to work with this powerful system. Instead, you’ve probably been trying to shut it down — suppressing, numbing out, distracting yourself — because no one ever taught you the clear steps to help your system do its job in a way that feels safe and supportive.

How to Ride Emotional Waves: 3 Simple Steps

Here’s how to stop fighting your emotional waves and start using them to grow.

1. See It and Acknowledge It

• When the wave rises, pause. Remind yourself: “This isn’t a flaw. This is energy my system wants to move through.”
• Acknowledge what’s here: “Hello sadness. Hello anger. I see you. I get why you’re here.”
  That moment of presence softens the spiral.

2. Inquire and Listen

• Breathe. Gently ask: “What could help this move through me right now?” Your inner world will usually tell you — if you listen. Maybe you need to walk, lie down, stretch, be still, or be alone for a while.

3. Let It Move
Then do one small thing that helps the energy shift — not to escape, but to help your system process it.

• Let the tears come, or watch a sad movie to open them up.
• Scream into a pillow.
• Sing, dance, stretch
• Shake out your hands.
• Take a walk, run, or move your body.
• Hum, sigh, or just breathe deeper.

Even a small action calms the inner storm so the wave doesn’t stay stuck inside you.

Why This Matters

I know what it’s like to carry the heaviness — the soul-crushing weight of unprocessed emotions that build up inside until they feel too much to hold. I know the sheer desperation of wanting to feel clear and safe in your own mind and body — to not feel like a victim of your own inner world anymore.

I know how exhausting it is to feel overwhelmed, to snap and erupt over small things, to shut down and numb out because it feels like the only way to cope. That kind of spiral can make you feel broken when really, you’ve just never been shown how to work with what’s rising in you.

That’s exactly why I created the Meta Self Method. Because I needed a way — a real, clear, safe way — to meet my emotions in real time and trust my system to do what it’s meant to do. Not to suppress what I feel, but to feel it fully, resource it, and let it move through — so I could grow, not drown.

When you learn how to do this, you stop spiralling. You turn what once felt too much into your greatest fuel for growth — wave by wave.

Ready to Ride Your Waves — and Grow?

You don’t have to do this alone. Click the link below to download your FREE Rise Guide for real steps to respond instead of react — or book your personalised ARISE Experience to learn how to work with your emotional waves in real time.

Download your free Rise Guide or Book your ARISE Experience here.