YA Weekly
Feeling Overwhelmed? 3 Ways to Stop Letting Your Emotions Control You
September 2025

From YA Weekly

Feeling Overwhelmed? 3 Ways to Stop Letting Your Emotions Control You

By Brooke Casanovas

You can learn to regulate your emotions by listening more to Heavenly Father and less to the other voices around you.

a smiling woman surrounded by different emotion icons

I recently talked to a friend who felt discouraged because she was comparing herself to others and holding herself to impossible standards. This led to dominating feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, depression, loneliness, and insecurity in her life.

Have you ever felt like this?

As someone who spent a lot of my education studying emotional intelligence, I wondered if my friend had been listening too much to social media and her own negative thoughts.

During our conversation, she decided that she could regulate her emotions better if she listened more to Heavenly Father and less to the other voices around her.

To achieve that, she decided to do the following three things:

1. Decrease Online Consumption

Many of us are consuming unprecedented amounts of information every day. While technology can be a blessing, we should also be cautious about what is capturing our attention. Our focus shapes our feelings, which influence our actions.

We can ask ourselves:

  • Am I intentional about where I get my information?

  • Who is influencing me?

  • How much information am I consuming, and how does it affect me?

In the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin urges us to “watch [our]selves”—our thoughts, our words, and our deeds (see Mosiah 4:30). President Russell M. Nelson also warned, “If most of the information you get comes from social or other media, your ability to hear the whisperings of the Spirit will be diminished.”

By filtering unnecessary media, we can focus on the Spirit, which will lead us to the most productive thoughts, words, deeds, and feelings.

2. Create Real Connections

Social media, texting, TV, and podcasts can connect us to new people, but if we’re not careful, they can also create a false sense of connection.

Consider this apostolic warning Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave:

“I raise an apostolic voice of warning about the potentially stifling, suffocating, suppressing, and constraining impact of some kinds of cyberspace interactions and experiences upon our souls. …

“I am not suggesting all technology is inherently bad; it is not. Nor am I saying we should not use its many capabilities in appropriate ways to learn, to communicate, to lift and brighten lives, and to build and strengthen the Church; of course we should. But I am raising a warning voice that we should not squander and damage authentic relationships by obsessing over contrived ones.”

He said this in 2010! And he addressed this again just recently! Imagine what he saw that we could not foresee and the role it would play in our emotions, relationships, and life choices in the future.

Here are some questions to consider as we work to form better relationships:

  • How can we create more real experiences instead of being consumed by virtual ones?

  • Do the relationships we invest in lead to emotionally healthy experiences that give way to light, joy, and praiseworthy thoughts and emotions?

Who we connect with and how we connect, whether that be in real life or virtually, has an immediate impact on the emotions we feel.

3. Slow Down

“The Lord knew—in this fast-paced world full of distractions and in commotion—that making quality time for Him would be one of the major challenges of our day,” Bishop L. Todd Budge, Second Counselor Presiding Bishopric, reminded us.

Make space to hear God and be intentional. In Psalms 46:10 we are invited to “be still, and know that [He is] God.”

Instead of seeking validation from social media or external achievements, ask God how He sees you. Then slow down long enough to hear Him.

Create the breathing room in your life for Him to speak to your soul. As you do, slow down and ask yourself the following questions:

  • How does God feel about me?

  • Who does God say that I am?

  • What choices can I make today that will please Him?

The pace at which we are living our lives directly influences how we feel and the emotions we experience.

Heavenly Father wants us to experience different feelings; however, He doesn’t want us to be consumed or controlled by them. Take a look at your habits and your life and consider if these practices will help you feel more in control emotionally.

After all, we are on this earth to do a great work and to have great joy, and listening to the Spirit more than any other voice will help us do both.