We get stuck in our emotions due to our spiralling mind, our fixation with old ideas and behaviours, our need to be always right, perfectionism and thinking in absolute terms.
When faced with strong reactive emotion, we are usually unable to understand that our emotions are dynamic and start acting like wind-up toys doing the same motions, not being aware of other possibilities and options.

Rigid Thoughts: Feeling Stuck In Negative Emotions

Self Improvement

These are the three usual suspects, stuff we do to cope-up with our emotions:
<ol>
<li>Bottling up our emotions, leading to stress.</li>
<li>Brooding over our emotions, which usually leads to self-blame.</li>
<li>Forcing ourselves to see everything as positive, which can be delusional in many cases.</li>
</ol>

Things We Do To Cope-Up With Negative Feelings

<ol>
<li>Acknowledge and accept the various bad ways used to cope-up with negative emotions.</li>
<li>Identify the feelings and be comfortable with the uncomfortable emotions like frustration and hopelessness.</li>
<li>Start a journal and write down your deepest feelings and insecurities.</li>
<li>Look for clues in these negative thoughts, trying to find the underlying cause or pattern.</li>
<li>Identify the basic inconsistencies and try to make a course correction in the right direction.</li>
</ol>

The 100 Percent Rule That Makes Life a Lot Easier

The Bill Murray Technique: How To Improvise Through Anything

The Courage to Not Know | Brené Brown