As we all know some of the emotions that we experience can be so intense that we become consumed by them and we don't even think about the ramifications of acting. They can get you into trouble like giving into anger and wanting to fight people simply because they upset you. If you're not aware the emotions that you're experiencing and how they affect you they will control you. It will literally feel like you're not controlling your own life, things are getting out of hand that could lead to frustration and lashing out to yourself and to others.
This can cause you to repeatedly experience negative emotions and after a while you might become so accustomed to it that they completely take over. When this is the case, you tend to be in survival mode, being defensive to protect yourself from things that you deem as a threat. Being in that type of state can leave you vulnerable and desperate. Say somebody asked you if you have seen their wallet, in being in this survival mode you might interpret that question as an accusation that you stole their wallet, and this can make you angry at the person and lashing out at them over a simple question.
Emotions are interpretations
Some might say there is no good or bad but it is how you decide to interpret an experience. It is based on your thinking and how you condition yourself. Many of us will experience happiness when we get what we want or a certain expectation is met. If you achieve the goal of getting that test score that you wanted or landing that promotion that you've been working towards, you're most likely to feel extremely happy because you got what you we're striving for. It works the same way in the opposite direction where if you fall short of achieving that goal that you been striving for, you're most likely to feel disappointment and anger.
But let's say you started looking at not getting what you want in a different way, what if you took that experience as, if I fell short of that expectation it's because maybe I wasn't prepared enough, I didn't execute well enough, I know what I did wrong and know how I can be better. You can process that information as an experience to learn from.
For some this intense experience might be too much for them to handle which is understandable why someone might take this feeling as being too scary. But another person might feel that experience is exactly what they need to get them going to perform or be at their best. There's that argument of whether you're born with these types of traits to handle the big moments or you're not and some people might be more naturally inclined to be able to handle some of these situations. But you can condition yourself to work up to be able to handle these big moments to the point where it doesn't feel as scary, it's going to feel more exciting.
The better you can condition yourself to think a certain way it will affect how you experience your emotions. In essence you're reprogramming that survival mechanism that's encoded into your brain. You will still experience some of those negative emotions but you'll recognize how to use them to not be destructive. This is such an important skill to master to be able to effectively live life on your terms. There's going to be circumstances that cause us to fall short of expectations that we have, but we all have the ability to interpret what is going on so that we can respond effectively and not merely react to whatever comes our way. In being mindful in this way it gives you the ability to step back and analyze what's going on to see things and figure out solutions that would be much harder when you're in the eye of the storm.
Recognizing your emotions
As you work to interpret your experiences you still will have those negative emotions that makes you want to lash out or run for the hills. First be able to recognize the emotions as it occurs. So those moments where you become angry you start to immediately tell yourself, I'm becoming angry. Or it could be that you're feeling sad after a big letdown. This is going to help you become more aware of yourself and the situations that you're in and it's going to give you the ability to take a little step back and possibly might even help you become a little bit distant or more objective of that emotion you're experiencing. When you're able to do this this, it can feel so in control as you're not the victim of being in desperation mode.
It's still going to hurt as you go through it, but you become more levelheaded that allows you to see things with a lot more clarity. As you do this it's going to take some time to get accustomed to this and there will be moments where you lose your cool and your emotions take over but you just got to remember that's OK as long as you're striving for resetting and getting back to being aware of how you are handling yourself. This doesn't have to be complicated where you're examining each and every emotion that you're experiencing it's just the big ones that can cause you to be on such a high or such a low because when you're in that state of intenseness, decisions that you would typically make in a calm state will be impacted.
It's not just when you experience a state of anger that's going to lead to some destructive habits but also a state of euphoria could lead you to think that you're bulletproof and you might try to jump off a roof to prove how strong or tough you are. Most of our good decisions come from remaining levelheaded.
Delay reacting
As you start to recognize how emotions are affecting you, immediately delay reacting to not give the emotion any more life or intensity that will cause your reactions to take over. Even do this with those positive emotions that cause you to jump for joy as it's going to help you on both ends of the spectrum where if you can handle that joyous feeling it'll make those rough emotions not as difficult to handle. It's going to help you become less volatile. It's going to make you more inclined to when you interpret good things happening to you, your response is OK that's good, but it's also going to help you interpret those bad things happening to you in the same way where you say OK that was bad how am I going to respond. The less intense you become to what you experience the better chance you have at lessoning that intense emotion. It becomes more manageable to not be overtaken.
Some simple things that you can do to delay reacting is taking a few deep breaths to help calm you down or possibly go out on a walk to clear your head. Being able to regulate that blood flow that has just risen will help delay that reaction. Think about how poker players handle themselves to not give away what type of hand that they have. They don't want to come off as overly excited to give the opposing player the idea that maybe they should fold. They also don't want to come off as defeated and down to tip the opposing player that they have a bad hand and they can be taken advantage of. These types of tactics can help you slow down you're thinking that allows you time to process what you're going through. It takes away from that shock factor that makes things appear not as big.
Process your emotions
As you become aware of what you're going through, what you're feeling, process those emotions to allow them to flow by not suppressing them. Since we know saying things out loud is 10 times more powerful than when we think it, avoid saying negative things out loud to reduce it further by 4-7 times. Be conscious of these negative thoughts that you're going through and work to find what is triggering them and analyze why it's causing what you are feeling. Pick it apart scrutinizing every little detail to almost find a flaw in that trigger.
When negative emotions come about, you recognize it, process them and understand the cause of it the more you are in control of how to handle it. Just tell yourself this is just the brain telling me something is wrong so I can survive. It’s signaling to you that something needs to get done. So if you get upset with yourself for being late to a certain event, recognize that that's telling you maybe you need to be a little bit more organized to make it on time.
Look to find that right balance to be able to self-regulate without being overly critical or too easy on yourself. The ability to do this makes you more disciplined that better gauges yourself and the situation that you are in. It motivates you to take the proper action so you can get the desired outcome. Being too harsh on yourself it can make you feel down and hurt your confidence going forward, but being too easy on yourself is not putting urgency on the action you need to take which lets opportunities pass you by. Just like stress we need to find that right amount to get us going but not too much that it overloads the things that we can handle.
Wearing down the sharpness
The more you give yourself time to process your emotions the more acclimated you become to the sharpness that you feel and eventually that sharpness becomes dull and you have enough experience to go through the discomfort of some of the pain that you feel. This is going to give you reassurance that this is just part of the process. Understanding this gives you a long-term view that allows you to see beyond just right now. It can feel stomach turning at times but being able to assess what is going on will determine how well you experience life.
Once you can start processing these negative emotions and even the positive ones It's almost like putting everything through a filter to separate the sediment that can clog up your ability to handle yourself better. You essentially remove the things that are dramatized or make bigger than what they actually are. This helps you to see things for what they are like seeing mole hills for mole hills and not seeing mountains out of molehills. If you ever lost something important like credit card, money, license, most of our reactions are probably to panic and then we're racing of all the bad things that could happen. There can be a tendency to overlook the simple things such as retracing your steps because there is a good chance you dropped it along the way.
Ways to process emotions
When you are not able to process your emotions they will keep reoccurring later on at very inconvenient time especially in the form of self doubt. This could lead to a festering of all the toxicity that you were bottling up making you more prone to being on edge, a loose cannon at even the smallest triggers. It even has the ability to affect your health mentally and physically. A helpful way to actually process your emotions is actually talk it out with yourself, with a close friend, but avoid complaining because complaining is such a negative form of expression that can continuously build momentum into other parts of your life. As you talk it out try to be objective to take some of the power away from that emotion you're experiencing. Dial back the tone that you use to become less attached.
Another way is to write out the emotions you are struggling with. This really helps to slow down your thinking and improves the objectiveness that you express. When you actually write things down it physically causes you to slow down to really examine what you put down on paper. This is a great exercise to help rationalize the emotions you're experiencing. I'm sure you've been in a moment where it's hard to express what you want to say and this exercise forces you to do that. If you ever written something down and then reflected on it later I'm sure you found what you've written maybe a little bit funny later on so the anger that you're experiencing today writing it down maybe a month from now you can reflect on it and it might give you a laugh, it might make you think is that what I got mad about. What's great about writing whatever it is you're going through down, your perspective can change with time as you reflect on it.
When you only keep certain experiences in your head many times you reflect back on how you felt that experience went and not what actually happened. With more time that passes some of the details involved in whatever you went through get mixed up and your reflection on it will change. But just like any written record it's there as a reference point that is not altered to the way you think it happened. As you write out whatever it is you're going through this can serve as a filter as well because you identify what things you do want to use going forward.
Final Thoughts
Managing your emotions to work for you will be a lifelong journey of improvement. Obviously, there's going to be some really turbulent times that you're going to experience where you revert to that survival mode that can cause you to misjudge your situation, but don't beat yourself up for it, just recognize what you could have done better and use it for the next time going forward. Have scenarios played out in your head or written down of how you're going to handle the different emotions you experience and the good and bad that comes with it. The more you're able to do this the more you're conditioning yourself to a default mode that overrides the urge to have an outburst. Preparation of things before they actually happen brings greater confidence and composure to what you face.
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