How to Gain Control of Your Emotions
Controlling your emotions doesn't mean ignoring them. It means you
recognize them and act on them when appropriate, not randomly and
uncontrollably whenever you feel like it. Take control of your life by
taking control of your emotions.
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Part One of Three:
Controlling Emotions, Not Letting Emotions Control You
Know your emotions and what causes your emotions. There
are a million dierent ways you can feel, but scientists have
classied human emotions into a few basics that everyone can
recognize: joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger,
and anticipation
Jealousy, for example, is a manifestation of fear - fear that
you're not "as good" as something else, fear of being
abandoned because you're not "perfect" or "the best."
Know what kinds of situations cause which emotions, and be
able to tell the dierence between anger and fear; sometimes
multiple emotions can bubble up at the same time, and the
person going through the emotions might not be able to
distinguish the two.
Recognize that emotions don't just appear mysteriously out of
nowhere. Many times, we're at the mercy of our emotions on a
subconscious level. By recognizing your emotions on a conscious
level, you're better able to control them.
It is also good to recognize an emotion from the moment it
materializes, as opposed to letting it build up and intensify. The
last thing you want to do is ignore or repress your feelings,
because if you're reading this, you probably know that when
you do that, they tend to get worse and erupt later.
Ask yourself throughout the day: "How am I feeling right now?"
If you can, keep a journal. Write down situations that caused an
interesting emotion in you. That way, you can help pinpoint the
moment it appeared instead of letting its origin slip away.
Take ownership of your emotions. Don't blame them on other
people. Recognize when you try to blame other people for your
emotions, and don't let your mind get away with that trick.
Taking full responsibility for your emotions will help you better
control them.
Notice what was going through your mind when the emotion
appeared. Stop and analyze what you were thinking about,
until you nd what thought was causing that emotion.
Your boss may not have made eye contact with you at lunch, for
example; and without even being aware of it, the thought may
have been in the back of your mind, "He's getting ready to re
me!"
Write down the evidence which supports or contradicts the
thought that produced the emotion. Start connecting the dots
about why you reacted the way you did.
nobody gets along well with this particular boss, he can't aord
to actually re anyone, because the department is too shortstaed.
For example, you may have let slip something that you should
not have said which angered him, but which it is too late to
retract. His reaction at lunch may not be what you originally
thought it was.
Ask yourself, "What is another way to look at the situation
that is more rational and more balanced than the way I was
looking at it before?" Explore all the dierent possibilities. If
nothing else, thinking about other possible interpretations will alert
you to many dierent scenarios, and the diculty of jumping to
conclusions.
Taking this new evidence into account, you may conclude that
your job is safe, regardless of your boss's petty annoyances,
and you're relieved of the emotion that was troubling you. If this
doesn't work, however, continue to the next step.
Consider your options. Now that you know what emotion
you're dealing with, think of at least two dierent ways you can
respond. Your emotions control you when you assume there's only
one way to react, but you always have a choice. For example, if
someone insults you, and you experience anger, your immediate
response might be to insult them back. But no matter what the
emotion, there are always at least two alternatives, and you can
probably think of more:
Don't react. Do nothing. This approach is especially good when
you know that someone is trying to egg you on or purposely
frustrate you. Don't give in; when you fail to show an emotional
reaction, the person egging you on will become frustrated and
eventually stop.
Relax. Easy to say, hard to do, but there are some ways to relax
that do not require lots of training, experience or will power.
When we are angry or upset we clench our jaws and tense up.
Taking a deep breath is an easy and eective way to tamp down
the emotional upset. It wont dispel the anger but it can dial it
down a notch or two, just enough to keep us from saying, or
doing, something wed regret later.
Do the opposite of what you would normally do. For example,
you get bothered when your spouse regularly doesn't do the
dishes. Instead of engaging them in an argument the second
you notice the dirty dishes, calmly do the dishes yourself and
tell your spouse in a calm and collected way that you'd
appreciate help considering all you do in the household.
committee at work that includes people who are unfocused,
angry and unproductive. You invariably get upset when
attending the meetings. One strategy for dealing with this
upset, frustration and anger is to ask to be re-assigned to a
dierent committee. Basically, you remove yourself from a
situation that you know will generate these strong, negative and
unnecessary feelings.
Make a choice. When deciding what to do, it's important to
make sure it's a conscious choice, not a reaction to another,
competing emotion. For example, if someone insults you and you do
nothing, is it your decision, or is it a response to your fear of
confrontation? Here are some good reasons to act upon:
Principles - Who do you want to be? What are your moral
principles? What do you want the outcome of this situation to
be? Ultimately, which is the decision you'd be most proud of?
This is where religious guidance comes into play for many
people.
Logic - Which course of action is the most likely to result in the
outcome you desire? For example, if you're being confronted
with a street ght, and you want to take the pacist route, you
can walk away--but, there's a good chance that burly drunk will
and keep him talking until he calms down.
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Part Two of Three:
Recognizing Ideas that Cause Negative Emotions
Change your perspective. The above steps show how to not let
your emotions control your behavior on the spot. If you want to
experience fewer negative emotions to begin with, change the way
you see the world. If you learn how to be optimistic and laid back,
you'll nd that negative emotions make fewer appearances to be
reckoned with.
Being optimistic is important. Instead of letting emotions take
over because you pessimistically expect them to, try believing in
get what they deserve, and that you are a good person. You
may start nding that outlook changes your emotions.
Acknowledge that there are certain things that you won't be
able to change. Those things aren't worth getting frustrated at.
You're probably not going to change the way that some people
drive their car, for instance. It's not worth getting upset over.
What you can change is your reaction to people who drive
recklessly and selshly.
Eliminate many of the selsh core beliefs which give rise to
your disturbing thoughts and negative emotions. There are
many irrational ideas that repeatedly upset us.[1] They are all false,
but many of us are inclined to believe at least some of them part of
the time. Here are some preconceived notions about the self that
are wrong because people think of themselves too highly:
"I must be perfect in all respects in order to be worthwhile."
Nobody can be perfect in everything that we have to do in life.
But if you believe that you're a failure unless you are perfect in
every way, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of
unhappiness.
"I must be loved and approved of by everyone who is important
to me." Sometimes you just can't help making enemies, and
there are people in the world who bear ill will to almost
to please them.
"When people treat me unfairly, it is because they are bad
people." Most of the people who treat you unfairly have friends
and family who love them. People are mixtures of good and bad.
Maybe there is something about you that displeases them.
"It is terrible when I am seriously frustrated, treated badly, or
rejected." Some people have such a short fuse that they are
constantly losing jobs or endangering friendships because they
are unable to endure the slightest frustration. The world does
not tick for only you. Be considerate of other people.
"If something is dangerous or fearful, I have to worry about it."
Many people believe that "the work of worrying" will help to
make problems go away. They drive themselves crazy by
making up things to worry about. "Okay, that's over. Now,
what's the next thing on the list that I have to worry about?"
"It is terrible when things do not work out exactly as I want
them to." Could you have predicted the course of your own life?
Probably not. By the same token, you can't predict that things
are going to work out exactly as you want them to, even in the
short term.
Eliminate many negative core beliefs about the self. There are
people who think of themselves not highly enough: Their
the result of not being able to love themselves adequately.
"Misery comes from outside forces which I cant do very much
to change." Many prison inmates describe their life as if it were
a cork, bobbing up and down on waves of circumstance. You
can choose whether to see yourself as an eect of your
circumstances, or a cause. Take responsibility for your actions.
"It is easier to avoid lifes diculties and responsibilities than to
face them." Even painful experiences, once we can get through
them, can serve as a basis for learning and future growth. It's
childish to go through life thinking that diculties won't ever
aect us.
"Because things in my past controlled my life, they have to keep
doing so now and in the future." If this were really true, it would
mean that we are prisoners of our past, and change is
impossible. But people change all the time and sometimes
they change dramatically! You have the ability to be essentially
who you want to be; you just have to believe in yourself.
"I can be as happy as possible by just doing nothing and
enjoying myself, taking life as it comes." If this were true,
almost every wealthy or comfortably retired person would do as
little as possible. But instead, they seek new challenges as a
pathway to further growth. You're tricking yourself into
believing that you'd be really happy doing nothing. People need
novelty to stay satised.
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Learn to avoid the cognitive distortions which make things
look worse than they really are. Most of us have heard the
expression, "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses."
But when you use cognitive distortions, you tend to look at the
world through mud-colored glasses! Here are some ideas that you
should stop from rolling through your head if you catch yourself
thinking them.
Avoid negative ideas that come from feeling inadequate.
Inadequacy comes from low self-esteem, the idea that you
aren't good enough to do something or deserve someone. Banish
inadequacy from your emotions as much as possible, and you may
nd that it has been keeping you from accomplishing things.
All-or-nothing thinking. Everything is good or bad, with nothing
in between. If you aren't perfect, then you're a failure. You
procrastinate doing stu because they are not perfect until you
have no other choice than doing them.
Disqualifying the positive. If somebody says something good
about you, it doesn't count. But if somebody says something
Personalization. You believe that you were the cause of
something bad that happened, when you really didn't have very
much to do with it. And ask a friend to help you realize your
emotions or worries so that you can have someone to rely on.
Mind reading. You think somebody is disrespecting you and
don't bother to check it out. You just assume that they are. You
do this because you feel like you don't deserve respect, and so
are overly sensitive to people whom you think might not respect
you.
Avoid negative ideas that come from fear. Humans can be
afraid of a lot of things; we let fear take over our rational brains
because we're convinced something bad is going to happen, even
when we don't have evidence that it will.
Over-generalization. A single negative event turns into a neverending pattern of defeat. "I didn't get a phone call. I'll never
hear from anybody again," or "She broke up with me; why
would anyone want to date me?" You generalize not because of
a pattern, but because you fear the pattern.
Labeling and mislabeling. This is an extreme form of
over-generalization. When you make a mistake, you give
yourself a label, such as, "I'm a loser." When someone else's
him, "He's a louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event
with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
The Fortune Teller Error. You think that things are going to turn
out badly, and convince yourself that this is already a fact. You
have no evidence for the prophecy, but you're convinced
anyway.
Jumping to conclusions. You make a negative interpretation
even though there are no denite facts that convincingly
support your conclusion. You think that preparing for the worst
is better than hoping for the best, because you're afraid, not
hopeful.
Avoid negative ideas that come from other complex emotions.
Don't succumb to these defeatist emotional responses. Have
faith in your ability to work things through. Believe in your own self
worth. If you catch yourself thinking any one of these thoughts,
focus instead on a positive way of interpreting your worth.
Magnication (catastrophizing) or minimization. Imagine that
you're looking at yourself or somebody else through a pair of
binoculars. You might think that a mistake you made or
somebody else's achievement are more important than they
really are. Now imagine that you've turned the binoculars
you've done might look less important than it really is, and
somebody else's faults might look less important than they
really are.
Emotional reasoning. You assume that your negative emotions
necessarily reect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore
it must be true." You want the world to be the way it feels to you
because it will help you feel less powerless.
Should statements. You beat up on yourself as a way of getting
motivated to do something. You "should" do this, you "must" do
this, you "ought" to do this, and so on. This doesn't make you
want to do it, it only makes you feel guilty. When you direct
should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration,
and resentment.
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Tips
Don't let the fear from the past keep you distracted from your
future.
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Learn to recognize and anticipate "triggers" that set you o.
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Make your rst goal to keep a cool head - in public. Be secure in the
however you want to in private.
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Think about how you will see your reaction in 5 years time. Will you
be proud of yourself for walking away with your dignity intact or will
you look back and remember falling apart ? Choose now.
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When you see your mood changing, leave from whatever is causing
it and take several deep breaths, pray, think about what was done or
said to upset and gure out another way of dealing with it instead of
getting upset! Also ask yourself is it worth?
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No matter what you choose to do, it's important to continue
acknowledging the emotion. Just because you're not reacting to an
emotion doesn't mean that emotion doesn't exist.
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Don't assume everything is about you if something goes wrong with
someone else unexpectedly. Some people may just be having a bad
day. Or you may have caught them at the wrong time.
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Some experiences like watching a lm, hearing a sound or tasting a
food (sensory input) can trigger or bring about good emotions. The
more good ones you can recognize, pay attention to and be aware of,
the easier it is to put your self in that kind of a recognizable mood.
It's far easier to get out of an angry or sad state of mind when you
can know what happy or joyful state of mind is like.
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Sometimes it's helpful to keep a binder with lined paper. Then at
the end of the day when you're in bed you can write down all your
thoughts and emotions.
Try making a list of a bunch of feelings you want to be aware of
either feeling or avoiding. Each day leave a check or mark by them as
you accomplish or fail to accomplish your goal.
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Warnings
It is important to control your emotions, but suppressing them or
denying that they exist is entirely dierent. Suppressing your
emotions can cause physical disorders and more emotional
symptoms.
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Many emotional problems are so complex that they require the
additional professional assistance of a licensed psychologist,
counselor, or social worker.
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