Emotions are one of the most bizarre things. Pulling out from any situation and watching people engage where emotions are high, you will see things that defy logic. You will find feelings, intuition and passion moving on high alert and depending on the personality of the people in the situation you can have incredibly hurtful moments that are rarely pre meditated.
Think about how many times you have heard of a murder-suicde in the news where the individuals where dating or married. Or think about times where a dad or mom killed their kid/s. It crazy if you stop and think about it. It has no logical ground of why. Or maybe when a teenager screams 'I hate you' at a parent or friend in a moment of pain. Or maybe an athlete competing in a high level competition - you have an intense match and end up losing a game and can result in tears. Really bizarre if you look at things logically.
Emotions Need To Be Trained
These moments are normal, they are stirred on my emotions, which we all have. And I am so thankful for emotions! they bring some zest into life yea?!?! Imagine if we all walked around and approached life from a strictly scientific perspective and used the scientific model for analyzing any given situation...good luck laughing...Even think about laughing - it comes from an emotional output! Logic does not laugh.
Some of us may try and suppress our emotions. We may not like how they come out, or have regret at times they have come out. But we all have them, and in the process of becoming powerful emotions are a force that need to be trained. There are times they need to be reeled in, and times they need to be leveraged. It takes practice, but also some basic tools.
I have four kids, you can see them in the pic above - I want to train them up to be powerful influencers that take on the world and know how to win. Right now, my 7 year old has emotional meltdowns when I ask him to put his shirts on the hangers in his closet...not logical...not gonna help him change the world...
My 3 year old has strong anger responses when he starts his three paragraph stories with poor grammar and no periods because he ALWAYS gets interrupted by his siblings....they are like 2 minute long thoughts with little to no purpose. And yelling ensues quickly when the interruptions begin.
These are pretty obvious, I need to help my kids learn to handle their emotions. However, what does this look like as adults? I was never taught how to hold or utilize my emotions. Nobody ever showed me how my logic was disrupted when I felt overlooked. Nobody ever showed me that tendency to withdraw when I feel rejected hurts myself and people (thank you wife). If you never learned how to handle your emotions as a kid, did you ever really learn how to handle them as an adult? Or maybe you have just developed coping mechanisms?
Becoming truly great is not an accident - to become great we have to learn to hold our emotions rightly.
How is Your Self Control?
Self Control does not mean you shut down your emotions - it means you have the will power to filter whatever situation comes your way (sometimes in a split second) to choose how you leverage your emotion. We are teaching our kids when they are having a strong illogical response by asking them to show us self-control. It means they have to put their hands together in front of them and take a deep breath, then we ask them 'how do you want to respond?' Sometimes its successful, sometimes not so much. But they are practicing and learning. What does self control look like for us as adults when our expectations are not met in a relationship? Maybe at work with a boss or co-worker, or maybe with another family member? Have you developed coping mechanisms to survive these relationships (they may be needed, even with self control)? Or are you able to engage these situations with some level of healthy emotional interactions?
A few tips for practicing self-control
When a situation comes on thats eliciting a strong emotional response here are a few tips to help your self engage well:
- Go for a quick walk - getting your blood moving will help clear your brain and get your emotions in line with some healthy thinking...try some yoga if your into that...
- Preface yourself - when the situation is involving another person, let them know "I am feeling ______" and then share whats on your mind. Giving the other party some context to your emotions, not only helps them, but saying the emotion and identifying it vocally helps your brain filter your response b/c you are conscious of the emotion present.
- Take a few deep breaths, fold your hands together and ask yourself: "What do I feel like doing?" and "What do I actually want to do" - it takes time to build any relationship, and unfortunately only a moment to destroy one.
Give it a whirl! Let me know if you try and of these steps and how it goes for you! Thanks for reading along with me - maybe the steemit platform will recover...maybe
either way - Live Big today and Dominate Life!