Introduction
For today we're going to talk about surprise
Now right away you may already be wondering to yourself about surprise. How do i actually manage surprise ? i mean, isn't surprise by definition something that you don't expect ?, you don't really know it's coming ?.
Well, let me give you an example something that happened to me just this past weekend that i think really illustrates how to deal with surprises that are unexpected things that come up.
So my family was driving home, and it had just started raining we live in Jakarta. It’s pretty rare to have rain this month. it wasn't raining really hard and I didn't really factor this in but i took off around an intersection. it was a double turn lane and we went into a slide.
I didn't realize what happened and i was trying to correct and i was really surprised because the car wasn't responding. we ended up hitting the opposite curb and obviously we hit too hard because there was quite a bit of damage to the right side of our car.
The Case of Surprise
So short end of the story is that this ended up being cost me a lot of money in single car accident that i caused on my own. So, it was a big surprise, both in the moment dealing with the loss of control on this slick road and then afterwards getting the repair bill which was quite a shock.
Surprised obviously startled confused and amazed. So, as i think back in the moment what was going on for me whenever i went into the slide ?.
Well, I was obviously confused because the car wasn't responding and i was also startled because I felt out of control and i didn't know where we were going and i was actually one of the contributing causes.
i was rushing a little bit, probably going a little faster than I should have through that intersection.
in the moment it was a total surprise to me what was going on with this accident and then the damages afterwards just hitting it and trying to assess ; can we even drive this car off ?, the wheel was bent, i had to put on my hazard lights and drive really slow and just crawl. I actually drove straight to the garage for repairs, i didn't even take it home.
So, just dealing with the whole thing. I remember my partner making a comment in the moment she says , “ you're really calm about this” and she acknowledged me for not getting completely out of sorts and just going crazy with it.
I remember at the moment even though i was surprised, there was a conscious thought on my part about freaking out in this moment and just like “ oh my gosh ”, “what's going on?” and just being stuck in the same spot was not going to help the situation.
It was not going to help manage what was happening to us and in that moment I had a choice, and i've been working on my emotions for quite some time. I had to just make a decision, i'm going to take charge and not let the total surprise, the the startle reflex have control of this situation.
Surprises happen in our everyday life they just come up and so we've had a lot of surprises in the past year and a half. We've had pandemic, we've had working at home, we've had people sick, there's just a lot of surprises that we just could not anticipate.
Sometimes you may think, well, surprise is something that we think of as a positive but the fact is surprises come in both flavors, right ?
Taking Charge of The Good and The Bad
They can be good and they can also be really bad surprises so my accident was a bad surprise. It wasn't something i looked forward to. Just as the bill for the repairs was one of those bad surprises. But if we stop and reflect on it the fact is with our emotions, we don't really need to judge the good and the bad.
Instead of judging it and starting to freeze up or to just go completely unglued, the best thing that we can do in those situations is just to breathe. is just to take a moment and to control what we're going through and to realize that we really do have more control than we might realize than we feel in the moment. but we have to act in line with that.
Take a deep breath but also coach yourself through the situation, slow the pace down. The thing about surprises is we often overreact. We just let our heart beat race away, we let our emotions run away with us and what we have to do is take charge, center ourselves, come back, and just deal with the reality of the situation the best way that we can.
That sounds really simple, i know it's something that takes practice but it is something that we can get better at.
Conclusion
So i hope this has been helpful if you want to get practice in working with emotions, i really recommend that start slowly and steady.
That will help you to sort out especially after the fact “ what was i feeling ?” , and “ how can i name that experience ?. ”
Just like for me, it was confusion and being startled in the moment then afterwards we can actually prepare ourselves. for the next time we feeling confused or startled or the unexpected happens. Remind ourself to slow my breathing down and not get so caught up in all the tangle of emotions in the moment.
i want to give shout out to 
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