Do your emotions control you? How to handle your feelings.
Have you ever been surprised by an emotional reaction you didn’t expect? Did it interfere with what you wanted to accomplish? Don’t let your emotions control you. You cannot stop them, but you can choose from several strategies to reduce their impact, once you understand what’s happening.
This post addresses everyday emotional situations but is not intended to help with severe or crisis conditions and is not a substitute for medical or psychological treatment. Please, if you have an immediate or serious psychological condition, seek help from a trained professional.
Do your emotions control you?
One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels. ― Gustave Flaubert
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. — Charles R. Swindoll
You cannot master your feelings, but you can learn to regulate them.
You can think of all the activity going on in your brain as being in one of four cognitive states1:
- A State of Fear resulting in the 4F behaviors of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn…