How to Manage YOUR Emotions

It’s challenging. You hate making lists, but you’re asked to do so in situations where you have no other choice but to be there. You cleaned up after yourself and your partner comes and cleans up after you. You’re hoping to work on your project but are still awaiting that perfect time. You’re at work and just know that your boss is going to call you out. You’re reactive to the first misstep your partner takes since he “should know better”. The forecast says thunderstorms for the weekend. You’re cursing your trip and it’s only Tuesday. You’re waiting for the ball to drop and it never does.

Does this happen to you? You can’t wait to get out of the situation you’re in since it’s so uncomfortable that you just want to jump out of your skin and call on Scotty to “beam” you up. Somehow, you find yourself in these situations more often than you would like to admit.

Having a smoke, getting coffee, popping a beer, chocolate ice cream, packing the bowl, digging in the cookie jar, scratch off tickets, soda and the like, are all common solutions to normal everyday stressors. The instant “get me outta here” ticket to relief. It’s ironic that most things one turns to are not even remotely close to a solution for the issue at hand. If alcohol and other drugs are your “friend”, then relief entails a whole other reality.

Our minds will follow what we tell them to do. If you had weekend plans and find that it might rain and you damn your weekend, indeed, your weekend will be damned. If you keep telling yourself how much you hate your job, you’re not going to do a good one. If you keep telling yourself that you’re not going to do well on your exam, it’s just going to be that much harder. If you think someone purposely bumped into you on the street or cut you off on the highway, it’s probable that it had nothing to do with you. Cursing them out will is not going to help anyone, especially you.

STOP.     Listen to yourself breathe….. You might have to remove yourself from the environment for a moment. Excuse yourself….. Breathe some more….. OK.

Think about the situation/ event that got you going.

What were your thoughts at that moment?

We’re you being realistic about the situation at hand or were you blowing it out of proportion?

What are the concrete facts?

Is there something that you can do to better the situation at hand? If so, what steps might be involved?

Are there amends to be made?

I literally just came back from an appointment that did not happen. It was my first appointment with this person and I waited patiently in the reception area. There was no one to be found. I figured the person would be out soon. It was five minutes past my appointment time. I’m looking around, did some reading on my phone.. When I look at the time again, it was now fifteen minutes past… I called the person and left a message. I waited another 15 minutes while I finished my reading. I couldn’t believe that at my first appointment with this professional, they were a no-show.

There was part of me that was in disbelief and inside, I wanted to be angry. My train of thought was: I know they sent me an email, which I did not get a chance to read. Was there another step I was supposed to follow? Hmmm.. I know that in my appointment book I had 7pm written down.. I scheduled it a few weeks ago and a lot has happened since then.. There was obviously a miscommunication somewhere or maybe the person was having a rough day and just overlooked this appointment. They are as human as I am and God knows that I’ve had my share of  screw ups.. We’ll just wait until tomorrow and hopefully they will call and let me know what happened. If not, then I just move on and seek out someone else.

I don’t mean to make this sound easier than it is, in another life, this would NOT have been my story. It’s hard to think of actually doing something like this while your emotions are all stirred up, but as you go along and put this to practice, you’re likely to eventually thank yourself.

Think about the last time you were really _________. You can fill in the blank with any of these: annoyed, anxious, blamed, cheated, deflated, confused, depressed, exposed, furious, guilty, humiliated, insulted, jealous, manipulated, nervous, panicked, rejected, suspicious, upset, unappreciated or any other emotion that you can think of that you’ve experienced.

Go through the inquiries and review that outcome. What path could you have taken to a more desirable outcome?

After going through a few of these, you’ll start to recognize both what patterns you might have as well as roadmaps to solutions you didn’t get to see before. Everyone has emotions and it is a wonderful thing to have the ability to express them in a healthy fashion. Before you know it, you’ll be prepared to take on whatever it may be and the storm won’t phase you at all.

If you’ve honestly done the best that you can do for today, then that’s all that you can do. Take a deep breath and rest assured.. It’s going to be OK. Love Life Today. THiS ReCoVeRY LiFE.