Our emotions serve an important purpose. Fear alerts us to danger, guilt lets us know we might have behaved badly and anger can protect us against mistreatment. However, in today’s modern society it can sometimes feel like our increasingly complex emotions are taking control – ruling our minds and governing our behaviour.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Emotional intelligence makes you the master of your own emotions. It helps you perceive, manage, understand and express emotions more clearly, accurately and succinctly. The benefits of developing your emotional intelligence include less stress, anxiety and fatigue and improved relationships, success at work and wellbeing.
Tips for Mastering Your Emotions
Slow Down
In order to identify and process our emotions we need to learn to slow down and take the time to deal with them. If you become overwhelmed or stressed by your emotions the temptation is to speed up, but this extra activity doesn’t always help deal with emotions. Slow down, calm yourself and focus.
Listen to Your Body
There are certain physical effects of emotions that can make you feel out of control. Sweating, nausea, overheating, muscle tension, headaches – learn to recognise the physical symptoms you’re feeling and react accordingly. Wait for the worst to subside before making any decisions with a clear head.
Act Consciously
When emotions are strong the temptation is to give in to automatic reactions. Make an effort to react consciously to avoid heat-of-the-moment weakness. You can’t always control your emotions but you can control how you react to them.
Recognise Conditioning
Do you always deal with certain emotions in the same way? Perhaps you eat when you’re sad or you lash out or become distant when you’re angry. Early experiences condition us to deal with emotions in specific ways, especially if we have experienced emotional or difficult childhoods. I help clients relearn healthy reactions and undo conditioned responses.
Challenge Negativity
Your thoughts and beliefs can either give your negative emotions strength or bring them under control. A small niggle can become an overwhelming feeling when left unchecked. For example, you experience a small set back and feel sad, angry and disappointed. These emotions give rise to negative self-talk – “I’ll never make it”, “I’m so useless”, “This always happens”, “They must think I’m terrible”.
These are examples of all-or-nothing thinking, personalisation, mind reading and extreme negativity and should all be avoided as they will only strengthen negative emotions.
Respond Positively
The positive way to respond to a setback is to take a moment to focus on what you’re feeling and why. You feel disappointed because you wanted the job and angry that you missed an opportunity. Make sure you separate feelings from facts, focus on the positive and learn from your experiences.
Ask yourself why you are so upset. Is it because you feel you’ve wasted effort? What exactly did you like about the opportunity? What can you do to get back on track? Life coaching is very effective at helping people work through emotions and plan for the future. Focusing on action helps you deal with negative emotions healthily and productively.
Learn to Handle Complex Emotions
Complex emotions can be so confusing that we avoid dealing with them. Try taking a step back and unpicking everything you’re feeling. It may help to talk to someone about what you’re feeling. Avoid magnifying or minimising things. Learn to recognise that what you’re feeling, although valid, doesn’t always represent reality. Emotions are complex and unpredictable. There is no ‘right’ way to feel.
Learn to Express Your Emotions
Talking about your feelings is a healthy way to process and deal with emotions. There are ways to express your feelings clearly whilst avoiding making judgement on others. Use “I” statements, invite others to share their feelings when appropriate and avoid any ‘should’ and ‘ought’ statements.
Seek Professional Help
Sometimes you try your best to control emotions but still feel overwhelmed. I use hypnotherapy and life coaching to help my clients feel more confident and master their own emotions. If you would like to benefit from this too, please do get in touch.
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