Learn to manage your (negative) emotions
January is a hell of a month. I started the month with this great, positive energy — a new job, new personal projects, writing, working out, going out to see friends, celebrating my birthday, etc. “2022 will be a great year.”
Everything went very well until the second half of the second week. It started with a friend who stood me up for two days in a row in the last minutes, followed by a chain of miscommunication, misunderstanding and arguments, resulting in ending a business partnership and restarting the project from scratch. This was the first time in my life that I had to deal with so many conflicts and had to stand up for myself so many times in a short period of time. Confusion. Frustration. And exhaustion.
The chart below was a high level of my emotional chart this month. A few things happened in between that I didn’t include. The gist was to show you a rollercoaster of emotions I had to go through this month.
My current mood: Drowsy in Tylenol, but life is great.
However, what surprised me the most was how I was able to handle every situation with calm and patience, while still allowing myself to express my emotions and communicate my feelings to others. Perhaps, life has trained me well to have a “thick skin” and a “steel mentality” (lol). Haha. Just kidding. The truth is I’ve read a lot of books, practiced “mindfulness” and learned to manage my emotions over the years.
Here are some of my practice:
- Acknowledge my feelings
“You always look upbeat!” — I’ve received this comment from a few different people. Each time, I had to tell them, “No, I’m not happy all the time. Like many other people, I experience a wide range of emotions throughout the day. However, I only choose to share my ‘happy moments’”. (I recently stopped posting/ sharing on social media because I didn’t want to give people an idea that life was only rosy and uplifting.)
Many people think that the ultimate goal of being is to feel “happy” or “positive”. I don’t agree with this opinion. To some extent, this statement creates a toxic environment and puts so much pressure on people that they have to be “happy”, they have to feel “positive”. In fact, the goal is to validate and feel our emotions as they come — upset, disappointed, excited, sad, frustrated, joy, etc. I honestly think this range of emotions is the most beautiful thing in life — one that has helped many poets, artists, songwriters, writers, musicians, painters, etc. make masterpieces in humankind. It shows that life is dynamic and evolving; humans and animals aren’t rocks lying on the ground; emotions are diverse.
Think of “negative feelings” as children who require a lot of patience and understanding to work with. When children burst out crying, instead of giving them whatever they want,
- validate their feelings
- give their feelings an actual name (Naughty Nancy, Sad Sandy, Happy Hugo, etc.)
- don’t neglect or run away from their feelings (sometimes adults lose patience to deal with children, we leave them to deal with emotions alone and it eventually leads to unpleasant outcomes).
- just breathe and listen to them
- ask them questions
2. Understand my triggers
[trigger] (n) — a stimulus, environment, situation, memory, sensation, emotion that reminds us of the past.
The child in our heart is vulnerable, so be gentle and patient to them. Sometimes triggers are predictable. A flashback of a negative event or an unpleasant scent could trigger and cause someone a panic attack or emotional reaction. For those who are in the orange/ red spectrum of the mental health chart, I’d recommend seeking professional help and going to see a therapist. I went to a couple of therapy sessions last year and I had to say, the process was very eye-opening, helping me unlearn about myself.
For this article particularly, my triggers are self-diagnosed at a low-level impact, so those steps below work for me.
Now that I’m aware of my feelings, I often spend some time with myself alone to know what triggers my feelings. In many situations, people saw me “walk away” from a conflict, an argument, a breakup, etc. in an I-don’t-give-a-f*** attitude. But the truth is I needed to go away to find some inner peace, calm myself down and find the best way to respond to the situation in a respectful manner. There is no need to add more fuel to the fire when both parties are not clear-headed.
For me, this is an important step to see my tendency in certain circumstances. During this step,
- I set my boundaries. “I need some alone time to think about it. Let’s chat another time.” Or “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it now. Let’s talk later.”
- I journal. I write everything in detail and describe my actions and feelings in the most honest, truthful way. I’m the only person who reads my journal, so there is no shame to share some “stupid/silly/shameful/crazy” things I did. If you can’t be honest with yourself, you can’t be honest with other people. Some questions I often ask myself: What happened? From my point of view, how did I interpret the situation? What emotions am I feeling? Why do I think I’m having those emotions? What do I need to stay calm? What steps do I need to take to solve this issue? What’d I do differently if it happened again? If I were in other people’s shoes, how’d I feel?
- I talk to some close friends/ families to see the situation from different perspectives. It depends on the situation that I choose people to talk to.
Each person deals with the rise of emotions differently and some may take longer than others to process. To me, while I respect the feelings of other people and myself, the last thing I want to do is to let my emotions affect other things in life (work, put my emotions on others, etc.). In some situations where I can’t be fully present in a meeting, I will let people know in advance and sometimes, ask for a mental health leave of absence if needed.
In many cases, while I try to have a response as soon as I can, I tend to take as much time as I need to make sure I’m ready to face the situation. Sometimes, it only takes me a long walk. Sometimes, it takes me a week to sleep on it.
3. Practice my response
I’ve been known by friends and many other people as a straightforward, direct person. Although this characteristic is great as it allows me to speak up and free up my brain capacity, my directness and bluntness came across a few times as “negative” — my comments were too harsh that in a way, hurt the recipients.
Sometimes, we think we are doing the right thing by giving people “our honest thoughts”, but we forget to think about how the recipients will feel when they receive our feedback. Words and body languages matter. In many situations, I’m the recipient of “harsh” comments. Although the comments may come from a good place, they still hurt me deeply (I’m an overthinking person. I take every feedback seriously and often spend days and months dwelling on those comments. Some comments have still been stuck in my head till now.). Since then, I’ve been very careful with my words when giving people my critical feedback and tried to put myself in other people’s shoes before sharing my thoughts.
Those quiet moments with myself and open discussions with my close friends give me clarity. I often write down my responses and send them to my friends to look at, or do a role-playing stimulation with them and let them challenge me with different questions. Though I can’t predict everything that can happen, at least, I’m mentally prepared for whatever outcome that might have.
4. Everything is going to be okay!
There is always a solution to every conflict and argument. I’ve learned over the years that I can’t have everything and there is an opportunity cost in every decision that I make. So when it comes to resolving conflicts, I tend to gear towards options that give me peace of mind. If the options mean I have to lower my ego and let other people win, so be it.
Not all battles are worth fighting for. Sometimes, it means to stand up and confront. Sometimes, it means to accept and let it go. Not all the time, we need to turn the situation into a confrontation. Focus on what matters to you and remember, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” — Eleanor Roosevelt.
