Manage Your Emotions
You can’t hide from emotions, so learn how to be mindful of them and ways to manage them to take back control of your life.
You experience six basic emotions: fear, anger, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust. They are essential to the human experience. These emotions help you make decisions, take action, and experience a wide array of feelings. Without emotions, you are left empty, unable to decipher good from bad, or happy from sad.
Your emotions play a large role in your decision-making and perspective toward yourself, others, situations, and the world. You owe it to yourself to learn how to mindful of emotions and how to manage emotions.
How to be mindful of your emotions and take control
Mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment. Emotions can keep you from being mindful, rob you from your peace of mind, and leave you feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. To be mindful of emotions, you must take a moment to pause, recognize the emotion or emotions, and work to understand it and its impact—both mentally and physically.
It is important that you approach mindfulness and the analyzing of your emotions without judgement. The goal is to not attach any meaning or feeling to what you are analyzing. This practice may seem challenging at first, especially when emotions are running high. As you refine your mindfulness ability, you will become more comfortable with the practice and recognize when you need to slow down, pause, and analyze.
Related: Don’t Hold Back the Tears: Here Are Reasons Why It’s Healthy to Cry
We can easily become overwhelmed with emotions if we are not mindful and aware. If you find yourself stressed on a regular basis or experiencing depression and anxiety, you may need an emotional reset.
How to budget your emotions wisely
It may sound funny to "budget" your emotions. Budgeting emotions—or managing emotions—means harnessing your emotional energy then controlling your emotional state. Because emotions are innate, the good news is that you don't need to learn emotions. You just need to learn how to manage them.
Here are four things you can try:
1. Practice mindfulness to understand what drains your emotional energy
Take the time to practice mindfulness to understand what really is draining your emotional energy. Anytime you are overwhelmed with emotions, take a mental note of the situation and those involved. Recording these moments in a small journal can help you keep track of situations and uncover any commonalities.
2. Avoid triggers that set off an emotional roller coaster
Often times, you know what and who drain your energy and emotions. If possible, avoid these situations and people. A better exercise is to recognize these situations beforehand and prepare a plan on how you intend to handle it. You, unfortunately, cannot avoid every situation that puts your emotions at risk, but you can have a positive go-to strategy to help you deal with it.
3. Find the balance
You control your emotional energy and how you spend it. The key is to learn more about your personal emotional energy journey and find the right reaction to draining situations. Find the balance between what to spend your emotional energy on and what doesn't deserve it. Refer to your journal notes and mark out the situations that you don't need to worry about. This simple exercise can help you find the balance you need.
