“When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life” – Tara Meyer Robson
Be your own Rainbow – Managing your Emotions
Managing your emotions is about understanding and appreciating your emotions for what they are, valuable and honest insights into your ‘inner world’, but in turn not allowing them to dominate your actions, thoughts and words.
Emotions provide valuable clues as to how we feel about a situation or person and there is no right or wrong in the feelings in themselves. The right or wrong may come in what we choose to do about them.
Being able to manage our emotions enables us to respond rather than react to situations, recognising when we might have to ‘cut others a little slack’ and helping others to recognise when they might have to do the same for us.
It means finding ways to acknowledge and constructively work through our emotions, so they don’t fester and ‘burst forth’ at inappropriate times and in inappropriate ways.
Managing our emotions means knowing which battles we really need to fight, and which ones we are better walking away from. Then using our emotions wisely to ensure a good outcome, should we need to ‘fight’.
It is about understanding the true consequences of a course of action and dealing with our emotions in the appropriate way.
Our emotions provide colour and texture to our lives and often a spark towards action, we just need to ensure that the action is constructive rather than destructive.
So how do you start to manage your emotions more effectively?
One thing to consider is to identify some emotional anchors, things that represent a source of stability or security for you. Emotional anchors ground you and keep you steady when times are tough and put you in a better position to respond rather than react. Your anchors could also be a source of strength for you.
So, look at your life and see if you can identify your anchors, they could be:
- Your family and friends: – the handful of people you know and trust to be there for you when needed.
- Your personal strengths and attributes that you know from experience you can call on when needed. For me it is my determination and ‘grit’, I don’t give in easily.
- Your life story, in a phrase or a metaphor.
- Special places that mean something to you, which have strong and happy associations for you.
- Metaphors, expressions that might be linked to your values.
- Activities, habits, routines that you know uplift and inspire you – could be listening to music, piano playing and singing work for me.
Emotional Boosters
- Take regular breaks and regular exercise
- Seek out those things that uplift you; songs, music, poetry, prose
- Use steady, slow breaths to calm and steady yourself
- Remind yourself of when you have come through tough times before
- When things don’t go according to plan, practice asking, what can I learn from this? What did I do well? What will I do next time?
- In any situation, look for where you can take control at the very least you can always take control over how you feel.
- Find and use quotes, affirmations and or poetry that help lift and boost your ‘spirit’
- Practice watching for your emotional state and that of other’s
- Writing can be a useful way of discharging stress
- Keep a daily journal of your thoughts and feelings, might help to identify patterns or recurring triggers.
- Connecting with nature and simply getting outdoors
- Practice being grateful, ask yourself daily, what am I grateful for today, in this moment?
So, in terms of your emotions:
- What do you need to let go of? –
- What do you need to take on? –
- What are you actually going to do, now?
