How To Master Your Emotions

Have you ever been so angry and frustrated that you felt like your heart was about to explode inside your chest, and all you wanted to do was yell at the top of your voice? Anger, sadness, frustration, pain, and even joy can be overwhelming to deal with.

But as an adult, one of the things that differentiate you from babies who cry and yell at the slightest discomfort is, that you have, to a good extent, learned how to master your emotions.

While maturity comes with better emotional stability, now and then, you could face extreme situations that might throw you off the cliff, and cause you to lose control of your emotions. This often leads to regret and makes you wish you could turn back time and react differently.

Knowing, how to control your emotions, will help you make better decisions, avoid conflicts, and have healthier relationships with the people around you. If you’re struggling with a constant outburst of your feelings, and you are eager to learn how to master your emotions, this article is for you.

What Are Emotions?

Emotions are natural psychological feelings that are an essential part of human life. They include feelings of love or hate, joy, happiness, anger, sadness, frustration, and fear, which arise due to our experiences and the things happening around us.

Emotions typically start from the inside and result in a reaction. External factors frequently trigger them. For instance, the feeling of anger starts to build up from the inside, after you have endured insults, abuse, disappointment, or any other form of unfair treatment.

These external factors trigger the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline. These hormones result in physical sensations like increased heart rate, dilation of the pupils, changes in breathing, and increased muscle tension. When this happens, if you don’t know how to control your emotions, you may get into an aggressive situation, verbal altercation, or other kinds of emotional outbursts.

What Triggers Emotions?

A wide array of internal and external factors can trigger human feelings. We can categorize these factors into the following groups:

• External Triggers: Compliments, insults, surprises, a big loss, and physical attacks can trigger such intense feelings.
• Thoughts and Beliefs: Our thoughts and the way we process things can also trigger our emotions. For example, the way you think about someone and the way you process the things they do could cause you to start to love or despise them.

• Memories and Experience: Memories can trigger nostalgia, fear, anxiety, and other forms of intense feelings. Sometimes, you may encounter an event that’ll remind you of something hurtful that happened in the past, and you’d find yourself reliving the sadness and anger that you felt back then.

• Biological Factors: Biological factors like hunger, stress, and tiredness can cause various reactions.

Why Are Emotions Important?

Emotions are important because they are proof that you are connected with your inner self. They are necessary to shape your thoughts as well as behavior and guide your relationship with other people. Furthermore, they are essential for communication, motivation, and decision-making processes.

A lack of emotions could be dangerous and might be an indication of a mental disorder or an underlying neurological condition. Therefore, it is critical to have these feelings, but you must learn how to control them.

How To Master Your Emotions — Ideas To Understand and Master Them

Mastering your emotions could be challenging, especially when you are consistently faced with different triggers. Here are some tips on how to master your emotions and deal with things calmly.

Recognize your Emotions and Label the Triggers

You cannot control your feelings if you don’t understand them. The first step in taking charge is to recognize those feelings, label them, and figure out what is causing them. By mastering all of these, you’d be able to understand why you feel the way you feel, and you’d also be alert to know when the sensation is about to take over you.

Observe the Effects and Impacts of Your Feelings

Intense emotions aren’t always negative. The feeling of love and happiness brings excitement into our lives, and it’s healthy to express these positive vibes. However, both the positive and negative feelings could get out of hand and result in strained relationships, physical outbursts, insensitivity to other people’s feelings, etc.

Each time you let these passionate sensations overwhelm you, take a look at the effects they have on you and other people. Afterwards, investigate how to regulate your actions.

Regulate the Passion; Don’t Suppress Them

Suppressing those overwhelming feelings may have a net-negative effect. Instead of suppression, adopt some regulatory strategies you can use to keep them in check. Strategies like walking away, taking deep breaths, physical exercise and mindfulness meditation will help you in mastering your emotions and the way you react to them.

Keep a Journal to Document your Mood

Journaling helps people to deal with their moods. It provides an outlet to let off some steam, and the writing process could be a good way to trace back your actions to specific triggers. With time, instead of reacting to everything that affects you, you may choose to just go back home and tell your journal. 

It will also be helpful to develop other healthy habits like reading, listening to podcasts of your favorite books on Blinkist, and keeping your mind preoccupied with other things that you enjoy. This could be a good way to control your reaction when the triggers come up.

Know When to Express Yourself and When to Ignore

Wise people know when to express their feelings and when to just ignore them. Even when they decide to speak what’s on their mind, they don’t say everything on their mind. They practice restraint, patience, and self-control. So, knowing how to master your emotions involves identifying the best way to react at a given place or time.

Practice Meditation

Meditation practices bring peace and tranquility to you, and help you to keep your nerves in check. It also helps you to deal with those thoughts that have crowded your mind so that you’ll begin to feel at ease and handle stressors differently.

Your meditation will be more effective when you back it up by using the Blinkist App to listen to books on mindfulness and happiness. Blinkist has broken down the key ideas of these books into tiny bits, so you can listen to them as short podcasts within a few minutes.

Talk to a Therapist

In the end, you may not be able to fully control your mood and its effect on your own. If you’ve tried all the tips we listed above, but that overwhelming feeling continues, it is best to talk to a therapist. Sometimes, speaking to someone professional can help you better than anything else.

A mental health professional will provide solutions to tackle these disorders and help you to regain control of your mind, spirit, and body.

For those who feel overwhelmed by self-doubt or a sense of failure, there’s another resource that could be incredibly beneficial. How to “Unfuck Yourself” – A Brief Guide, provides actionable advice for overcoming these feelings. Gary John Bishop’s template can be a game-changer for anyone struggling with these issues.

Master Your Emotions — The Book

Master Your Emotions

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by Thibaut Meurisse

1. 17 min reading time
2. audio version available

Get the key ideas on Blinkist

Buy on Amazon

1. 17 min reading time
2. audio version available

Get the key ideas on Blinkist

Buy on Amazon

Master Your Emotions is a timeless masterpiece written by Thibaut Meurisse. It provides tested and proven tips and strategies to master your emotions and take control of the way you feel and react.

You can listen to this book on the Blinkist app. The key ideas have been broken down into bits, so you can use all of their goodness in a few minutes. Start your free trial now.