Three Tips for Managing Your Emotions

Being human means that we feel emotions. We feel a range of emotions on a spectrum from “happy” to “sad” to “angry.” None of these emotions are good, and none of them are bad. What they all are is informative.

Our emotions tell us how we are responding to a situation. The intensity of the emotional response clues us into hidden triggers (both positive and negative), and they help us make decisions about where to place our focus: either to help us resolve traumatic situations or to focus ourselves on what we know makes us feel good.

Emotions are one of those areas that those of us living with mental illnesses experience more intently than those who are mentally healthy. Whereas the mentally healthy might feel angry, we feel rage. Whereas they might be sad, we feel morose. Learning how to modulate these emotions so that we live more often in a milder range is one of the biggest gifts we get from doing our work.

Doing so, however, isn’t always easy. In fact, I had to go to classes to help me learn how to address my emotions properly.

The first thing I learned is that when I experience an emotion, it’s for a reason. Maybe that reason is good, maybe that reason is not-so-good, but there’s always a reason. I had to learn to look back in time and determine when I first felt the emotion to figure out what triggered it.

Maybe my sense of peace comes from the smell of hot chocolate brewing; that reminds me of sitting on a wicker barstool at my grandmother’s house watching her cook breakfast. I loved those mornings. Or perhaps my anger started when Harper didn’t do something I told her to do. Whatever the reason for the emotion, it always stemmed from something else.

In understanding that the emotion comes from something real, we get our first tip on how to manage the emotion: Examine if the story fits the facts. When we examine the situation that sponsored our feelings, does the story we are telling ourselves match the real, observable facts?

Here’s an example (told from my point of view):

Harper is gone for the night; naturally, this means date night for Dan and me! I’m excited to see what he has planned for us. He gets home from work and then asks me what I’ve made for dinner. I’m confused: It’s date night. That means he takes me out to dinner.

I ask him what our plans are for the evening and he says we are going to Home Depot to buy some things for projects he has around the house. I’m disappointed, but figure there’s something more after that; after all, he’s always created good dates for us before. Instead, after Home Depot, we go home, and he heads straight to bed. I cry myself to sleep, wondering why I’m not a priority for him anymore.

In this case, my emotions are disappointment, frustration, and sadness. My thoughts tell me that Dan doesn’t see me as a priority, and that date night is a burden to him – which clearly means that I am a burden to him. On top of my previous emotions, I now also feel guilt, shame, and anger.

So now we take a look at the observable facts:

– Dan hadn’t been home in four days, going from his regular day shift to working an additional, overnight shift.

– Dan accommodated my request by making himself available for the night, passing up an opportunity to earn extra money to support his family.

– Dan’s work has been unusually busy. He tells me stories of long days where he just tries to keep up with his workload.

– Dan is working on projects around the house that match our Honey-Do list. While they’re joint priorities, Dan knows that seeing these projects completed will bring me a sense of joy.

– This is the first date where Dan’s plans did not live up to prior dates.

After examining the facts, the next step is to consider how the story I’ve told myself matches up to those facts. What’s true? What’s not true? What is a possible or likely alternative explanation for my experiences?

Based on this, I can see that poor Dan was probably exhausted. He’d been working insane hours over an extended period of time at a job that had no sense of restraint. Additionally, more guys volunteering to work the overtime shifts means that they’ve been harder for Dan to get, and that stresses him as the provider for the family.

Next, he wanted my input on the items we picked up at Home Depot so that I would be just as happy with the completed projects as he was. This is a signal that he values me, my opinions, and wants to make me happy. It’s a sign that I’m a priority to him.

Next, I know that he and I have agreed that my staying home is a priority for our family. I’m not a burden to him; I contribute to the family in a different way. If I weren’t home, there would be additional expenses we would accrue to handle what I do on a daily basis.

Beyond that, this was the first time that I felt let down on date night. It’s not like it was the most recent in a string of disappointing experiences. Instead, Dan was doing his best to give me the best experience possible: save money on dinner and give us a chance to leisurely wander Home Depot and make the decisions for our home.

What was missing in all this was a simple moment of communication. All I needed was Dan to tell me that we weren’t going to have a standard date night. If he’d done that, I would have reset my expectations, and my feelings wouldn’t have been hurt.

When the story doesn’t fit the facts, we then have to act against our natural instinct by practicing Opposite Action. (This is also true when acting on our emotions will not be effective, meaning they will not produce the desired result.) In this case, that meant drying my tears and finding a way to express gratitude to Dan for his efforts.

But what about when the facts themselves are the problem? What if the situation was more like: Dan agreed to take the night off so we could get some time together, but then called me to cancel an hour before he was supposed to be home because an overtime shift became available? What if this was the third time he canceled our date night?

In this situation, the facts are the problem. Finding a way to resolve the facts is the key to addressing my emotions. In this case, it means having a direct conversation with Dan. “This is the third time you’ve canceled on our date night. When you cancel, I feel left behind and unimportant to you. I would prefer that you didn’t commit to a date night with me if you think it is likely you will cancel. It would help me set better expectations so that I don’t get as upset when it happens.”

Check out the DBT “DEAR MAN” skill to learn how to have this conversation effectively.

However Dan chooses to respond to the conversation, I will know that I’ve addressed something important to me. Often, that alone will reduce the emotional intensity around the situation; I’ve done my part. If Dan responds positively, then my emotions will naturally lower in intensity even more. If Dan reacts negatively, then I have some decisions to make about how I want to move forward in our relationship.

Either way, I am in control, and I’m using my emotions to help me understand what I’m upset about so that I can put myself in a position to resolve the situation.

To be effective at this process, it is essential that we remember not to judge our emotions. Anger is not “bad;” it just means that something has happened that causes us to experience the emotion. It is a signal and has no inherent judgment value in itself.

In my experience, learning to work through my emotions using this process has helped me to lower my overall emotional intensity, and – more importantly – to identify situations that cause me distress and determine how to resolve them. It’s lead to healthier relationships and reduced stress, making it worth all the effort.

What are your emotions like? What do you do to moderate them? I’d love to hear your experiences in the Comments below.