Managing emotions

All of us have emotional ups and downs, and we talk so much about the emotional turmoil or pain all the time. A few of us cry, some shout, and many need to take drugs, in order to manage our emotional bursts. What are emotions?

Emotions are the feelings we have about experiences. These feelings are not just our thoughts but often a bodily response to the experiences. Being emotional or becoming emotional in a situation is a natural process we all have biologically. But it becomes a problem when we are not able to control or manage our emotions, and they start playing havoc with our health, including mental health.

If we care about our well-being and wish to live happily, we need to overcome the extremes of emotional behaviour. Our emotional outbursts usually happen when we are anxious, fearful, frustrated, or too much 'stressed'. To overcome these, we need to do two things:

Firstly, emotions need to be mentioned. Many times, we keep saying that I am feeling sad or unhappy-- a generic way of expression. But do we really know what we actually feel? We are so immersed in routine activities that we hardly spend any time alone, to become self-aware of our own emotions. Unless we know what type of emotion we are going through, whether it is feeling of rejection, disapproval, frustration, guilt, low self-esteem, non-care, etc., it is very difficult to address it. So we need to become self-aware of our emotions and mention it to the other person, so that specific action, if any, can be taken.

Secondly, emotions need to be managed. So many times we feel as if we are controlled by our emotions instead of we controlling them!What to do then? We need to stop for a while, become aware of what exactly we are feeling at that moment, and process it accordingly. Understanding the emotion will help in reducing its intensity, and further help in seeing the situation in a different perspective. With feelings under control, now we are able to think clearly and arrive at some solution. In the end, we may even feel happy with the outcome as this whole process stopped us from acting on impulse!