How to constrain my emotions and act based on my wisdom?

Question

I am not sure that this is the right SE site to place this question. If not my early apologies and please redirect me right SE site.

I am suffering from a high intensity of my emotions. Anger, fear, anxiety and others too.

Sometimes anger flares up just like that and I shout and make some steps which are very offensive to the other person who made me angry. Sometimes fear dominates me and I couldn't dare to face anything. Sometimes anxiety flares up for small things and I get shivers.

Due to these highly intensive emotions, my actions are led by those emotions and I get into problems later again by reacting to my emotions to those problems. This loop is creating more and more problems in my daily life. I would like the wisdom to dominate all feelings and emotions and let my wisdom lead all my actions. I always regret about the actions done under the influence of my emotions. How can I keep my emotions with in boundaries and let the wisdom lead my actions?

Answer 1

William's answer regarding meditation is very useful, but even before this, you can use a very simple technique when something angers or frightens you:

• Take a deep breath, and count to ten

Then look again at the problem. Deliberately taking this time reduces your fight/flight instinct dramatically, allowing you to think rather than react.

Answer 2

You may be benefited by using REBT. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a form of psychotherapy and a philosophy of living created by Albert Ellis in the 1950's. REBT is based on the premise that whenever we become upset, it is not the events taking place in our lives that upset us; it is the beliefs that we hold that cause us to become depressed, anxious, enraged, etc. Dr. Ellis developed a simple ABC format to teach people how their beliefs cause their emotional and behavioral responses:

A. Something happens.
B. You have a belief about the situation.
C. You have an emotional reaction to the belief.

The ABC model shows that A does not cause C. It is B that causes C. according to Albert Ellis and REBT, the beliefs that upset us are all variations of three common irrational beliefs. Each of the three common irrational beliefs contains a demand, either about ourselves, other people, or the world in general. These beliefs are known as "The Three Basic Musts."

1. I must do well and win the approval of others for my performances or else I am no good.
2. Other people must treat me considerately, fairly and kindly, and in exactly the way I want them to treat me. If they don't, they are no good and they deserve to be condemned and punished.
3. I must get what I want, when I want it; and I must not get what I don't want. It's terrible if I don't get what I want, and I can't stand it.

The first belief often leads to anxiety, depression, shame, and guilt. The second belief often leads to rage, passive-aggression and acts of violence. The third belief often leads to self-pity and procrastination. It is the demanding nature of the beliefs that causes the problem. Less demanding, more flexible beliefs lead to healthy emotions and helpful behaviors.

The real insight of REBT is:

1. We don't merely get upset but mainly upset ourselves by holding inflexible beliefs.
2. No matter when and how we start upsetting ourselves, we continue to feel upset because we cling to our irrational beliefs.
3. The only way to get better is to work hard at changing our beliefs. It takes practice, practice, practice.

Alternatively

If you feel you have wild inexplicable mood swings then it would be better to seek professional help.

Answer 3

I would suggest looking into meditation. Although not a quick fix, it can help you to recognize your emotions, and accept them and move on to acting in the way you want, rather than focusing on them and getting wrapped up in them. You could have a look at Break Through Difficult Emotions, by Shinzen Young http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Break-Through-Difficult-Emotions/362.pd for a place to start.

Answer 4

Since you are aware of the damages caused by reacting to your anger I would suggest you to continue into developing your awareness (your wisdom) and watch over your emotion. When the anger comes, just observe without a judgemental mind.

Anger is a very powerful energy that can drive you mad and it is very difficult not to express it. But it can subside, like anything, as nothing last forever. So, try to feel the anger without fear. Fearless is important. Be relax and at ease and have humour with your condition. I will help you.

Answer 5

Don't pressurize yourself to stop the emotions immediately, be easy with them. Allow them to go away. Remind yourself and believe: I am safe and Everything is working out for my highest good. Do this repeatedly. As others have suggested, meditation will help.

Breathing exercises will also help.

Answer 6

perhaps, you would find this useful:

In the 1950's Eric Berne began to develop his theories of Transactional Analysis. Berne said that each person is made up of three alter ego states:

Parent This is our ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes from when we were young. We were conditioned by our real parents, teachers, older people, next door neighbours, aunts and uncles, Father Christmas and Jack Frost. Our Parent is made up of a huge number of hidden and overt recorded playbacks. Typically embodied by phrases and attitudes starting with 'how to', 'under no circumstances', 'always' and 'never forget', 'don't lie, cheat, steal', etc, etc. Our parent is formed by external events and influences upon us as we grow through early childhood. We can change it, but this is easier said than done.

Child Our internal reaction and feelings to external events form the 'Child'. This is the seeing, hearing, feeling, and emotional body of data within each of us. When anger or despair dominates reason, the Child is in control. Like our Parent we can change it, but it is no easier.

Adult Our 'Adult' is our ability to think and determine action for ourselves, based on received data. The adult in us begins to form at around ten months old, and is the means by which we keep our Parent and Child under control. If we are to change our Parent or Child we must do so through our adult.

In other words:

• Parent is our 'Taught' concept of life

• Adult is our 'Thought' concept of life

• Child is our 'Felt' concept of life

I highly recommend this book

imho, you need to learn how to switch to "Adult" ego state and stay there; the book I mentioned explains how these transitions work and which events would usually jerk you from Adult state to other 2.

Answer 7

Always remember that that your mind is like a muscle and you have to train your mind as you train your muscle. The suggestion about meditation is also great but I can share you my experience of how I train myself in anger management.

Training:

After feeling bad about what i said to the person i thought that the time has come to overcome my anger. i started training my mind that anger is bad, anger is bad and thought about how i felt after the outburst.

encounters with anger:

1) After that the first encounter with anger i completely forget what i am trying to do i.e control my anger.

2) On my second encounter i partially remember what i did the first time but kept going in the flow ignoring everything.

3) On my third encounter i partially stopped and partially kept going.

4) On my fourth encounter i recognized the feeling straight away and just kept my mouth shut. the feeling was awesum after that of not feeling bad.

Finally

now whenever i feel angry i think with my mind not letting my emotions take over. i have grown better and better in anger management . this will take some practice but you will encounter it. And you have taking the first step by recognizing that this as your problem and wrote it here and that's great

best of luck!

Answer 8

You need to do something called “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy” or “DBT”. It is a combination of training in Meditation/Mindfullness and other emotional skill training (I think there may be a particular type of yoga recommended?) for "emotional regulation", distress tolerance and interpersonal skills. I recommend you at minimum get the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook (can be got on Amazon) but better to find a therapist that specialises in it to teach/guide you in learning the skills.

I believe the main skill taught is Mindfullness but it is important to go through the learning for the full range of skills taught

Answer 9

Stephen Covey speaks about this topic in his book "Seven habits of highly effective people", in the chapter "Be proactive".

He says that humans can widen the gap between an external stimulus and our reaction to it. The book says it is like a muscle that you train. The more you train your proactivity, the wider the gap.

I once had a colleague who would answer a few reflective questions at the end of every day and I found that he had a very wide gap. If I remember well, the questions were something like: what did I do well? when did I react badly? how should I have behaved instead?