Mastery of Emotions: How to Rein in Your Frustration

Mastering Your Emotions

Do you ever feel surrounded by sea of emotions that seem out of control? You take a deep breath and try to maintain your inner balance, stability, and calm. But your mind is on a track of its own, seemingly going a 100 miles a second. How do you find peace and calm when your emotions and mind are on a roller-coaster?

Mastering your emotions or emotional mastery is a way to access and intelligently control your emotions. Our emotions are present every day, and in every aspect of our lives. They impact everything…every decision we make, every interaction we have…every change in our life journey.

When we understand and master our emotional intelligence we have the recipe to healthy relationships across our lives—at home, in our careers, and self-gratification. Once learned, emotional intelligence grows, blossoms, and enhances all we do.

Let’s say you are in line at your favorite grocery store, it’s the end of the work day, the checkout lines are long, slow moving…angry, loudly complaining patrons and young, inconsolable children alike are justifiably cranky. How do you see yourself in this scenario? Do you rise above the mire or wallow in dreariness along with everyone else?

Your focus, your choice.

If you become the master of your emotions, despite these admittedly frustrating circumstances, your inner core is centered and stable. You rise above the fray and do not let the negative environment affect you. The conflict and chaos can’t shake your calm or state of mindfulness. Because once you choose your focus, that is how you will feel. If you focus on the negativity in your life, you’ll find and feel depression or sadness. If you choose words or phrases of pessimism, they will define a gloomy outlook for you. However, if you focus on positivity, words of empowerment and strength, you will find joy, inner peace, and gratitude.

It’s your choice—your focus and your words will produce that emotion. Remember, happiness is a choice. Anger is a choice. Choose your focus and words wisely as they are the driving force of your emotional intelligence and state.

Now back to the marketplace gridlock, how you interpret and associate meaning to the predicament you are in is all up to you. It would be easy to join in with the angry crowd around you, instead ask yourself these questions, “What can I learn from this situation?” and “How do I want to feel?”

One lesson and meaning you could attach to this grueling situation is, “I will remember to do my shopping here at another convenient time that is not as busy.” One of the feelings you could attach may be joy, “On the bright side of things, all of my shopping is now done for week, so won’t have to wait in another line. I will not let this ruin the pleasant, relaxing evening I have planned at home.” You have just quickly and found a way to master your emotions. You chose to find positivity, rather joining the ferocious mob swinging, threatening baguettes at the cashiers.

Now admittedly this marketplace mayhem scenario was not as complex as the many others that we encounter in our lives. Relationships with our families, friends, and colleagues in the workplace bring many layers of emotions and situations that will challenge us. It’s up to us to determine our focus. How we perceive our emotions, connect meaning to those situations, and then how we choose to move forward and act.

Emotions-the good, the bad, the ugly.

Negative emotions are normal, we all have them. When we are thrust into different situations, we interpret and respond in various ways. Sometimes we choose to entirely avoid situations that could arouse negative emotions in us.

Feelings of failure or rejection in our relationships or careers, or through addictions to food, alcohol, or drugs as a way to self-medicate and escape. Or avoidance by denial, by downplaying the negative emotion, but doing so just the intensifies the emotion until you are forced to acknowledge it. Successfully mastering your emotions begins with embracing and understanding them all, good and bad. Not by brushing them aside, but facing them head on, especially the negative ones.

Since we create them, we must find ways to learn from them to channel our negative emotions toward positive change in our lives. We give our emotions life and energy, so we must control our perceptions and interpretations of them. Focus on how we want to feel, taking positive actions along the way. When you really make a serious effort to fully learn from your emotions, they can become your supportive coach and serve as your guiding compass to emotional mastery. The choice is all yours, when you change your focus, you can choose to feel any way you desire at the moment of your choosing.