What would it be like to acknowledge that most of the
intense emotions we experience are due to repetitive thinking about (and stressful responses to) an initial interruption to our well-being? You mean it’s my fault? No one wants to own that.
I recently heard that true anger only lasts for about ten seconds. Negative emotion that follows comes from a choice to hold onto that anger as resentment. I’ve also learned that researchers say it takes a full twenty minutes for the physical and cognitive effects of fight/flight/freeze to
completely disappear from the body. Ten seconds. Twenty minutes. The time frames to get over anger may vary based on opinions and research, but the principal idea is profound to ponder.
Back to my original
question. What if feeling upset is a decision we’re making after the initial upset has passed? What if, after those initial ten seconds (or twenty minutes), we are actively choosing disturbance over serenity?
We all
have ways we deal or don't deal with upsetting situations. Today I'll share a few favorites from my own emotional toolbox.
TOOL NUMBER ONE: Pause
PAUSE. Postpone Action Until Serenity Emerges.
PAUSE is a good first tool to
utilize, if we have the willingness to feel better. (We have to want to feel better for any of these tools to work.) No matter what is going on around us, we can pause long enough to remember that we have a choice about how we want to feel, and we have tools we can use to restore our peace.
Based on the findings above, we would do well to pause at least ten seconds or up to twenty minutes before responding to something that has stimulated a very charged emotional response in us. Yes, take a timeout. You can say something like this (a little humor added for emphasis):
Um, excuse me but I seemed to have lost my peace. Before I respond in an unkind or perhaps insanely outrageous manner that we will both regret, I’m going to give myself a time out. I’ll get back to you when I can be my best self again.
THEN LEAVE THE ROOM OR HANG UP THE PHONE.
If it's a text or email interaction, put your phone in a drawer and walk away in order to pause your part of the text conversation. Notice I
said “your part.” We can’t control what THEY DO, only what we do. They may choose to continue the electronic argument to bait your response, but you can be strong and still honor your time out.
FYI, you don't have
to tell them you are stepping away. Just come back when you're ready and if an explanation is asked for, you can tell them you lost your signal. And that's true, you lost the signal to your best self. When you come back, you may see new upsetting content and have to put yourself in another time out. That's okay. Take as much time as you need.
Removing ourselves from charged interactions may feel awkward at first, but it’s less awkward than responding in ways we’ll regret later, and will have to apologize for. A break is especially helpful if the feelings are more historical than proportionate to whatever just happened.
TOOL NUMBER TWO: Let hysteria be a clue
I love the phrase, “When I’m hysterical, it’s historical.” I find that 100% true. When I am highly upset, it is never only the thing that just happened. As I discussed last week in Unruly Emotions, many times our responses are out of proportion to what’s going on now.
Excessively uncomfortable emotions are very helpful clues to unresolved issues. So believe it or not, feeling hysterical is a great emotional tool to discover a deeper layer of pain that's asking to be healed, and then attend to it as needed. When I can right-size today's problems by removing elements of yesterday's pain, peaceful resolution for the present struggle is bathed in clarity and much easier to
find.
TOOL NUMBER THREE: Let go
Whenever someone or something upsets us, we have a few options. We can decide to hold a grudge. Been there done that. If I'm not ready to feel better, I'll keep rehearsing the injury, nursing the wound, and getting mad or hurt all over again, as if it just happened. That's really not very fun and certainly not productive or helpful...
UNLESS, being stuck is the tool we’re using to avoid looking at what WE did wrong. Or maybe we're frequently using grudges and past emotional pain to avoid making decisions, facing uncertainty and taking risks involved in our present and our future. Ouch, whose toes did I just step on beside my own?
In order to let go, we have to first notice we're holding on, and how that in itself is causing us pain. Our grandaughter was riding her bike while i took my walk and after a while, she said her hands were hurting. I looked down at the death grip she had on her handle bars
and encouraged her to relax and loosen her grip. It wasn't helping her steer any better and was only causing discomfort.
TOOL NUMBER FOUR: Take a photo
If we decide holding a grudge isn’t a good option, or we’ve been doing it awhile and we’re tired, we have better options. After discovering if there was a historical component to our emotional reaction, and giving ourselves compassion, we can release the negative emotions that surfaced and calmly pursue ways to bring resolution to the
problem.
However, sometimes a situation is really none of our business, but we were making it our business, and therefore making it our problem and our pain. If it’s not our problem in the first place. the best option is to detach and see what happens without our "assistance."
Someone once gave me an easy trick to know what's my problem and what isn't. Take a picture of the situation. If I’m not in the photo, then it’s not my problem! And there’s nothing for me to do but accept the way things are, and remind myself as often as necessary that it's
none of my business. (“Not my circus, not my monkeys” is a good saying also.)
Oh, isn't life delicious? Never a dull moment as we live and grow. There are many tools for navigating all the ins and outs of becoming the whole-hearted people we were made to be.
In times of sudden upset, may we always remember we have an abundance of tools at our disposal to return us to serenity. I would love to hear about some of your favorite tools in your emotional toolbox. Please share in
