How to Manage Your Emotions So They Don’t Manage You
“I cry over small things. When I share something with my family that’s really hurting me, sometimes they say things that make me feel worse. How do I control myself emotionally? I need to be emotionally strong.”
This is a question I get asked all the time. And here’s what most people get wrong about it.
The problem with wanting to be “emotionally strong”
When you say you want to be emotionally strong, what you actually mean is: “How do I reach a point where nothing affects me? Where I can stay completely stable no matter what happens in my life?”
My answer to this question is: that’s not possible.
It’s like asking me, “Can you give me some medicine or some solution so I never get sick for my entire life?” Well, as long as you’re alive, you’ll get sick. After you die, nobody gets sick. Right?
Understand this clearly: as long as we’re alive, we have thoughts. All kinds of thoughts. All kinds of feelings.
The people who’ll answer your question won’t work as hard as I’m working right now to explain this. They’ll say, “Oh, you want to be emotionally stable? No problem. We’ll tell you the technique. Whatever is happening around you, keep your mind calm.”
What bullshit.
You understand what they’re doing? They’re taking a complication that’s already in your mind and making it more complicated. Because they’re widening the gap. There’s one reality — how life actually is. And there’s what’s in your mind — how life should be.
People who don’t understand life deeply or who don’t talk based on reality — they widen this gap even more.
Step one: Break the illusion
Listen carefully to what I’m saying: this imagination you have of a perfect life in your mind? Break it. First of all.
First, look at reality as it is. What is that reality? This problem will never be completely solved. Number one.
So what did we just do? We moved from imagination to reality.
Let me make this even clearer: there’s no one in this entire world — richest of the rich, poorest of the poor, whoever your idol is in your family or friend circle, whoever you think has a perfect life — nobody’s life is perfect.
Everyone has their secrets hidden inside. If those came out, you’d realize their life is even more messed up than mine. Or at least as messed up as mine. I can’t say more because in some things it’ll be worse, in some things it’ll be better. But you can say their life is also bad and also good, just like yours is also bad and also good.
When you carefully analyze your own life, it’s not like everything is bad. Some things are bad, some things are good. Same with their life.
Step two: Understand what not to share
Now, what do you do? There are some things in your mind, and you want to talk about them. There are two types of things:
One type: You know deep inside that if you tell this today, you might be in trouble for your entire life. These things should not go out.
So those things? Write them down. Write them on paper and then tear up that paper and throw it away.
Every thought doesn’t need to be spoken.
Get out of this misunderstanding that whatever comes to your mind should be said. It’s not like that. Because you’ll say it and feel light, but you’ll create pressure on the other person.
In fact, if you actually love the other person, many things shouldn’t be said. Because you’ll say it and lighten your mind, but your mother will get a heaviness in her mind that “I don’t know what’s happening with my daughter.” And then she’ll start reacting. And now you have a problem with that reaction.
Well, then don’t say those things in the first place.
Step three: Understand their perspective
“But sometimes the problems I’m sharing are related to relatives who are doing something wrong, and my mother knows it’s wrong, but she tells me to stay quiet. Why should I stay quiet when it’s not even my fault?”
You’re told to stay quiet because if you keep speaking and they keep supporting you, the fight will definitely escalate. That’s why you’re told to stay quiet.
Understand from their standpoint. If your mother is telling you, “Let it go, don’t talk about them like this,” there’s a reason behind it. Because if you start talking this way about someone — let’s say you’re married and you’re talking about your in-laws — and your mother says, “Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right,” and encourages you, that home will definitely break.
But if she says, “These are small things, let them go. Why are you holding onto these things? This happens in every home,” because she’s seen her whole life — then from one standpoint, she’s right. The moment she entertains this kind of behavior from your side, it’ll start growing, which will only harm you. So what she’s doing, she’s doing for your benefit.
Having said that, what I’m talking about is without actually understanding what the problem is, at what level it is. Many problems are at a very big level. There you have to fight. There you have to take a stand. There you have to clearly tell the other person. You have to gather support behind you. Many things need to be done. But that’s when the problem is actually big.
But many times what happens? The problem is very small.
Step four: Define big vs small for yourself
Now who will decide what’s big and what’s small? Because you’ll say, “For me this problem is very big,” and the other person sitting here might listen and say, “This is so small, what kind of problem is this?”
For example, someone said something about food not being good. Does anyone say that to someone’s face? Seen one way, this problem is very big. Seen another way, it’s nothing at all. Understand?
So this big and small is also in your own mind. So first fix it in your mind: what’s big and what’s small?
How will that happen? Prioritize in your mind. Write it down.
And remember: whenever you want an actual solution to these things — one thing is you’re just asking for the sake of asking, another is you actually want a solution.
Come with at least this much clarity in your mind. Take a paper and pen and write: what are the five most important things in my life in a relationship?
If that’s clear to you, then if there’s a compromise on those five things, then you have to fight. But if there are 100 other things, you have to ignore them.
The opposite happens very often because this clarity isn’t in our mind. So we keep fighting over small things, and when something big happens, we don’t have energy left to fight because all our energy got spent in those small battles.
Many times I’ve seen situations in homes where people should fight and nobody’s fighting. Nobody’s saying anything. Something very big and wrong is happening, everyone’s sitting quietly as if nothing happened.
Why does this happen? Because we don’t have clarity about what’s actually a big problem and what should be ignored.
Step five: Simplify your life
And you have to write this down and clarify it for yourself. Because it’s possible that my priority is completely different from your priority. Someone else’s priority is completely different.
A working woman has her own different priorities after marriage. Someone who’s not working has her own different priorities. So they have to be defined and written down.
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