It may not be your mistake that someone or something gives you anxiety and/or other unpleasant negative feelings. But it’s absolutely your responsibility to acknowledge and deal with those unwanted emotions.
Would you like your super power be controlling your emotions? How would you live differently if you could let in only the feelings you allow to feel? Would you make better decisions in life? Would you choose different careers, goals, friends, or partners? Take a moment and think about these questions.
The first step to emotional management is to understand why and how they work the way they do. Our brain constantly sends signals to our entire existence about the situations we are in. When was the last time a fight-or-flight response kicked in due to some life situations? You may not even want to think about it. The feelings of the racing heart and anxiety are unpleasant, discomfort feelings of which we constantly consciously or subconsciously try to avoid. Ironically, our brain thinks that it’s helping us by sending those alarming messages, flooding our body with cortisol and noradrenaline. But how does knowing these would help you get any better at managing your emotions? Simple, when you understand how something works, you begin to learn manipulating it!
Let’s consider some examples and learn something practical. We all have gone through periods of anxiety and depression at some point in our lives. Most of the time there is a person or some non-living objects associated with our anxiety or depression. If a person disappoints you, you subconsciously expect to get feelings of disappointment. Why is that? Well, that’s how your brain is wired. Remember, everything the brain does, it does so as a self-defense mechanism, in its context. It’s practical to rewire your brain and modify some neural connections so that it works differently when it comes to defensing itself. And possibly making it care less about the things that aren’t worth of your time, attention and energy. The question of “How do I make my brain, neurologically, to not care about some specific things” might just have crossed your mind!
Rewire your brain to care less
This is going to be a difficult task. It’s similar to breaking an addiction. If you have attachment issues, anxiety from a relationship, or if you struggle putting your life together due to some unceasing unpleasant emotions you seem unable to manage, then this process is critical to reach a point in your life where you don’t have to deal with these life-consuming emotional burdens.
Rewiring your brain to care less means acknowledging and understanding your emotions in such a way that you eventually become tolerant to their toxic effects. This is a process of constantly reminding yourself of your worth and letting every negative emotions finish its course. Don’t escape or avoid them. Acknowledge their presence and try to care less both emotionally and physically. Asking yourself “So what?” during the negative moments of your life helps you direct your attention on the long-term importance of those negative moments or events, rather than just worrying about what can’t be undone. Make sure you frequently remind yourself to imagine the bigger picture of your reality. This process of rewiring your brain to not care about worthless things also requires you to stay in the present. Don’t attach yourself to what’s gone, but rather what’s there at this moment in your life.
Get detached
If you were asked to pick up a burning coal with your bare hands, you wouldn’t be likely to do that, right? Everything that hurts you is attached to you in some ways. But the real game is the process of getting detached from what need to be detached from, and gain back confidence and control over your life. There is a quote that reads:
“if you hate a person then you’re defeated by them” -Confucius
With that quote in mind one can suggest that if you hate your negative emotions then you’re defeated by them. Hating your negative emotions seldom help you enjoy the positive ones. So why bother?
Detachment can be easy for some people, and extremely difficult for others. The more you are willing to let go of what was, the more you’re prepared for what’s next. It’s also worth mentioning that not getting things personal is important to let go and detach yourself from what was once more valuable to you than it’s now. So, the question is, do you really want to pick up a burning coal with your bare hands? In other words, do you want to suffer for the same cause over and over again?
Wishing everyone good moods!
Ari E. Abdulrahman