Gain Control of Your Emotions

Controlling your emotions doesn't mean ignoring them. It means you recognize them and act on them when you deem it appropriate, not randomly and uncontrollably.

Steps

 * 1) Know your emotions. There are a million different ways you can feel, but scientists have classified human emotions into a few basics that everyone can recognize: joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association emphasizes four major emotions which give us the most trouble: anger, fear, anxiety, and depression.
 * 2) Recognize that emotions don't just appear mysteriously out of nowhere. Many times, we're at the mercy of our emotions on a subconscious level. By recognizing your emotions on a conscious level, you're better able to control them. The last thing you want to do is ignore or repress your feelings, because if you're reading this, you probably know that when you do that, they tend to get worse and erupt later. Ask yourself throughout the day: "How am I feeling right now?" If you can, keep a journal. When you feel depressed, stop and notice the situation that produced it. Rate your mood on a scale from 1-100, with 1 being the least intense and 100 being the most intense that you are able to feel.
 * 3) Notice what was going through your mind at the time. Stop and analyze what you were thinking about, until you find what thought was causing that emotion. Your boss may not have made eye contact with you at lunch, for example; and without even being aware of it, the thought may have been in the back of your mind, "He's getting ready to fire me!"
 * 4) Write down the evidence which supports the thought that produced the emotion. For example, you may have let slip something that you should not have said which angered him, but which it is too late to retract.
 * 5) Write down the evidence that is against that thought.  When you begin to think about it, you might realize that since nobody gets along well with this particular boss, he can't afford to actually fire anyone, because the department is too short-staffed.
 * 6) Ask yourself, "What is another way to look at the situation that is more rational and more balanced than the way I was looking at it before?" Taking this new evidence into account, you may conclude that your job is safe, regardless of your boss's petty annoyances. You still may not like your job or your boss, and you may want to look for another job. But at least you can take the time to find a good one -- and you won't have to worry about losing your house!
 * 7) Consider your options. Once you recognize an emotion, think of at least two different ways you can respond. Your emotions control you when you assume there's only one way to react. You always have a choice. For example, if someone insults you, and you experience anger, your immediate response might be to insult them back. But no matter what the emotion, there are always at least two alternatives:
 * 8) *Don't react. Do nothing. If you do this, however, it's important to continue acknowledging the emotion. Just because you're not reacting to an emotion doesn't mean that emotion doesn't exist. If you choose not to respond, it should be for a reason (as discussed in the next step) not because of a competing emotion (fear of confrontation).
 * 9) *Do the opposite of what you would normally do. The "turn the other cheek" philosophy would fall under this category.
 * 10) Make a choice. Now that you've got several options, act on:
 * 11) *Principles - Who do you want to be? What are your moral principles? What do you want the outcome of this situation to be? Ultimately, which is the decision you'd be most proud of? This is where religious guidance comes into play for many people.
 * 12) *Logic - Which course of action is the most likely to result in the outcome you desire? For example, if you're being confronted with a street fight, and you want to take the pacifist route, you can walk away--but, there's a good chance that burly drunk will be insulted if you turn your back. Maybe it's better to apologize and keep him talking until he calms down.
 * 13) Change your perspective. The above steps show how to not let your emotions control your behavior, but not how to change the emotions themselves. If you want to nip your emotions in the bud, change the way you see the world. If you learn how to be optimistic and laid back, you'll find that negative emotions make fewer appearances to be reckoned with. You can also directly eliminate many of the underlying core beliefs which give rise to your disturbing thoughts and negative emotions. Albert Ellis compiled a list of irrational ideas which upset us. They are all false, but many of us have are inclined to at least some of them part of the time. You can get rid of these ideas by debating within yourself until you have cast them out. Here's his list of potential culprits.
 * 14) * I must be perfect in all respects in order to be worthwhile. Nobody can be perfect in everything that we have to do in life. But if you believe that you're a failure unless you are perfect in every way, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of unhappiness.
 * 15) * I must be loved and approved of by everyone who is important to me. Sometimes you just can't help making enemies, and there are people in the world who bear ill will to almost everyone. But you can't make your own life miserable by trying to please them.
 * 16) * When people treat me unfairly, it is because they are bad people. Most of the people who treat you unfairly have friends and family who love them. People are mixtures of good and bad.
 * 17) * It is terrible when I am seriously frustrated, treated badly, or rejected. Some people have a such a short fuse, that they are constantly losing jobs or endangering friendships because they are unable to endure the slightest frustration.
 * 18) * Misery comes from outside forces which I can’t do very much to change. Many prison inmates describe their life as if it were a cork, bobbing up and down on waves of circumstance.
 * 19) * If something is dangerous or fearful, I have to worry about it. Many people believe that "the work of worrying" will help to make problems go away. "Okay, that's over. Now, what's the next thing on the list that I have to worry about?"
 * 20) * It is easier to avoid life’s difficulties and responsibilities than to face them. Even painful experiences, once we can get through them, can serve as a basis for learning and future growth.
 * 21) * Because things in my past controlled my life, they have to keep doing so now and in the future. If this were really true, it would mean that we are prisoners of our past, and change is impossible. But people change all the time -- and sometimes they change dramatically!
 * 22) * It is terrible when things do not work out exactly as I want them to. Could you have predicted the course of your own life? Probably not. By the same token, you can't predict that things are going to work out exactly as you want them to, even in the short term.
 * 23) * I can be as happy as possible by just doing nothing and enjoying myself, taking life as it comes. If this were true, almost every wealthy or comfortably retired person would do as little as possible. But instead, they seek new challenges as a pathway to further growth.

Tips

 * Learn to avoid the cognitive distortions which make things look worse than they really are. Most of us have heard the expression, "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses." But when you use cognitive distortions, you tend to look at the world through mud-colored glasses! Here are some examples.
 * All-or-nothing thinking. Everything is good or bad, with nothing in between. If you aren't perfect, then you're a failure.
 * Overgeneralization. A single negative event turns into a never-ending pattern of defeat. "I didn't get a phone call. I'll never hear from anybody again."
 * Mental filter. One single negative thing colors everything else. When you're depressed, it sometimes feels like you're "looking at the world through mud-colored glasses."
 * Disqualifying the positive. If somebody says something good about you, it doesn't count. But if somebody says something bad about you, you "knew it all along."
 * Jumping to conclusions. You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
 * Mind reading. You think somebody is disrespecting you and don't bother to check it out. You just assume that he is.
 * The Fortune Teller Error. You think that things are going to turn out badly, and convince yourself that this is already a fact.
 * Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimization. Imagine that you're looking at yourself or somebody else through a pair of binoculars. You might think that a mistake you made or somebody else's achievement are more important than they really are. Now imagine that you've turned the binoculars around and you're looking through them backwards.  Something you've done might look less important than it really is, and somebody else's faults might look less important than they really are.
 * Emotional reasoning. You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
 * Should statements. You beat up on yourself as a way of getting motivated to do something. You "should" do this, you "must" do this, you "ought" to do this, and so on. This doesn't make you want to do it, it only makes you feel guilty. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
 * Labeling and mislabeling. This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. When you make a mistake, you give yourself a label, such as, "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him, "He's a louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
 * Personalization. You believe that you were the cause of something bad that happened, when you really didn't have very much to do with it.

Warnings

 * It is important to control your emotions, but suppressing them or denying that they exist is entirely different. Suppressing your emotions can cause physical  disorders and more emotional symptoms.
 * Many emotional problems are so complex that they require the additional professional assistance of a licensed psychologist, counselor, or social worker.

Related Tips and Steps

 * How to Control Your Anger
 * How to Deal with Impossible People
 * How to Cope with Depression
 * How to Be Happy
 * How to Overcome Serious Regrets
 * How to Hypnotize Yourself Using the Best Me Technique
 * How to Strengthen Character

Sources and Citations

 * American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: Author.
 * Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York, NY: Guilford.
 * Beck, A. Cognitive therapy. In J. Zeig (Ed.), The evolution of psychotherapy. (pp. 149-163). New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel.
 * Gibbons, D. E. (2001). Experience as an art form: Hypnosis, hyperempiria, and the Best Me Technique. New York, NY: Authors Choice Press.
 * Gibbons, D. E. (2000). Applied hypnosis and hyperempiria. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press (originally published 1979 by Plenum Press).
 * Greenberger, D. A., & Padesky, C. (1995). Mind over mood: Change the way you feel by changing the way you think. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
 * Kuyken, Willem; Watkins, Ed; Beck, Aaron T., Gabbard, Glen O. (Ed); Beck, Judith S. (Ed); Holmes, Jeremy (Ed). (2005). Cognitive therapy for mood disorders. Oxford textbook of psychotherapy. (pp. 111-126). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
 * Young, Jeffrey E.; Rygh, Jayne L.; Weinberger, Arthur D.; Beck, Aaron T. (2008). Cognitive therapy for depression. in Barlow, David H. (Ed). Clinical handbook of psychological disorders: A step-by-step treatment manual (4th ed.). (pp. 250-305). New York, NY: Guilford Press.