Oftentimes when we've been practicing for a prolonged period of time, we expect everything to always be fine. To always be okay.
That's not the case, we're still human beings and we will still experience strong emotions. In fact we will experience strong emotions forever.
Let's all say that together right now,
I am a human being, and i will experience strong emotions FOREVER.
So, remembering the idea is not to avoid or not ever feel the strong emotions. What we're continuing to learn is to become aware when they are present and then processing them in a mindful way.
What i heard you say is you lose control over your emotions and still get mad.
So, i'm curious as to what losing control over your emotions means here is.
it just that you experience an intense level of anger ? or do you actually feel the intense level of anger and then act out on it ?
Like, you instantly react to it without control. If it's the former then essentially that's okay because as we stated experiencing strong emotions is a natural part of life. If it's the later however, where you're reacting to your anger, then we can talk about ways in which you can shift into a space of responding.
This is important, because when we are in a space of reacting, we are more prone to making unwise or inappropriate decisions. Shifting into a space of responding makes it more likely that we will make more wise and appropriate choices.
One way to shift into a space of responding versus reacting is by simply stopping or pausing when we feel that anger or really any strong emotion.
We can even use the acronym STOP.
The S stands for stopping,
Taking that pause when you notice the anger present.
The T stands for taking a few deep breaths,
science has proven that taking deep breaths can actually calm the body down. So, relax a bit, put your self up and taking a nice deep breaths.
And the O stands for observing,
so, just observing how you are now feeling, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Just kind of like checking in with yourself, and as you're checking in with yourself doing so without any judgment and without the need to change or fix anything that you discover. Just simply observing.
And then finally,
P which stands for proceed.
Proceeding in a space of responding now and most likely making a better choice. So, by taking a pause or stopping, you are able to create some space between yourself and the stimuli or trigger.
It's within that space where you were able to calm down gain some clarity some insight and perhaps some perspective. Then in a more healthy and mindful state create a response to the trigger. So, you're able to respond versus react.