Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes4 Best Kept Secrets To Master Your Emotions

Who Is Running Your Emotions?

The quality of your emotions determines the overall quality of your life. So, the first question that you need to ask yourself is:

Am I in control of my own emotions? Or do my emotions have control over me?

Emotions are a necessary part of your daily existence. Being able to master your emotions allows you to deal with adversity and establish healthy relationships.

It will also increase your chances of succeeding in life.

When others make you feel upset, angry or inadequate, it’s a sign that everyone (except you) is running your emotions.

If that’s the case with your life right now, then it is time to make a decision:

Take control of your emotions, or allow your emotions to take control of you.

Fortunately, how you handle your emotions is a matter of choice.

With practice and dedication, you can master and regulate your own emotions. You (rather than someone else) will be the one pushing your own buttons once you master your emotions.

Now, what does it mean to master your emotions?

It’s the ability to manage your emotions, respond positively to unpleasant situations, and overcome obstacles in your life.

Gaining control of your emotions can enhance your life in these major areas:

Relationships

Your emotional finesse will help you express yourself better and have a better understanding of others’ feelings. This leads to lasting and healthy relationships established by your ability to communicate effectively.

Work

The workplace can be a jungle if you are not able to steer your way through all that social complexity. If you master your emotions, you will become a socially skilled person who can encourage, lead, and inspire people.

Mental Health

When you are in control emotionally, you are also keeping your mental health in check. Resilience to emotional challenges keeps your immune system strong and less likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression.

One Of The Most Valuable Skills

Emotional mastery is a level above emotional self-control. It is your ability to turn your emotions into something resourceful – no matter what the situation is like.

The journey to emotional mastery begins with a deep understanding of your own emotions. With that you can respond to any emotional experience appropriately.

If you’ve consistently struggled to keep your emotions under control and it has been affecting your career, relationship, and wellbeing…

… then the ability to control your emotions is one of the most valuable skills you can develop in your life.

The first step towards mastering your emotions is an awareness of how your emotions work. You can become skilled at handling and controlling your emotions if you understand how they work.

Four key factors govern how your emotions function. These are the best kept secrets to emotional mastery because they are frequently overlooked.

Secret #1: The “Meaning” Behind Your Emotions

As humans, we cannot help but attach meaning to our life experience, relationships and anything we come across. Self-help guru Tony Robbins once said:

“The meaning you attach to something produces the emotion of your life and your emotion is your life.”

“Meaning equals emotion, emotion equals life.”

The moment that you start focusing on something, you give it meaning and fill it with emotion. We attach meaning to all the events, interactions and relationships in our lives.  

Simply give an emotion a significant meaning that will enable you to feel good about it.

No doubt, you don’t have control over everything that happens in your life. However, you do have power over the meaning you give to it.

All emotions are equal. It is your thinking and your body’s reaction to an emotion that makes it different. You give meaning to it; you react to it; your thoughts influence it.

You have the potential to give positive or negative meaning to events, experiences, and relationships in your life. The power is within you to attach positive meaning to anything in your life.

The choice is yours.

Secret #2: You Can’t Control How You Feel, But…

…you can control how you react to your feelings.

When you have a firm grasp on this principle, you will realize that:

HOW you respond to the events that are happening around you is the key to mastering your emotions.

All your emotions stem from your thoughts. If you’ve been thinking a certain way for a long time, those thoughts are already embedded in your subconscious mind.

Pay close attention to it. You’ll notice that your mood is determined by your reaction to any event, words, or environment.

No one has the power to make you unhappy, angry, or stressed out without your (subconscious mind’s) permission.

Your response to another person’s action, conduct, or words contributes to the state of mind you are in. Someone can “invite” you to feel angry. Then, he or she have to say or act in a certain way to make you think angry thoughts.

There will undoubtedly be those who can provoke you to anger. But the onus will be on you to respond in a way that will yield a positive outcome for you.

Always bear in mind that you cannot control what’s going on in the world around you. The only thing you can control is your reaction to those events.

Secret #3: It Begins With Your Thoughts

Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor once wrote:

“A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

If you want to master your emotions and your life, just bear in mind that change comes from within. It all begins with your thoughts.

Thinking is crucial for your emotional state. Your thoughts will directly influence how you feel. And how you feel will influence your behavior and, therefore, your results.

Each time you experience a thought, it triggers a specific emotion. With each repetition of this thought and emotion, it becomes a pattern, and with time, it becomes a habit.

Then it gets ingrained into your subconscious mind and it becomes your belief. Your life will be guided by that belief, which will dictate your emotions, actions, and behaviors.

Given that your thoughts directly influence your outcomes, wouldn’t it be sensible to train your mind to notice negative thoughts? With adequate practice, you can identify thoughts that cause unwanted emotions.

Emotional mastery involves recalibrating your thoughts about the emotions that you are experiencing. You can then shift those thoughts into something empowering or positive.

In short, you can “think” your way out of a bad feeling.

Secret #4: The Space Between Stimulus and Response

This is a concept from the field of psychology known as the stimulus-response theory. A stimulus was presented to you, and you responded with an emotion or an action.

When you are hungry (stimulus), you will eat some food (response). If someone says (stimulus) something that offends you, you might retaliate(response) with an angry retort.

Psychologist, Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl shared that:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.”

When you master your emotions, you are widening the space between stimulus and response. Frankl affirms that:

“In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

The next time you find yourself in an unpleasant situation, challenge yourself to widen that stimulus-response space. Pause and take a breather.

Then try a new approach. Look for a positive way to respond. It is hard to break away from a conditioned response that has been long embedded in your subconscious mind.

But with time and deliberate practice, that space between stimulus and response will widen.

Conclusion

You have just learned what it takes to master your emotions. Did these four keys to mastering your emotions make you think about how you’ve dealt with situations in the past?

To change the outcomes in your life, you have got to change your behavior. And to change your behavior, you need to change your actions, which stem from your emotions.

That is why it is so crucial to your life that you master your emotions. Your success and happiness in life is defined by how you feel, not by what you have.