Manage your emotion
March 2, 2008
Today I feel bewildered. A little more than down and a little less than depressed. I have a scratchy feeling inside my chest, sitting centre on between my breasts. I know that feeling. It is my grief feeling. Is it anniversary of a particular grief time? No. I am missing somebody dreadfully and my homesickness for them has sparked my dormant grief.
In my past days of grief I used to liken my grief feeling to the Kiama blow hole (pictured) receiving the salty spray and ocean wash on its raw edges. I could hear my grief - I was so empty that the rush of grief as it sprayed salt water on my raw heart and soul was loud, cruel and screamingly demanding.
Today my grief is back. Why? As I lay in bed pondering the use of even getting out of it, I allowed my sensible adult self to manage my emotions rather than my emotions managing my sensible self. I got out of bed, told myself that it was okay to be down today and that I didn’t have to do anything more than I really wanted to. I certainly didn’t want to stay in bed because there was a snoring monster still in my bed of grief and vulnerability. I didn’t want to stay with his noise going on!!!!! I wanted my own noise, my grief noise so that I could manage it.
Everybody feels a range of human emotion: some they consider negative, some they consider positive and some they consider normal. All emotion is normal and natural. It is the way that emotion is managed that sometimes becomes problematic. In my grief this morning I could have feigned anger and yelled at Paul to be quiet because I wanted to be sad? How stupid would that have been! Very bad management to say the least.
My life has been difficult at times. There is residual fall out from that. But….I am not the sum of my experiences, I am willing to manage my experiences, the resultant emotion and the forward movement of life. I make choices to challenge those days where the dark room and I want to be best friends. A dark, quite room is not a friend. It gives me nothing I can give myself. I manage my emotions and my thoughts and step out of the dark, quiet room (well, it’s quiet when the snoring is in hiatus!).
I’m up, I still feel bewildered and I am processing why bewilderment has today visited me, but, I am managing my emotion. I manage because I am an adult, an adult who has managed programs, budgets, children, international terminal changeovers and threats against myself. I analyse my strategies for successful management in those situations and I draw them into managing my emotions. I do this because I am adult and capable to managing myself.
Do you manage your emotion or are you a reactive and child like emotion bouncer? Behind this link are some short emotional intelligence articles to help you grow up to become a great manager. The sooner you teach yourself how to be a grown up, the sooner you can model and teach emotional intelligence to your children. Emotional intelligence keeps kids safe. Are you willing to be a protective parent?
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Megan, you are so kewl!
It is easy sometimes, to get carried away with the emotion and forget about our own power. We may not be able to choose all of our experiences, nor can we always choose all of our emotions, but we CAN choose how we manage them.
You’re right - You are not your experiences and they do not have to control you or direct your future. More power to you for choosing to take responsibility, for taking action and for being so self aware!
Thank you for your post today. Thank you for being such a brilliant emotionally intelligent role model. I hope this feeling passes soon.
Hey thanks Alison. I worked almost all day in the garden. It was terrific therapy as I worked the chemicals through my body and spent time alone with my positive thoughts. A bit of management was all that was needed - I did something different and it worked.
Today though…omg, my body is aching like I am 75 years old!!!!!!!! And…Paul who until 12 months ago was Mr Bachelor, today learnt what Coleus and Impatiens are - I asked him to pick some up at the nursery for me to plant and he did brilliantly for someone who knows nothing about gardening.
I ended up having a great day.
Brilliant, Megan!
About the 75 year old aches - I went for a longer than usual trail ride on my horse yesterday and even that extra 30 minutes was enough to have me walking bowlegged!
And I had to Google “Coleus” to see what you were talking about. I’m not much of a gardener either. lol.