How Can You Stay Calm When Your Emotions are Triggered?
Your actions when you are calm are always wiser. Do you suggest to yourself to stay calm but still can’t stay calm? Have you ever wondered why you repeat the same reactions over and over to a similar event even though you know it will have dire consequences? For example, you get angry when you can’t find the report you’re working on. You blame your company for not providing you with enough workspace, the cleaners for moving things, or your boss or manager for giving you this ridiculous task. While doing all this, you do not accept that you are impatient because you are tired; you suppress your unhappiness about your work or life… So how can you stay calm when your emotions are triggered? What can you do when it comes to emotional triggers?
Although what makes you feel bad and angry may seem like small things like not being able to find your report or changing the place of your belongings, these emotional reactions that you give to all these situations and cause you to sabotage yourself occur when the effects of past events on you resurface. Essayist Hannah Moore said in 1881, “The mastery of self-deception is never exhausted.” Many of us give irrational, emotional responses when faced with situations that trigger our emotions, and we often either deceive or harm ourselves because of the wrongness of our responses. Here are five ways to combat problems that trigger your feelings in 5 steps…
1-When You Feel Some Changes in Your Body, Realize that It is an Emotional Reaction
According to neuroscientist and author Antonio Damasio, if at any given moment you experience changes in your breathing, blood flow, the tension in your muscles, and tightness in your stomach and intestines, it may indicate an emotional response. When your breathing is fast, or your muscles suddenly tense, when you feel a sudden pressure in your stomach or chest, stop and ask yourself how you think and why. Don’t judge your feelings or be afraid of them. If you are unaware of your emotions, you cannot change them, and they continue negatively affecting your relationships, work performance, happiness, and enjoyment.
2-If You Feel Fear, Anger, or Sadness, Identify What Triggers that Emotion
Do you feel like you’ve lost something or don’t have something you deserve or want? When the strengths that help us in life are left unsatisfied, they become our biggest emotional triggers. Your emotions are triggered when you feel that these strengths have been taken from you or that circumstances are depriving you of them. This way, the sooner you notice your emotions activated, the sooner you can tell if the threat is genuine. However, it should not be concluded that the emotional needs in life are dire. Everyone has needs in life because these needs serve the person at some point. For example, your experiences may tell you you need control, a safe environment, and supportive people to succeed. But the more you become attached to your needs to stay in power, be safe, and appear bright, the more your brain looks for threats to those needs. These threats, or the failure to meet these needs, cause your emotions to be triggered.
3-Take Responsibility for Your Reactions and Stay Calm
Accept your power instead of seeing yourself as a victim. Only in this way can you avoid deceiving yourself. When you research the emotion that triggers you to feel that way, you also feel different. You will also have a clearer view of what to do or what to change. What would your life be like if you kept your reactions under control? How free would you feel if you lived according to your choices? If the answers to these questions inspire you, you can move on to the next step.
4-Change Your Emotional State and Stay Calm
You can change your emotional state at any time. You can change your emotional state even as soon as you recognize the situation that triggers your emotions and response. To do this, calm down. Breathe in and release the tension in your body. Please clean it up. Clear your mind of all thoughts. Gather in the centre. Concentrate your attention on the centre of your body. Focus. Choose a keyword that fits how you want to feel. Repeat this word to yourself with your breath and let your feelings change. Sometimes you need to stop controlling or managing your emotions. Instead, you can try to feel differently. This is how you can achieve emotional freedom.
5-Choose What you Want and Stay Calm
With practice over time, you can make your emotions less triggered, but don’t expect them to go away completely. The best thing you can do for this is to recognize when a feeling is triggered and then choose for yourself what you want to say or do. For this, ask yourself the following questions: Do you lose a need? Does the other person actively ignore your condition,s or do you personalize this situation too much? If someone is denying your needs or is preventing you from reaching those needs, can you ask yourself again what your real need is?
