Can you control your emotions? December 22, 2009
An easy question to answer – it depends…
Being in control of your emotions does not mean you can’t get angry, upset, sad or even happy. It means you have choice of what emotion you feel when.
At least in the western world, ‘emotional control’ often implies no emotion at all. A robot.
The opposite side of this is the person who is a rudderless boat under full sail in an emotional storm. Every event they have a full emotional response to. Very young kids are often like this.
For an aduly, both are just as bad as the other.
Part of the reason for this is there is a prevailing idea that emotions are out of our control. Many times you’ll read an article or listen to someone speak and notice the underlying current that because someone has emotional control, they are somewhat special, or somewhat alien. In reality they are special like someone with a ham sandwich is special – anyone can get a ham sandwich if they put the effort in.
With your friends, they are used to your emotional responses, be they high, low or inbetween. When interacting with someone new, the amount of emotion you can display changes with the person you’re speaking with. For example, in general if you’re speaking to Japanese, emotional outbursts will damage your credibility (or worse). Not enough emotion when speaking to others will achieve the same result.
The trick is to always know yourself first, and then the person you’re speaking to.
- Posted in : Change, Psychology, Stress
- Author : Michael
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