6 Ways to Feel Good No Matter What
It is possible to feel good no matter what is going on around you. Below are 6 ways to find your way to emotional freedom.
When I was younger, my emotions were heavily influenced by the people and events in my life. If someone else was in a bad mood, I picked it up. If things didn’t go my way, I reacted with negativity.
Anything could throw me off. Kids calling me names at school filled me with dread. Sibling conflicts stressed me out. The worst was that I took on my father’s depression. I just had no buffer between my emotions and the world.
It took me many years to learn how to separate my emotional reactions from what was happening around me. When I did, it was an incredible relief. I was no longer subject to automatic reactions to uncontrollable outside conditions. I finally felt the freedom of determining my emotional response.
Here are some tips to help you find the freedom to feel good no matter what:
1. Know your feelings. When we are out of touch with our feelings and react unconsciously and automatically to other people and situations, we contribute to conflict and get into trouble. Get to know your feelings, name them, identify them, embrace them. When you know your feelings and have a way to manage them, you are much less likely to fly off the handle or lose control.
2. Someone else’s bad mood does not have to be yours. No matter how much they might try to blame you, their feelings are their responsibility. Put some distance between their feelings and yours. Focus on your feelings and take responsibility for them. Let go of the other person’s reactions.
3. Nothing is personal. Other people’s behavior is not about you. It might SEEM like it’s about you, but they are responsible for their thought, feelings, and words. Don’t take it on. Again give yourself space to sort out what’s their stuff and what’s yours. And just focus on your part.
4. Take responsibility. When you take responsibility for your part in a situation, you don’t have to rely on someone else to feel better. You can examine what you did, whether you need to apologize or do something differently the next time, and let it go. You don’t have to let it fester and cause more relationship conflict.
5. Give yourself a buffer. As mentioned above, when you stop, pause, or put some distance between you and the situation, you have time and space to choose your reaction. You can check in with yourself to understand your reactions before you let loose. You can choose how you want to respond, rather than unleash an unthinking reaction that will later require damage control.
6. Center yourself. Once you’ve stepped back, you can sort through the emotional reaction, and come back to center. Emotions throw us off, and our immediate drive is to immediately express, react, lash out. When we give ourselves some time, we can come to a calm, centered place where we have more clarity about how we want to respond, or not respond at all.
Do you want the freedom to feel good no matter what? What situations bother you the most?
