How to regulate emotions before they start controlling you:

Whenever I see someone throwing tantrums, speaking in a harsh tone or being unreasonable with others then I only see uncontrolled emotions or unprocessed thoughts behind those events.

Thanks to my NLP journey that I would able to see things differently but my realization also started with the understanding of my own intense emotions and the damage that has been done to me, my relationships or my overall life.

Our intense emotions can cloud our judgement and analytical thinking process by shifting our focus. We tend to make some of the worst decisions in life in the state of anger or under the influence of any other negative emotion.

Regulating emotions is not about becoming insensitive but being aware of our own state. Like if some words or people or certain places or events would make you uncomfortable or emotional then it’s important to find out those emotions, label them as anger, guilt, and resentment and find out the reasons that triggered those emotions.

Once you know that what is hidden behind someone’s anger then we can think of better ways for dealing with it. For instance, One of your colleagues is losing at mind at work even at petty matters .On probing, you may find that he has mistaken his frustration for working on off days and staying up late for work as anger. Once your colleague knows the exact emotion and the reason or story behind that emotion then he would be completely different in handling it.

Some of the ways to regulate your emotions are as follow:

1.     Start with acknowledging how you feel about something. In short, Label your emotions.

2.     Reframe your negative thoughts (You may refer to an article, already written by me on reframing)

3.     Engage in activities that uplift your mood. In other words, take out time for doing things you love doing.

You will find a different you once you start working on your emotion regulating skills.