I love Marilyn Monroe. One of my favorite Hollywood icons. Margie and I have many Marilyn things at our house. This quote, although an exaggeration I am sure, makes a good point. How many of us have a hard time letting go of anger and frustration?When I use the term ‘us’ I am certainly including myself. When someone does something to upset me, I have a hard time letting it go. This is even more true if I do not understand why they did it in the first place. This is a character flaw I am working on, but still working on. Finding myself hours later asking, “Why would someone say/do something so hurtful?” is not only frustrating, but debilitating.
What I mean is that holding on to anger only extends the physical, mental and emotional discomfort after the original event has passed. This is like letting that person hurting you over and over again. It can also cause you increased blood pressure, upset stomach and suppressed immune system. This can lead to things like heart issues, ulcers and other illness. Is that really worth pondering why some fool cut you off in traffic? I would guess not.
One of the best ways not to have this issue is to take the suggestion of Marilyn above and try to avoid getting upset in the first place. There are several ways to do this including the realization the we can never be 100% sure of anyone’s intention. It also includes attaching new meanings to actions that offend and upset us. The most powerful way to beat anger is with gratitude. Being grateful will not allow us to be angry, at least not at the very moment we are being grateful. Whatever you do, work on reducing the amount of time you spend in anger.
Anger sucks. Feeling anger causes many poor physical symptoms. High blood pressure, depressed immune system, and impaired judgment. Can you imagine how maintaining these for any length of time could affect you? There are some people who live an angry lifestyle. Continuous high blood pressure can…well…kill you. That certainly is not envious. Short of killing you, there are many other bad options from high blood pressure. I will let you research that on your own. A constantly depressed immune system means you will suffer many more colds and illnesses. You will miss more work and not be as productive in general.
What is worse than anger? When you let someone else’s anger make you angry. It is like trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. If we are being honest, it can really be difficult to not get angry when someone is yelling at us. When we do, however, we fall victim to the three conditions mentioned above. We did not even mention the impaired judgement. Sure, what someone did to anger us is most certainly terrible. When we respond from that state of anger, the chances that it will be a good response is slim to none.
Work on mastering your emotional control and your response to anger. When you do become angry, realize your ability to judge the situation objectively is seriously compromised. Learning how to get yourself out of anger quickly will reduce the chances of having to deal with the consequences of choices made from a poor emotional state.
Here is something that is simple to understand, but far from easy to do. That is not to let outside circumstances and people control your emotions. This is more difficult the closer the people are to you. The more they mean to you, the more emotional reaction they can cause you to experience. That is, only if you let them. I am not advocating you become an unfeeling zombie. Far from it. What I am advocating is to not only control, but choose what emotions you feel.
If you are one of the 95% of people who go through life without taking a look inwards, this concept that you have any control of your emotions may seem foreign to you. Here is the truth. What you feel depends on the meaning you assign to someone’s behavior or words. If a stranger walks up and tells you they do not like you, it may bother you but beyond that you will go about your day. If a good friend tells you the same thing, it has a far greater impact. The emotion you choose in response to that will dictate your behavior, which will go a long way to deciding the fate of not only that interaction, but the life of the friendship.
This becomes even more difficult when the person’s behavior is down right disrespectful. Even then, you have the option, as Sun Tzu so plainly put it, to respond intelligently. You may ask what some man named after a star has anything to do with your life. Sun Tzu wrote the amazing book, The Art of War. It not only has timeless advice for military combat, but can be applied to your business and personal life as well.
When you pause and choose how to respond to a situation, you take control of that situation. In the case of our friend telling us they do not like us, we can choose several ways to respond. We can be defensive and inform them that we no longer like them. We may even go on to list their faults and how we feel we are better than them. That is responding from a place of hurt and anger. It will not only do little to solve the original complaint our friend may have, we have now widened the chasm between our hearts. If we are interested in maintaining this friendship, it would serve us far better to respond with a genuine caring and inquisitive question about what made our friend change their mind about our relation. We not only may preserve the friendship, we may also make room for it to grow and become closer. As an added bonus, we may learn something about ourselves.
I am not a fool to think that this is an easy process. I still struggle with it on occasion as well. What we must understand is that when we allow someone to affect us emotionally, we, in effect, become their servant and they become our master. We relinquish control of the situation and the repercussions that will result. A far wiser and more intelligent response would be to consider what outcome you wish for the situation. Another question to ask yourself is the effects of the negative emotions on our mental and physical well-being worth handing over control to our emotions? As I said in the beginning of this post, it is not easy. We need tools and strategies, many of which can be found in the articles on this website, to help us gain control. The price we will pay to do that will be well worth it.
It can be so frustrating when you are doing your best to live a calmer and more loving life and people do their best to challenge that. You can bite your tongue one time, but the next time you just remember how much it hurt. Not only that, but people can be so thoughtless and really push us. You may even ask yourself, “What is the point of trying to resist acting on my anger when I can’t do it all of the time?” That is a fair question. One, every time that you do manage to do it, you end up with less hurt feelings on the other side and less to apologize for later. As the picture above says, you are also working on rewiring your brain.
If you take the same path in the woods everyday, and then you choose to change it up for a week, the second path will not be nearly as worn in as the first. Similarly, if you have been a slave to your emotions for years of your life, and now you are trying to take control of them, the path in your brain for reaction will be a lot more worn in than the one for intelligently responding. It takes practice and, on occasion, we may slip and go down the more familiar path. Give yourself some compassion. It takes a long time to rewire a house. Can you imagine rewiring a machine with over 86 billion connections? That is how many neurons are in the average brain. They make up our ‘wiring’.
Doing your best to rewire 86 billion connections not enough motivation for you? Think of this – those people disturbing your peace would love to see you lose control. In fact, sometimes that is all they are after. By maintaining control and responding instead of reacting will infuriate them like nothing else. Done enough times and they might give up trying to upset you all together. What if you fail and let them get to you? Just remember, they may have won the battle, but the war is still yours to win. Use that feeling of frustration and failure to motivate you to keep control next time. As the picture above says, “Someone out there is holding their breath waiting for you to fail. Make sure they suffocate.” You don’t actually want to kill anyone, but killing off their desire to upset you would certainly help you live a more calm and peaceful life.
Keep doing your best to resist giving into anger. You are not at the mercy of your emotions, you are their master. That does not mean you should turn into a cold and unfeeling person. It means you should learn how to use and channel every emotion you experience. Both the good and the seemingly bad. I used the word seemingly because you can use them as well. Have a lot of anger? Go to the gym and get a great workout in. Feeling sad or down? Use that to reach out and connect with friends. Feeling lonely? Perhaps you could make friends with a stranger who could also use some company. Feel your emotions, just remember to master them as well.
This picture is worth a thousand words! You can see the people all walking in the same environment, but having completely different experiences. You can also see the difference and the determining factor in the experience they are having is largely determined by what is happening inside their minds. They all have to seem to have their share of problems. Don’t we all seem to have our fair share? Even the man with the ‘flower’ over his head I am sure has his share of issues that need attending in his life.
What makes the difference is what they choose to focus on.It would appear that the others seem to be focusing on what is going wrong in their lives. Some, it would appear, are worried about work, a dominating spouse, and one looks like a rock or gray volley ball. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good. To some of you, walking around thinking about a flower may seem absolutely ridiculous. That’s quite alright. It doesn’t have to be a flower. I have allergies and thinking of a flower might induce me to think of sneezing. It could be thinking of the person you are in love with. This works best if you are getting along. It could be remembering a fun and sunny vacation during a cold winter drive into work.
When it comes to our physical health there is a great deal of importance, or at least should be, of what we are eating. When it comes to our mental well-being the attention should often focus to what is eating us. When you are taking worry for a walk it can be hard to enjoy the fresh air, the sunshine or just about any other pleasant aspect of life. When we think of having a parasite inside of us eating away it can sound both rather unpleasant and scary. Which, I would imagine it is.
Having that worry, anger and sadness inside us is no different. Think of worry. How do you feel when you are worried? Your stomach churns. your breath is shallow. You are not able to focus on what you are doing. Sometimes you develop a headache. How about when you are angry? Your blood pressure rises. Your nerves are on edge and everything seems to bother you. How about sadness? You can walk around feeling as if a Weight is on your shoulders. You are not able to sleep well. In all three cases your immune system in depressed. How do you think having these physical conditions for an extended period of time would affect our health? Can you imagine having excess stomach acid for several weeks or longer? This is what happens when we walk around in a state of worry. It can lead to ulcers, digestive issues. How about constantly raised blood pressure? That can lead to a serious heart issues. A depressed immune system can leave you open to a host of terrible ailments.
Here is the upside to all of this. Just as we go to a doctor when we have a physical ailment, so should we see someone to correct a concern with our emotional or spiritual side. Whether that is seeing a therapist, talking to a trusted spiritual leader, seeking the company and conversation of a good friend, reading a book, meditating or whatever else we need to do to address our compromised mindset. You would not leave an open wound sit because you were embarrassed to have people know you went to a doctor? The same holds true about addressing conditions that exist on the inside. We all have problems we are dealing with. If they become too much for us to deal with on our own, we should seek outside help. This should not make us feel embarrassed or that we are less than. Quite the opposite. It should make us proud. We are brave enough to recognize and admit we are struggling in an area. (Trust me at any given time we all are) On top of that, we are smart enough to be doing something about it. We are working to be the best version of ourselves.
You wouldn’t feel bad about taking your car to an expert mechanic to be fixed. You wouldn’t hesitate to take your cell phone back to the store if it wasn’t working right. You should feel just as confident seeking professional help to address any issue that may be bothering you. If you do, you have a fully supportive group here on this website behind you. It is not only important to your health, but in the long run will determine the quality of the life you live. Here, we want to live amazing lives. Let us all help each other do so.
It amazes me how many people do not understand that their feelings are generated inside of them. They blame the news, their spouse, their boss, their coworker or the cat down the road for ruining their day. In essence, you are giving these sources control over your mental well-being. You are actually giving them permission to ruin your day by reacting to their actions.
This is all very easy for me to say logically. Emotionally, this takes a lot more practice to live and understand. The closer a person is to you, their control over your emotions increases to a greater extent. For example, if someone you have never met tells you they find you unattractive, how would you feel? It may sting a little, or you may shrug it off entirely. Now what if your best friend told you the same thing? You might actually become angry. It may feel a little more valid. What if you came home one night and your spouse told you the same thing? You would feel deeply hurt, perhaps devastated.
I am not advocating that you become a heartless person. I am not telling you to deny your feelings. Just consider whether what these people have to say has any justification. Some people say terrible things when they are hurting. Some less evolved individuals do not anyone to be happy if they are not. The whole ‘misery loves company’ sort of thing. Considering the amount of people we come in contact with today, both in person and online, the chance one of them may say or do something that could bring us down is rather high. I suggest having a mantra written down that says “I am not going to let anyone bring me down.”
It is your day. Do they have your permission to ruin it?
I like this picture for what it shows us. I have always said Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. We can become angry, upset and frustrated. When we are in this state the way we see the world and others in it can change. It is important to allow ourselves time to cool down and make decisions with a clear mind and a clear heart.
Words that we say can cause a lifetime of hurt, even if apologized for later. We can cause someone to have fear and a complex for the rest of our lives because we let our emotions get the best of us. We can forever change the way they look and feel towards us for letting our tongue get ahead of our head. It may feel like the right thing to do at the time, but do yourself a favor and Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. Â
This is a picture of a billboard just outside the Wisconsin State Fair. It is a catchy little slogan for a Mexican restaurant. My mother and I have started taking walks after my heart trouble caused me to take a break from working out as hard as I would like. Being the state fair is probably my favorite place to go, it makes sense to choose that as a location to walk. This particular day my mother and I decided to walk the perimeter of the park to see how long that would be. (roughly 3.2 miles for those keeping track) While on the northern side of the park we came across this billboard.
As we walked passed it I began to think of the slogan “Inhale tacos, exhale negativity”. A slight confession is that I tend to practice a lot of both in my life. The last couple posts we have been discussing meditation and how we can work it into our life. One of the simplest forms of meditation is to pay attention to your breathing. If you add to that visualizing breathing in positivity and exhaling negativity, it can lead to an increased state of peace. I encourage you to practice this for several minutes twice a day and let me know what difference you notice. It is a simple practice, but can bring great change.
Then I thought about inhaling tacos. How could you not after reading that sign? Other than increasing the feeling of hunger I had already started from the walk, it got me thinking. Obviously, they are using tacos as a replacement for the word positivity. This could probably hold true for many people out there. Although saying, “Have a taco day!” Instead of positive day does sound a bit strange. When doing the above exercise sometimes picturing positivity and negativity can be a bit too abstract for some of us. What if we replaced the word positivity with some activity, such as eating tacos or attending the local state fair. In other words any activity that fills us with joy or adds value to our life. As we breath in we could picture being engaged it that activity and breathing in more of those activities into our lives.
On the exhale we could replace negativity with any activity we are trying to remove from our lives. Maybe letting our emotions get the best of us or being filled with stress. As we exhale we could picture that activity and feel ourselves exhaling it out of our bodies and out of our lives. Inhale tacos, exhale being overly emotional. Inhale the state fair, exhale being stressed out. It certainly is worth a try and could be a lot of fun!
WARNING!!! This blog is not responsible for an increase in the consumption of tacos related to the reading of this article. Restraint is recommended in the amount of tacos consumed or one would not be able to inhale or exhale at all. Please read responsibly.
This is a great litmus test to put our words through. How many times a day do we let something escape our lips that we shouldn’t? Having these 3 questions in mind would help prevent that from happening. Remember you cannot unsay something.
How do we keep these questions front and center? Use this picture as your screensaver, pertain jot them down on an index card you carry with you. Then, put it into practice. Try doing this just for a conversation here and there. Eventually, it well become a way of not only speaking, but thinking as well.
So you don’t feel too down on yourself when you first try this, allow me to share my experience. I tried this at work and all I can say is “wow!” I never realized how many useless negative things I say there! Even someone who writes positivity for a living! Although a bit taken aback, I was excited. There is so much room for me to improve my conversation skills.
Try this yourself. I’m about to meet a friend for coffee and am going to try again. I think you will notice different people bring out different conversations. I would love to hear your experience as well!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 