Two Steps to Master Your Emotions

0:03Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you'd probably love all of the YouTube videos we're putting up as well. We just put up a YouTube video a few months ago on the three books that I recommend that you read for your success in 2023. It already has over 200 ,000 views. So if you want some extra tips and tricks to improve yourself, make sure you go to YouTube, type in my name, Rob Dial, R-O-B-D-I-A-L, and subscribe to us there.

0:35Today, I'm going to be giving you two two steps to mastering your emotions. Now, before we dive in, I found that a lot of people don't really tend to understand emotions. They don't know why they're here, where they come from. They just tend to be these things that just kind of pop up out of nowhere. Something happens, and then an emotion comes. It just kind of comes, and it usually comes without any sort of control. It's not like we control them. They just kind of pop up, right? And when they're there, they're now there and now we have to figure out a way to deal with them. And so really what I'm doing is I'm going to teach you how to have better control over your emotions so that you can also understand them better when they do pop up.

1:16And so it's like, how can we understand the emotion? How can we understand why it's here, where it's coming from, why the emotion exists? And then also when it does come up, how can I control them better so it just doesn't turn into some shit show? And so let's go through. There's two very simple steps. The first step is to stop trying to control your emotions. Now you might be sitting there like, wait, hold on. I thought this whole thing was talking about how to control your emotions. It is. But the first thing you have to do is you have to stop trying to control them. Because I promise you, by the end of this, this is all going to make sense.

1:49But the first thing you try to do is to stop trying to control your emotions. And the reason why is because emotions are here. And emotions a lot of time have to do with something from the past. And what you really need first off before like trying to control them is you need a safe space to let your emotions run. And so for different people, this could be a bunch of different things. This could be, you know, screaming, crying, yelling, punching a pillow, taking that pillow and beating the bed with it. whatever it is that you need to do to get your emotions out without hurting yourself, without hurting other people as well.

2:29Because really what it comes down to is a lot of us have emotions built up in our body that we suppressed as a child, that we suppressed through being bullied from people. We suppressed because teachers told us that we couldn't cry or whatever. You were a boy in sports and boys don't cry. And so we have emotion that we have suppressed. and it's basically like emotional constipation. And with emotional constipation, it's like you need to get it out, but it's just kind of stuck, right? I don't know if you've ever felt that way. We were like, I feel like there's an emotion that needs to come out, but it's just kind of like stuck there.

3:02I can't really get this emotion out. It's not really a huge deal until you've been holding on for way longer than you need to. Constipation is not really a big deal until you've been holding on to it for too long. Your emotions are not really a huge deal until you've been holding onto them for too long. Because what happens after a while, they become very, very serious. And really too many people try not to have emotions. You're taught not to have emotions. You're taught not to cry, not to be a certain way. And for some people, it might be like, hey, you were taught, you know, big boys don't cry.

3:37So then maybe when you're a little boy, you're taught not to cry. Now you're older in life and it's like, you don't even know how to cry anymore. It's like, it's completely taken out of you. Now you might be someone who's like, well, I cry really easily. Well, maybe you were told like good boys or good girls don't get angry. And so maybe there's anger that's kind of like built up inside of you that just needs to come out. And so the first step to controlling your emotions is to literally stop trying to control them. Like let them go, let them come out of you. It is built up energy that is inside of the body.

4:05And it's, it's basically stuck inside of the body. And there's a lot of books around this. There's a lot of psychologists and that are now talking about this. One of them is, I think it's called the body keeps score, where it's like your body will actually hold on to certain emotions. And it's basically like you're stuck in time in that emotion, in that place that your body's holding onto it. Emotions are basically energy that your body needs to release, right? It's energy that your body needs to release. And that's why you can see children and children, you're like, oh my gosh, they're so much more emotional.

4:35The reason why they're emotional is because they're actually doing what they're supposed to do. They're actually releasing the emotions that are supposed to be released. So you need to release them, but you also need to figure out a way to release them in a very safe manner, safe for yourself, but also safe for other people as well. And so whatever that might mean to you to let go of it, for you, it might be letting yourself cry uncontrollably. For you, it might be giving your anger a voice and then just allowing it to happen, screaming at the top of your lungs, finding a pillow and screaming and cussing and yelling into it for as long as you can, beating the shit out of the pillow, beating the shit out of the bed with the pillow, all of this stuff.

5:14It might be screaming at the top of your lungs in the shower. It might be any of those things. But really what it comes down to is the right way to release all these emotions is fully your decision. This is the thing that you need to figure out. The important part of it though is to think of it as like an emotional constipation. It's like a river that has been dammed up. And with that, it's being held back. It's being held back. It's being held back. And with a lot of that, when you hold a river back, if you were to think about the amount of pressure that a dam holds back, if there's just a little bit of a crack, it breaks the whole thing down.

5:54And what happens is that emotional constipation gets a little bit of a crack in it. And then what happens? And your emotional constipation turns into emotional diarrhea all over somebody because of something that happened, right? And so something happens that has nothing to do with any of the things in the past, and you just explode on somebody. That person doesn't deserve that. What happened is you took the past, this dammed up river with all this pressure and pressure and pressure. It's built up, built up, built up, and then it just explodes all over one person, right? And so that emotional constipation turns into emotional diarrhea and now we've just messed some things up.

6:34And so you have to ask yourself and you've got to, and I know that's, it's probably the most beautiful analogy I could have used. You're welcome for talking about emotional constipation, emotional diarrhea. It's beautiful because now you all have visuals and everyone has a different visual in your head, right? So if we're thinking of this way, we need to ask ourselves, you know, what do I need to start doing in order to allow myself to process my emotions? What do I need to start doing to process my emotions safely, the way that I feel that I should. So if you were taught not to cry and then you're like, you know what?

7:05Humans cry. Humans have emotions. Maybe I need to unprogram this side of me out. I need to feel things. I need to experience things. I need to allow myself to experience emotions. Okay, cool. Love that. Well, what do you need? What does it look like for you? Because what it looks like for you looks completely different for somebody else. So that's the thing that you really need to figure out is what does that mean for you? So that's step number one, is to stop trying to control that emotion. Let it happen. Let it all out. Step number two, become curious about your emotions. So a lot of times what we do is emotions will come up and we'll feel them.

7:44And a lot of times we judge ourselves like, oh, I shouldn't have acted that way. Oh, I shouldn't have been this way. Oh, I'm sorry that I was so emotional. I'm sorry that I was acting this way, whatever it might have been. And we feel bad. we shame ourselves, we guilt ourselves, when in reality, what we really should do is we should start to become curious about all of them. But I would recommend that you become curious about it after the emotions have gone through. So let's say somebody says something to you, whatever it might be, and you just go off. And all of this anger that's inside of your body just explodes all over this person.

8:20Right then is not the best time to try to figure out why you feel the way that you feel. Because when your emotion is high, your logic is low. When your emotion is high, there's actually a part of your brain that's the thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex that kind of turns off. And so you can't really think. There's no executive function in your brain at that time. And so really what you want to do is when emotion is high, logic is low. Not try to process it then. After whatever happens, anger comes out, all of that. An hour later, when you've calmed down a little bit, start to become curious about it.

8:53Why did that happen? that person said that to me. And then this is the emotion that came out of me. Why? Why was it that way? And you start to become really curious. And what I would recommend that you do is you grab a pen and paper and you actually start to write down what you're thinking, what you're feeling, why you think it happened and see if maybe you can take that current present day, today, emotion and connect it to something that happened in the past. And you might say, oh man, the reason why I reacted to what that woman said to me was because she reminded me of something that my dad used to say when I was younger that made me feel small, that made me feel not listened to, that made me feel worthless.

9:36And then you can actually start to connect present day emotions that are now being diarrhea'd all over other people because you've been emotionally constipated to past feelings, events, all of those things that maybe you just at a young age were not emotionally intelligent enough to actually work through and process. Why did I feel that way? Why did I react that way? Why did that thing trigger me? What was my reaction to that thing that triggered me? Because really what it comes down to is, and I say this all the time, and I get so many messages on Instagram, people saying, thank you for saying this.

10:11But it's not about what happens to you. It's about why you were triggered in the first place. Whatever that trigger was, why were you triggered? Because it's not the person's fault that said the thing to you. It's your fault for the way you reacted. Because when you, oh, I reacted that way because that person said this thing to me. That puts you in a victim standpoint. And when you're a victim, there's nothing that you can do about it. But instead of saying, well, I reacted that way because that person said that to me, victim, you say, I reacted that way and I was triggered because because this is something that happened and I don't want to do that again.

10:46And I was triggered because it reminded me of something that happened to me five years ago with my husband or reminded me of something that my mom used to say to me or whatever it might be for you. It's different for everybody. But really what it comes down to is you have to take ownership for the way that you react. So many adults in the world are just grown-up children. They have emotions. They have reactions. and they blame everybody else for it versus saying, I need to take ownership for my reactions. At some point in time, you just got to be a fucking adult, right? Imagine somebody saying, well, I acted that way because of what this person said to me.

11:28I act this way because they hurt my feelings. That's such a victim, childish way of coming about something versus saying like, you know what? I shouldn't have reacted that way. I was triggered because of XYZ. It was my fault. I need to apologize to that person. And so really what we need to do is we need to start becoming curious as to why we react certain ways. And I always say this, and I really truly believe it, is that someone that triggers you is giving you a gift. It's not someone to be mad at. It's not someone to be pissed off at. It's like, man, they triggered me so bad. And I am so grateful that they triggered me.

12:02And the reason why I'm grateful is because they are showing me where I am not free in my own mind. Because nobody, I don't know how many times I've said this on the podcast, nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt said that years ago. So if you feel like, oh my gosh, that person talked down to me and they made me feel a certain way. No, no, no. Your reaction was your choice, whether you realize it or not. It might've been a real split second choice, but somebody said something to you and you decided, oh, I'm going to put myself into a victim standpoint. Oh, I'm not going to, I'm going to feel really hurt about this.

12:38In reality, what we're trying to do and part of really becoming more of an adult is choosing our reaction versus allowing our reaction just to be something that is an automatic thing that seems like it's coming up from the depths of our past. And so really what it comes down to is it has nothing to do with the event. It has nothing to do with what somebody said to you. It has everything to do with your reaction to the event. So why did you react that way? Because it was your choice to react that way. It wasn't the person's fault. It wasn't what they said. It wasn't anything else. It was your fault based off your reaction.

13:15And when you can say that and actually fully take acceptance of it, it now puts you in a place of power. And so over time, when you start to put yourself into a place of power, you start to learn about your triggers. You start to learn about your emotions, allow yourself to process them. You make a connection between today and what happened in the past. You start to see where they come from. What's really interesting about it is over time, they start to have less control over you. They start to have less control of you. And you start to be more in control of your own emotions simply by taking this two-step process.

13:48You're able to see where they're coming from. You're able to work through them. And you're able to master your emotions. And so over time, that is how you take control of your emotions. The first thing, stop trying to control them. Let them go through. Let them process. Give yourself permission to do it. And then number two, the second thing, start to become curious about it. Where do they come from? Why are they this way? You know, is there a connection between what just happened and something happened with my past or something happened with bullies when I was younger? Something happened with teachers?

14:15Something happened with my parents? And you actually start to become curious of them. You can start to see them coming up, work through them immediately, and then actually start to master your emotions from there. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode, make it your mission, make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and hope that you have an amazing day.