Do You Control Your Emotions or Do They Control You?

Have you ever noticed how actors act out emotions? I am always impressed when one of them conjures up anger, sternness, love, playfulness, or zaniness at the wish of his director. I am convinced that those actors have to be really in tune with all of the aspects and angles of each of the emotions they are going to be asked to perform. I don’t think I could cry on demand, so my hat is off to them for their control and their skill.

How about your emotions? Do you have control over them? Or do they have control over you? That would be going down a wrong way street if they are controlling you. When you become a divorced parent, this is a very important area to tighten up because it drastically affects your children.

Here are a few test scenarios to see what is in control in your life, you, or your emotions. Just write in the answer – either ME or MY EMOTIONS.

Scenarios:

1. I’m driving down the highway with the kids (who are arguing) and an old lady pulls in front of me without signaling and then drives under the speed limit.

2. I’ve just left work and have to pick up groceries in a hurry so I can make it to the Pre-School before 6 pm when an Asian lady cuts in front of me in line with her basket.

3. I have to get the boys to their soccer playoff game for the season. The lights all turn red when I drive up to the intersection and a train’s stop arm goes down just as I arrive at the tracks.
4. My boss hasn’t spoken to me at work for over three days. She walks by my desk several times a day but it’s like I’m not even there.

5. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m doing a lousy job as a single parent, so I force myself to clean the house every weekend. It leaves me frazzled and without any alone time for me.

If you knew exactly what you’d be feeling in each of the five scenarios above, good for you. You’re in control, so you don’t have to read the rest of this article. If the majority of your check marks were in the My Emotions column, read on.

One of the good things about marriage is that each individual learns something from the other mate. But because Life Itself is a learning experience, and now you don’t have your mate to learn from, you’re going to have to be both the Bride and the Groom in your life. If you’ve got runaway emotions, your Bride has to be bridled, and your Groom has to be groomed!

Get a grip. When you find yourself running helter skelter into emotion land, pull up on the reins and tell yourself "Whoa there girl! Let’s put a little bit of logic to work and stop these raging emotions." And that’s when you get to use one of your most wonderful virtues, the virtue of reason. Reasoning, or thinking through challenges using logic or facts, is the universal cure for rampaging emotions.

Two practical ways to learn how to reason are: take a class at your local Junior College; find a friend who already uses reason and model yourself after him. You can get there from here and your kids will benefit so much when you make these improvements in their best role model – you who has learned how to control your emotions!