Taming Wild Emotions

 Have you ever lost control of your emotions? I’ll bet you have.  We all have.

    I remember a time that this happened to me - really, really badly. While working with my dad one hot summer day, he started to not feel well. Because of his history of heart issues, I started to panic…especially when he started to pass out. I called 911 and I have to admit that I completely lost it. The anxiety and the panic washed over me and I had no control over myself at all. I am embarrassed to say I even swore at the nice 911 operator lady. I was not functional at all. I had had 4 years of nursing training, I had taken CPR class 4 times, I had seen a number of cardiac issues, but I couldn’t think of any of that as I let my emotions have their way with me. I was a hot mess and it didn’t serve anyone -especially my dad- one damn bit. 

    That is an extreme example, but everyday we are faced with the choice to let our emotions run away with us, or to rein them in and use them for the information that they are. In the example above, if I had reined in my anxiety, I could have used that rapidly-moving mind to find answers, think about different options, and act quickly but with some intelligence. What Dad and I really needed was for me to chill out.

    In everyday life, emotions that run away from us drain our energy, make us less efficient, more rash, and more stressed. It is not about suppressing them, it’s about taming them.