Emotional Day Off

I have spent a day being mad and annoyed at almost everything. Something was indeed wrong because I couldn't extend my patience on things I normally would try to be more patient about. I wake up mad, and even dream of being mad. I needed an emotional day off. I needed to shut down everything from the outside as a form of protecting myself and others from my attitude as a result of my emotional outrage. Translation: It's been really easy to annoy me these days.

Thankfully, with my psychological background, I always use my own behavior as my own guinea pig. How do you regulate your emotions? How can I regulate my own emotions? How can I manage my anger? How can I now be easily irritated?

I want to develop a habit of prayer that instead of bursting my emotions out and ranting to my friends, I take a minute and pause and call on God to help me control myself. That's one part of my habit, the other part is learning to emotionally regulate myself and change my reaction to situations.

I'm reading an article from psychology today "5 ways to get your unwanted emotions under control". and I hope I am able to keep this in mind.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201502/5-ways-get-your-unwanted-emotions-under-control

1) Select the situation - avoid the situation that will trigger my unwanted emotion, close my ears, pretend to be in a different room or better yet, go to a different room, block messages, keep them unread, don't look at your phone, don't answer the call.

2) Modify the situation - how do I modify a situation in any case I am not able to avoid it? This is hard, I'm better off with just shutting it down and closing my eyes and ears. But let's think of ways I can modify the situation, change the topic? pretend to be nice? or maybe just dumb down the people around me and just come to the conclusion that these people will never understand so I have to lower my expectations of their understanding and forget about explaining and move on. Manage my expectations.

3) Shift your attention focus - Shift my attention to things that are MORE important and things that I can actually have control of. Find other things to talk about or other things that I should be noticing. Taking a break and pausing and being more conscious of the things I feel and the things I see at the moment. Live in the present. Feel that pain, the comfort the cold, the heat and listening to every bit of sound that I hear at the moment. Live in the present and take advantage of the moment to feel and hear in your surroundings. That will help me shift my attention.

4) Change your thoughts - Changing my perspective on how to view things. Force myself to find that silver lining. That all these annoying situations are just temporary and there is always good in everything. What are the things that give me good feelings? What would I be doing after I overcome this situation? This is not a permanent state but it will pass. This too shall pass. Pray to God to give you strength to overcome the situation.

5) Change your reaction - You are no longer that reactive person you used to be. Your nature does not have to define you. You can control how you react to a situation. Focus on changing your thoughts. Shift your attention. Close your eyes. Call on the Holy Spirit. Do not behave the way you naturally would do. Do not react if its only going to make the situation first. Swallow. Think. Count. Cover your ears. Be mindful. Recognize your 5 senses. What do you hear, see, feel, smell or taste? Amplify your other senses and recognize their functions. If you think you're going to regret whatever you want to do, then don't. Let them win. As long as you were able to regulate your emotions, you're a winner in your own standards.