I re-learnt a lesson today. When you are feeling emotional it’s impossible to think clearly. Thanks to someone else’s decision my working life was going to change drastically. When this thought hit me I dived straight in to a mental soup of doom, despondency and outrage. I was letting myself get caught up in my thoughts about how wrong the situation was and as a result I felt well and truly stuck.
In fact, when I look back now, I was hanging on to this emotional set of feelings and having a bit of a wallow. What to do?
Some drastic action was called for. I went for a walk and breathed slowly and deeply whilst grounding myself with every step.
That didn’t work.
I came back to my desk and wrote out all the things that were bothering me about the situation as quickly as I could. Then I paused and took a look. What a revelation for me! I recognised a petulant part of me that just wanted to sulk and stay stuck.
But also just I acknowledged this part a few ideas sprang to mind as to what next steps I should take. What questions I could ask others that would help me feel more control.
I consciously and physically let go the angst feelings and the defensive feelings and immediately felt better and more constructive thinking resumed.
So if you get angry or stressed out during the day, stop and check out your emotions on a scale of one to ten. If they’re well off the scale, acknowledge them and work on getting unstuck in these emotions.
Doing something physical and preferably outdoors is most likely start pointing you in the right direction.
Then you could try the exercise of writing out what’s bothering you and then pause and take a look.
Doing this forces you into thinking rather than being hijacked by your emotions. Try it and let me know who you get on.