Stop letting your feelings control you.
Your Emotions Shouldn’t Run Your Life
Hey,
Earlier this month, I almost let a feeling ruin my night. You know those moments when you see a picture of a group of people you know and suddenly feel left out? Recently, that happened to me. Initially, I was tempted to wonder why I wasn’t involved and feel off. Past me would have obsessed, overthought, and let that emotion quietly affect my day. But this season, I’m learning something different: you can feel and observe an emotion, but it shouldn’t dictate your life.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable; feelings are essentially wired as comfort systems. They produce a “good” feeling when we are doing what we have always done—staying in familiarity. This, to our bodies, registers as “safety.”
For the past two or three years, an area I’ve been intentionally working on is mastering my emotions. And when I say mastering, I don’t mean suppressing. I mean feeling them, but not allowing them to dictate my decisions.
At the beginning, it looked like discipline over feelings. Making sure I didn’t allow my emotions to hinder me. Showing up even when I didn’t feel like it. Doing what needed to be done regardless of my mood.
It’s not whether you “feel” like putting in the work, but whether or not you do it regardless.
This season, it looks like mastering emotions beyond productivity. It means not overthinking, taking things personally, obsessing over conversations, ruminating over small interactions, and letting a comment replay in my head for hours.
In the past, I used to obsess over my emotions. If I felt something, I needed to understand it immediately. Why do I feel this? What does this mean? What triggered it? Sometimes that reflection is healthy. But sometimes it’s just fuel for overthinking.
Now I’m learning that:
Sometimes you don’t need to engage every thought.
Sometimes you don’t need to analyse every feeling.
Sometimes you simply observe it.
You can experience an emotion without allowing it to dictate your reaction. You can feel something strongly in a moment, but that doesn’t mean you must act on it or react immediately. You can acknowledge an emotion and also let it pass. Now, I no longer feel controlled by every emotional wave.
We cannot live being governed by how we feel. Our emotions are temporary and not always reflective of reality. Remember that your feelings, while valid, are not often real. They are not always accurate reflections of reality. They are, however, always accurate reflections of our thoughts.
Because the truth is, emotions are temporary. Think about hunger. When you’re extremely hungry, you’re not yourself. You’re irritated. Dramatic. Maybe even irrational. But once you eat, clarity returns. The emotion wasn’t permanent. It just felt heightened in the moment.
So if you’re someone who overthinks, who spirals, who sometimes lets one feeling dictate your whole day, this is your reminder: feel it and acknowledge it, but don’t let it dictate or control your life.
With love,
Nk ‘mastering my emotions’ 💜
P.S. Quote excerpts from The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest
💬 A random quote that inspired me this week:
“Feelings are indicators, not dictators. Feelings can indicate there is a situation I need to deal with, but they shouldn’t dictate how I react. I have a choice.”
- Unglued Devotional: 60 Days of Imperfect Progress by TerKeurst, Lysa
Content I consumed instead of doomscrolling…
🎬 YouTube: While We Wait | Episode 1-6
📖 Podcast: How To Successfully Share Your Husband With Another Woman by I Said What I Said.
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