Stop being a slave to your emotions – Control them like a Stoic.

Losing emotional control sucks.

A Quick Story…

The other night, my kids were getting ready for bed. The routine is simple: brush team, get into pajamas, tuck in time, done. In my mind, the routine should take 10 minutes and then I can get back to work. 10 minutes into the routine I reminded my daughters to wrap it up and get in bed. But they were distracted, hanging with each other and having some fun. 20 minutes later, my frustration builds and I remind them it was not time to have fun, it was time to go to bed. 30 minutes later, my frustration peaks I snap at my kids, “Go to bed, or no screen time tomorrow!” They went to bed. Mission accomplished.

(sigh)

5 minutes later, I felt ashamed. Why did I react like that? They were having fun with each other… why on earth would I want to discourage that? Wasn’t there a better way I could have acted? I realized my anger came from a fear: I needed to get work done. If I can’t finish work, then I say up late. If I stay up late I get crappy sleep. If I get poor sleep then I wake up feeling like crap and then my performance as a human (and Dad) is affected. I was focused on my needs, not my kids’. I perceived their actions as a blocker to mine. And then I was reminded of a quote by Marcus Aurelius, Stoic emperor of Rome back in 170 AD. He wrote, “Stop perceiving the pain you imagine and you’ll remain completely unaffected.”

Yup. My pain was imagined.

Emotional Control

When was the last time you lost your temper? Or when was the last time you were snappy or short with someone? How did you feel afterward? When these events happen, we never feel proud about losing control. You may feel awesome and justified at the time, but once the emotions have passed, and the damage has been done, there typically comes feelings of regret and shame. We can do better. In this article, I’ll share 4 steps you can use to gain emotional control and deepen your emotional maturity.

First, let’s get one thing crystal clear. Emotional control is not about squashing out emotions. It is not about teaching yourself to become numb. That would be lame and inhuman. It is about recognizing that your emotions are yours to own, and your reactions are also yours to own. Your feelings and your actions are two separate things, yet we conflate them to be the same.

But you say, “I am angry therefore I yell.” Well, you may yell, but other people might speak more slowly, clearly, with sharper eye contact, sternly, etc. There are a variety of responses to any emotion: anger, fear, jealousy, happiness, etc. What you do in times of emotion is your choice, though it may feel like an involuntary reaction.

I want to focus here on anger. When we react out of anger, much damage can be done. Also, anger is an emotion we all can relate to.

Before we talk about how to fix it, let’s first acknowledge how this behavior impacts our lives (I am using “we” and “our” here as I am well within this realm of needed improvement).

Relationships

First, overreactions and emotional outbursts can negatively impact our relationships. We can emotionally hurt those we care about. Think about how we make other people feel when we are angry. Any words that we speak when angry risk verbal attack, accusation, a provocation. If we snap at our kids, we can make them feel depressed, unworthy of love… if we yell at our spouse, they could feel attacked, unappreciated, misunderstood… You get the picture.

Even if we are not yelling at someone, and are “just” angry, any human with mirror neurons (which is all of us) can get sucked into our emotional world. Emotions spread.

Angry reactions create a lack of trust. Think of how you might talk to your best friend. Wouldn’t you want to be able to go to them and tell them anything? It may be for advice or maybe just to vent. But what if that friend had a habit of overreacting? Would you trust them with this conversation? Would you trust your spouse? Would your spouse trust you?

Anger and over-reactions degrade trust.

Personal Performance

Anger not only affects our relationships. It affects our own performance. When we are angry, we cannot think clearly. We get stressed and distracted. Our bodies get ready for action and our quality of decision-making goes out the window. Have you ever gotten angry and said something you regret? Have you ever done your best work while angry? Anger is a performance inhibitor. It puts us into a negative mindset, and this is detrimental to achievement. Martin Seligman, Shawn Achor, and a host of other researchers are well aware of the benefits of a positive mindset and the detriments of a negative mindset. Achor puts it best in his book The Happiness Advantage, “when your brain is happy, it “performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral, or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, [and] your energy levels rise”. Negativity is killing your gains, bro.

The Right to Feel

“But Clark,” you say, “sometimes things really do make me angry. Shouldn’t I have the right to feel angry?”

Yes. You have a right to feel your feelings. But that is not the point of this article. Remember that emotional control is not about stomping out emotions, but choosing the actions following your feelings. It is about not letting your emotions control you.

There are times when you should feel angry. If you let the anger dictate your next move, you have become a slave to your feelings. And as we discussed above, nothing good comes from being mastered by your emotions.

As you are on the path of achievement, emotional control will allow you to acknowledge what you feel, identify the root cause, and choose the appropriate action to remedy the situation. This is part of the Stoic mindset. Acknowledge what you can control. Your emotions are YOURS to own. They are not thrust upon you by others.

Mastering Your Emotions

So what do we do about it? Here are 4 steps you can take to master your emotions.

1 – Take time

Often times, our overreactions come when we do not have time to deal. We have expectations of how our day or night should go, and then BAM, the universe steps in with something unexpected. We react. Think of every time you get stuck in traffic while in a hurry vs being in traffic when you have time to spare. Which is a more peaceful experience? If you catch yourself emotionally reacting, first do not try to solve the problem right away. The sooner you act, the sooner you will be reacting and not taking intentional action. Instead, when you feel the rage build, take a breath. Take 2, or three… give yourself a moment to acknowledge you need to take the next steps. Then progress to number 2.

2 – Ask the 5 why’s

Why are you angry? Ask yourself this question and you will inevitably provide yourself a surface-level answer. Continue asking why’s until you get to the real root of the problem. The root emotion you are feeling is not anger. It may be fear, injustice, unfairness, etc. Let’s use the bedtime example I shared earlier:

Why am I mad when my kids won’t get to bed on time?
- Because I have more work to do.
Why do you need to get this work done?
- Because my career depends on it. If I don’t get my work done, my boss may think I’m slacking and I won’t get that promotion I’m working for.
Why is your career progress so important?
- Because my career allows me to take care of my family.
Why do you want to take care of your family?
- Because I’m the man of the house… it is my job to take care of them.
Why is providing important to you as the man of the house?
- Because I want my kids and wife to respect me. And for me, providing earns respect. If I don’t provide, what will they think of me? I fear they will look at me like a failure.

After going through the 5 why’s, we can see my real emotion is fear. The root cause is fear. Also, notice this is just a story I tell myself. You could easily argue with me about the other roles of a Dad and Husband. One who supports his kids playing together. One who creates space for fun. With the 5 whys get to the root of your issue. Now move to step 3 to add some perspective.

3 – Take another viewpoint

Step out of your own viewpoint for a moment. Put yourself in another person’s shoes. For example, I can look at this reaction from my daughters’ perspective. If I am emotionally reactive, I can think, “what must they think of me right now? Is this the example I want to set?” Or maybe when talking to your spouse, as yourself, “would I talk to my best friend this way?” This allows you to see your behaviors from another point of view. How does your behavior impact others? After this, finish with step 4.

4 – Own it

You have discovered and acknowledged that your anger stems from fear (or another emotion). Whose fear? Your’s. Your anger and your reaction are your problem. Blaming others for how you react is pointless and will not empower you to take different actions. In this step, own the reaction and the responsibility to act differently. Act with intention in a way that acknowledges your fear, your error, and your desire to do better. For example, the next time the bedtime routine runs over, I can choose different actions. We can start the routine earlier. Maybe I get up earlier in the morning to finish work at a different time. Maybe I change my story altogether.

Wrap up

Losing emotional control sucks. It negatively impacts both you and the people around you. The next time you are angry, walk through these 4 steps. Identify the root emotion. Choose a different action. I’ll leave you with a quote from Marcus Aurelius:

“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it?”

Clark

live like a stoic

Marcus Aurelius: A roman emperor. A stoic. A man who wrote a journal which became a book. Meditations is almost 2,000 years old and has been foundational reading for stoics and philosophers. It was his personal journal, and he reminded himself what was important, what to remember, and how to live. His written reminders generally fall into certain buckets: mortality, purpose, action, focus, helping others, and more. Here are 7 action-based lessons from Marcus Aurelius:

1 – Focus on what is in front of you.

He states, “do what is in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness… stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you… stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions.” How often do you catch yourself thinking of the future or the past? Do you worry about what may come? Stop it. You have a task at hand. Focus on it. Doing anything else is to come at the expense of your current work. Also, focus on you, your work, and your purpose, and not on other people. He writes, “Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around… conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them…” You have a purpose and a mission. Focus on it.

2 – Remember, you will die.

Death meets all of us at some point. Aurelius often reminds himself of his mortality, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” If you were to leave life right now, would you be proud of the life you lived? The actions you took? The impact on those around you? Remember, you will die. Live accordingly.

3 – You are the master of your thoughts.

Your thoughts lead to actions, so better thinking leads to better actions. First, stop worrying; instead, think about what you need to be doing. Aurelius states, “Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people… It will prevent you from doing anything useful.” He also reminds us to think clearly and avoid randomness. “… get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, ‘what are you thinking about?’ you can respond at once, and truthfully, that you are thinking about this or that. It would be obvious from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones- the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be ashamed to be caught thinking.”

4 – You are the master of your emotions.

Marcus Aurelius regularly comments on emotions and distractions that do not serve us. He states that the human soul degrades itself when, “… it is overpowered by pleasure or pain.” He also states, “The angry man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins.” It is not that pain and pleasure are bad and should be avoided. Instead, reacting out of pain and overindulging in pleasure are sure ways to kick you off your path of purpose and intent. In another entry, he writes, “To be like a rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.” Be like the rock and control your emotions.

5 – You are the master of your actions.

How you behave is your decision. When others wrong you, you may be tempted to react and seek retribution. To Aurelius, any wrongdoing that happens to you is simply the universe (logos) pushing you in the direction you need to go. As such, accept what happens to you as what is and choose to act in a way best aligned with your character and intent. Do not waste time with actions that do not serve your purpose. Instead, have faith and trust that all is for the best.

6 – Things ultimately happen for the best, if you accept your power to change.

Aurelius writes about Logos often. He reminds us that things happen to us so we can grow. “It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it… Something happens to you? Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning… Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.” This perspective allows you to move forward through adversity, trusting that you can adapt and overcome. As a leader (and as a human) there is no shortage of adversity, so trust you can manage it, and step up to overcome it.

7 – Mind your own business.

You should focus on you. What is your mission, your purpose, your impact? What are you doing right now that propels you forward? What are you doing right now that improves your life? None of the above answers lay in the minds of others. Do not worry about what others think. He states, “Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you.” If you catch yourself thinking about what others may the thinking or saying about you, remember this teaching. What others think about should not concern you. Your actions and behavior should be your focus.

Also, the actions of others may distract you from your course. “The others obey their own lead, follow their own impulses. Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature – Along the road they share.” If you are minding your business and have clarity of purpose, you will not be distracted by the actions of others.

Meditations is a book you need on your shelf. There are more lessons than just “how to act” which serve as foundational reading not only for stoics, but anyone looking to improve their life.