Suppressing vs Controlling Emotions
Emotions: Suppressing them vs Controlling them.
What do dogs and emotions have in common? How we control them.
I often hear ‘I can control my emotions’ from guys. More often than not though, their idea of ‘control’ is general ‘suppression’. This is 100% unhealthy and we have been doing this too long.
SUPPRESSION: Imagine you have a dog, you tie it up out the back by a chain on a tree, you think you are controlling it, however you are just supressing it, once let loose it will do whatever it wants (most likely attack you for chaining it up or run away).
CONTROL: Take that same dog, imagine you take it to puppy school, you learn how it behaves and train it with commands, you nurture it and appreciate it as part of you. You have increased the odds of it obeying your commands. It will sit on command, come back when called, pee outside. It is under your control as you understand it and work with it.
Guys, taking control of our emotions is masculine, rather than supressing them for them to bite us as soon as they get loose.
A cycle of the process.
Emotions are strong feelings derived from circumstances or moods.
They generally come up through interactions with relationships or your everyday environment.
They are instinctive/intuitive feelings rather than a reasoning/knowledge thinking.
This instinct is a learned behaviour and as such can be re-formed into another reaction.
In Men, the reactions can be disastrous both internally (depression and suicide) and externally (violence and stupid acts)
The easiest way to begin the process is to pause whenever there is a situation and think, what am I feeling, why am I feeling this way and is this a good response.
If you have a partner, communicate to her about these responses you are having to situations. “when you did this, it made me feel like” or “when this happens, I feel..”
This isn’t easy to do, but it is important and will be much better in the long run.
A man who understands and can control his emotions is a much more capable and Modern bloke.