Balancing Your Emotions

When you find yourself crying a lot, getting angry a lot, complaining a lot, feeling depressed a lot (you get the idea); your emotions are out of check. You’re being flooded with emotion, which makes “thinking”, good judgment and decision making impossible. This so frequently happens as we transition to the next stage of life. Baby Boomers and those over fifty are starting to experience these overwhelming feelings as they begin to look at retirement and potentially changing the lifestyle they have known.

In order to function at your very best, you need to know how to control and balance your emotions, what Coaches call being in a “charged neutral” state. You’re Charged, meaning that you are in control. You’re Neutral, meaning that your emotions aren’t dragging you around. How do you express anger and hurt, without condemning or blaming others? How do you fit in with others and form good relationships, without loosing yourself along the way? First, you have to figure out what are all of the emotions that are beating you down? Next, how do you deal with them?

Tired, exhausted, no energy = usually this is an indication that you are concentrating too much of your energy on one thing; it’s sucking the life out of you. Try balancing the physical output with some real self-care. Adding in rest, fun, doing something just because you enjoy it, will keep you from draining yourself physically and mentally.

Resentful, martyrism = think of this emotion as secondary to hurt and anger. Usually, resentment is an indication that you need to speak up about something. If someone has done something hurtful or made you angry, check your emotion first – “Is my anger/hurt real and justified?” If so, then, remember, “charged neutral”, speak from your heart and let this person know the way you feel and why. What can be done to change the situation?

Frustration = typically this arises out of committing to too much and not taking care of yourself, your needs and wants. Take a hard look at all that you do, only keep those that have real meaning and are positive for you and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Design the Life you really want, not what you think you “should” have or “should” be doing.

Overwhelmed = make your list of things you think you “need” to be doing. Look at your list – does this really “need” to be on MY list? Who else could do this or help with it? Does this really need to be done? Will it make a difference? What can I never put on my list again? Once you’ve got the list down, then just start taking some steps to move forward, finish, get things off of your list. The goal is to get to a point where you don’t “need” a list!!!