This post discusses how you can respond with equanimity to life's challenges. Emotional control is invaluable for dealing with challenging situations, whether with toxic people or circumstances that are outside of your control. For instance, toxic people go out of their way to 'push your buttons', ie to trigger some known pain point that you have as a means to feed their distorted sense of power, even without provocation. They want to have you emotionally charged in an unhealthy way, and, if possible; to the point of socially unacceptable and embarrassing behavior, impulsive mistakes, or the like. Example(s) of triggers that may force you into emotional dysregulation.
- A disagreeable person in the sense that the individual is committed to misunderstanding you, even regarding your basic human needs.
- Dismissive Attitudes: The individual may dismiss your concerns without consideration.
- Selective Listening: They might only hear what aligns with their preconceived notions.
- Emotional Reactions: Strong emotional responses that overshadow rational discussion can indicate bias.
- Someone trying to belittle you. This can even include subtle ways like intentionally poor service. In Latin America, anti black racism commonly manifests with a polite smile while forcing the mistreated person to waste time and resources excessively.
- Someone knows you have a spider phobia and forces you to walk past spiders.
- Traffic jam when you are running late
- Malfunctioning technology
Emotional control involves self-awareness in the moment; specifically, your ability to recognize that you are being triggered in the moment, to recognize & heal your wounds that have been opened, to identify your triggers, and, ultimately, to prevent yourself from being reactive to those triggers. In other words, you want to avoid being very reactive that every predatory person exploits your pain point to make you mindlessly reactive, whenever their whims inspire them that way. Both parties, the toxic person and you are acting from within some type of ego, perhaps as an ex with unresolved feelings of abandonment, as a boss feeling insecure by your competence, as someone envious of your competence that makes them feel relatively incompetent and so on.
Professionally, emotional mastery can also make you a better candidate for leadership.
Stella Petrou Concha explains that emotional mastery involves managing conflict and pressure without resorting to violence, aggression, or silence. You are truly calm, ie both internally and externally. You seek deeper understanding, not only of your own perspective but also that of counterparties.
1. Pausing (a practice in self control)
Just to be clear, this is not a suggestion to embrace unhealthy practices like suppressing or ignoring your emotions, because triggers can cause you harm regardless. However, this suggestion is to disengage from the toxic situation and or conduct your interactions with pauses so you can manage the trigger all alone, in private, ie rather than reacting and therefore entangling yourself in the toxicity, as per the ill will of someone else. In private, you give yourself the space and love to vent, be vulnerable as you cry and so on.
A pause is a 'space' between the trigger and your response. It allows you to process and plan before responding in a non-impulsive way. Rest assured, while pausing is difficult, it is possible. Furthermore, while the luxury of long pauses is not always possible, with practice, a pause of as little as a few seconds may suffice. Jefferson Fisher suggests taking a breath before responding.
- Do not react (ie with 2 P's: panic and proceed). Instead respond (ie with 4 P's: pause, process, plan, then proceed).
- You often regret reactions but rarely regret responses!
Example(s)
- Every time you feel angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, remove yourself from the situation so that those negative feelings do not get the chance to fester to the point that you react in other than your best self.
Third-party YouTuber Declutter the Mind video '15-minute guided meditation for self-control | Strengthen your mind and focus' (above)
Why is a pause important, especially when dealing with toxic situations? When dealing with toxic people, the first thing to realize is that, when they are being hurtful, it is unlikely that you can convince them to change their trajectory, for your benefit, especially when their antics are intentional. While some people try to make amends, most never do. Begging them is not only futile but amplifies their enjoyment of and desire to continue the toxic situation. In other words, accept that you can not rely on the next person for your well-being. You can not change the complex issues in their ego. For instance, they might have been triggered by their insecurities of which you or even they are unaware. Maybe you have triggered them. This might simply involve the fact that you succeeded at something they did not, you received good news that is unrelated to them, and so on. In other words, you owe it to yourself to do alone what you can to secure your feelings of comfort and competence.
What hurtful people do to you has nothing to do with you.
I am reminded of the justice card of the major arcana. Its figure removes her bias from the situation and can analyze it in a depersonalized, depolarized way.
Overall and in short, emotional control relates to stoicism. A stoic is described as being calm and appearing almost emotionless or blank. Such a person does not show what they feel. At least during the pause, they accept whatever is happening, by simply observing.
Serenity prayer: "Father, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
Sometimes, the pause is not just seconds, minutes or weeks and so on. The pause is permanent. See YouTube short form video by DailyInspire_67 'A woman with no friends or a very small circle is a very, very secure woman'. If you have the wherewithal to walk away permanently, it is the way to find calmness as a default situation.
Pausing can occur in different ways.
The 'Let Them' theory is an example.YouTube video by Mel Gibbons 'The one trick you need to master to live a more peaceful and fulfilled life' ('Let Them Theory')
2. Reflection (not rumination)
The second key step is to use the pause for dispassionate, analytical reflection on 1) the external event (like triggers of others and likely reasons) and 2) your internal response to that event and why. This step recognizes that many reactions of others and ourselves mask other issues that are often not apparent. Remember, this is not a call-to-action to suppress emotions, but to work through them in privacy.
Earlier I spoke about toxic interactions involving issues like an warranted hatred and power games. Here are some likely issues to consider in such situations.
Unwarranted hatred
YouTube video by Empowerment Zone 'Understanding why people hate you, a powerful message Jordan Peterson' (above).
"It's not that they hate you personally but that they see in you what they failed to pursue ... or embody. ... Stop taking it personally ... Their hatred is a projection of their inner conflict. ... That doesn't make it easier but it gives you clarity. ... Many people build their lives around a fragile foundation of unspoken agreements comfortable lies social masks and Illusions designed to keep their world safe and predictable. ... You threaten the stability of that foundation ... make it harder for them to ignore [their inadequacies]." Jordan Peterson re unwarranted hatred from others.
Commitment to misunderstanding you, even in matters involving your basic human rights
YouTube video by Empowerment Zone 'Stop being nice to a narcissist - Do this instead | Jordan Peterson'. (above)
Narcissists (narcs) do not engage with you from within the same psychological framework as you are with them. Stop assuming that they want meaningful connection or fair resolution and therefore desire mutual understanding, respect and reciprocity. They are NOT interested in mutuality. Instead, they seek dominance over you by ANY means necessary. For instance, the 'means' may include finding ways to break your spirit and confidence to force you in line with their individual goals. It is A MISTAKE to think that you can change this through enough kindness, fairness, good intentions, loyalty, patience, laying out the truth, respectfulness and sufficiently clear communication. Narcs can NOT be motivated through moralistic appeal, only consequences. Do NOT set yourself up for frustration and emotional exhaustion. For you to identify narcissistic traps; focus on people's actions, NOT their words. This includes apologies and other displays of virtue. In other words, look for the PATTERN in their actions.
Examples include the following.
. consistent disrespect.
. gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of lying that forces you to question reality as you know it. They will re-create history, subtly shifting the narrative, even so that you are expected to apologize for something you have not done. Beware, the more engaged you allow yourself to be in their arguments, the more control they gain. The fact that you find yourself defending yourself places you in a subordinate position.
. Intermittent reinforcement is another common tactic. It involves alternating between affection and cruelty in unpredictable cycles. This is a powerful hook because it may trigger in you the psychological mechanism of addiction. Specifically, if they were consistently cruel, it would be easy for you to simply detach. However, you may find it hard to leave because they show kindness from time to time and leave you in a toxic hopefulness and struggle to regain the fleeting moments of kindness.
. Projection. The narc may accuse you of the specific action of which they are guilty. This also manifests by them arguing with an off topic issue, often a sore point of yours. This is a tactic used to deflect attention away from them or the current issue at hand. The tactic is intended to keep you too busy defending yourself to have enough remaining mental power to figure out these tactics.
In short, to survive this toxic relationship, you must detach. Detaching involves not playing along in their game as much as possible; emotionally, and, if possible, physically. After all, trying to get their approval, to explain yourself or show your good intentions for instance is placing yourself in a subordinate role. From their perspective, your placing yourself in such a position only confirms their control over you. Every contortion of yourself to appease their disapproval, defense, etc, signals to such a mind your relative weakness. It signals their ongoing control over you and your emotions, even if you are unaware of this. Your participation in arguments implies that their opinion matters. Remember, you are WASTING your time if you think keep searching for some magical combination of words and or actions to finally tip the scale. If you somehow figure one such perfect combination, they WILL shift the goal post somewhere else because they do not intend for you to ever meet the mark. So STOP defending yourself to someone who is searching for ammunition within your over-explanations. They will distort your intentions, twist your words and so on.
Now here is your biggest challenge! You must walk away from your deep, natural human desire for resolution and justice, because, with such people, it will NEVER come. In short; emotional DETACHMENT. (Just a reminder, this is a matter of unhealthily dismissing your own emotional pain.) This is a matter of remaining unaffected by the narc's provocations; withholding the emotional reactions like distress, frustration, anger that they crave, perhaps to tone police you with the belittling "calm down" phrase or feigned fear. In other words, practice 'pausing', the first step of a stoic emotional control response. So this looks like sitting unresponsively while someone intentionally tries to bait you into an emotional reaction. The baiting could be outrageous accusations against you, slander, irrelevant past issues to strike against you and so on. You need to tell yourself "I do not need to correct their false narrative" and so on. Not easy but this is how to starve them of their supply of sustenance. To be clear, this does NOT mean allowing injustice and sabotage. Instead, it means not participating in the moment in the game.
When you set boundaries, they will test them to force you into breaking your own rule. Consequently, you must ENFORCE your own boundaries. If you say you are leaving the discussion; leave, immediately. If you say you will not tolerate disrespect; don't, immediately. If you say you will no longer explaining yourself; stop, immediately. The moment you allow yourself to be back on trial, they prove your boundaries are only words. Know that you 'winning' an argument is an illusion. They WILL seek to settle the score; some day, some how.
This tough challenge of emotional detachment means you must TOLERATE DISCOMFORT. In other words, you must resist the urge to correct lies and so on. You must practice RADICAL ACCEPTANCE that they will never change. Walk away from bad situations, even when doing so causes you intense emotional pain in the moment.
Brace yourself for the 'extinction burst', which is an escalation of their offensive behavior. It is a last-ditch effort to regain control. For instance, if they only bullied you before, now as you withdraw yourself, they will stalk or otherwise attack you outright. Brace yourself in the recognition that this escalation signals their desperation and your success to this point. Needless to say however, this is the point where most people fail. Remain steadfast with maintaining your boundaries. Decide that you will not wait around for resolution from the narc for your healing and closure because that would signify your dependence and their continued control. Instead, you will give to yourself.
As you walk away, rest assured; their inability to value you has nothing to do with your true worth but their brokenness (ie that their self esteem needs constant upkeep by knocking you down below themselves).
If you need help with that from mental health providers, your tribe, or YouTube videos, seek it. However, keep such external reliance to a minimum because even these usually good sources can fail. Frenemies prove this last point. Ultimately, you are responsible for your well-being.
Stoics stress the importance of recognizing aspects of your situation that you can and can not control. Actively look for those aspects that you can control and focus your thoughts productively on formulating an appropriate response (cognition, verbal or action). During a painful 'pause', exploit your brain's neuroplasticity. In other words, train your mind to use dialectical behavioral therapeutic reasoning to form new neuropathways. Click here to consult the core principles and examples of applied dialectical (DBT) reasoning when faced with challenges. The cognitive agility that dialectical reasoning encourages also reminds me of the 2 of Pentacles tarot card ... and even 5 of cups tarot card that encourages that; while 3 cups have indeed spilt, if you turn around, you will see that 2 other cups remain un-spilt behind you and a bridge is also there to lead you to the other shore.
YouTube video 'What is neuroplasticity: Professor Andrew Huberman explains.' (above)
Understanding and mastering your triggers is critical because they recur in life, according to Stella Petrou Concha, 'as certain as waves crashing against the sea shore, which you must figure how to ride.'
Examples of responses include.
- Silence! No engagement.
- No response to snide comments, ad hominem attacks, etc. You choose that you do not even want to engage in the situation because you have resolved your thoughts on the matter and realize that the other person is committed to misunderstanding. This is an example in which the person operates in a reactive way based on some unrelated underlying issue, like feeling rejected by you, jealous of your accomplishments, and so on. In such cases, recognize that you have no control over the matter, and investing energy into trying to explain is futile. As such, you must focus your attention where you do have control. This is an example in which you will need to shift your mind away from ruminating over that person.
- Some more reflective people would return with an apology in words or actions because your silence gave them nothing further to distract them or on which to build their attacks.
- Setting boundaries.
- I do not appreciate your tone of voice. I would rather X-Y-Z instead. Otherwise, I can no longer work with you.
- Someone's distorted search for empowerment through trying to control you.
- Strategic pushback: Jefferson Fisher's suggestion for when someone tries to belittle you (short-form video) is to remove the potential enjoyment of your reaction for the toxic person.
- Ask them to repeat themselves (as that creates a pause that dampens their dopamine rush), like "Come again?!"
- Ask "Did you say that to hurt me?" [I might word that differently to let them know how much they have failed, like 'that was meant to hurt me?']
- Gentle back off: "I need space to mow the lawn in circles as I like. I will continue to do it in circles.
- Invite a discussion about the heart of the problem. "The way I mow the lawn is not the real issue here. if we did not have to mow a lawn, the garden patio would be the next issue. Something that you are not mentioning is a problem. Maybe we need to resolve that instead."
- An explanation: "The gradient of this yard is circular and the lawn mower is custom-designed accordingly for better efficiency." ... BEWARE, after this point, silence is ideal for those people who are committed to misunderstanding or power-playing you.
- Counteract catastrophizing emotionally triggering situations. YouTube video of podcast by Mel Robbins "6 magic words that stop anxiety and overwhelm" suggests a few things. Observe yourself going into the catastrophizing mode. Recognize that you do not have control over what happens outside of ourselves. We can only control what happens internally. When unable to find out about her daughter's whereabouts while on a solo trip on the other side of the planet, she noticed stress and self-inflicted psychological torture rise in her body as she imagined her daughter's gruesome demise. She suggests 6 words in response to the internal self-inflictions, "What if it all works out?!" For instance, maybe her daughter was enjoying herself, she was fine but unforeseen technology glitches occurred, etc. These words end the downward psychological spiral and force you to see that you simply do not know the outcome but chose to focus on only one negative probability, disregarding other positive probabilities. The initial recognition of a difficult situation inflicts injury already. Negative secondary reactions like anticipatory worry would only inflict further injury. In fact, research shows that they even light up pain pathways in the brain. It also triggers the sympathetic nervous system (ie the fight or flight states) which in turn impairs cognitive skills and executive function. In other words, it ultimately hinders your ability to resolve the problem at hand. You need to stop that! It is necessary to observe this tendency to inflict a second injury to yourself and halt it midway with Mel's 6 words.
- Purpose, not impulse
3. Daily reflection
In addition to mindful reflection after a triggering event, stoics routinely engage in reflection. This is key because such ongoing reflection helps to train your mind towards a more stoic default. Example(s) of focused attention exercises include the following.
- Intentional journaling. When you journal, you can analyze the day's stimuli and your emotional responses. Critically analyze those times during which you fell back into old patterns of reactivity. See every moment (heartbreak, etc) as an opportunity for practicing response over reaction.
- when you fall back into old patterns of reactivity (perhaps your over-explaining, anger, fearfulness, etc), critically analyze why it happened and your learning point. Your task is to prepare a better response for the future rather than ruminating over your failure. (After all, rumination does not achieve anything, it offers no solutions.)
- When starting the day, you can set specific intentions for committing to stoicism.
4. Focused attention exercises
The purpose of focused attention exercises or mindfulness practices is to train you to control the direction of your mind's attention. Considering that the present moment is the only time that you have the power to act, mindfulness exercises stress on engaging your attention there as fully as possible. These exercises train your mind to the present and more calmness despite life's distractions and challenges. Examples include the following.
- Breath meditation. Observe your breath, mindfully noticing each inhale and exhale, then return attention to this exercise if your mind wanders.
- Movement meditative practices like ecstatic dance. See third-party documentary ecstatic dancing documentary. The demonstrative video (below) is one of the best I have seen online. It reminds me how, in the depth of trauma, your child self can find all the answers. I started this practice at 9, long before I knew it was a technique with a name. It is freeing and a total game changer. At 29, I lost myself in dance, unable to sleep for over 24 hours through the natural high. There is no need for mind-altering substances, just the freeing of your mind. I think it is perfect for those who dislike, still have trouble mastering sill meditation practices and or just want a natural high for relaxation. I think these women featured in the video below have captured the practice beautifully. YouTube video by Sophie Sôfrēē 'Dance of the Moon. Ecstatic Dance with Sophie Sôfrēē, Mana Mei & Layla El Khadri' (above). These women dance as though no one is watching. There is no judgment, no choreography, no 1-2-3 steps and so on. The women are fully present in the moment and aware of the beat of the music, flow of water or other natural elements and each other. They allow their entire bodies to respond with those elements and, by so doing, let go from their ego and simply flow. The flow looks different for each person. For some people, ecstatic dancing releases emotions (joy, sorrow, etc) and expressions (sensuality, empowerment). People can become whatever and whoever they want to be (whether a child, an animal, etc).
- Mindful observation. Engage very fully in present-moment activities, including very mundane ones. If this is not normal for you, I suggest setting a daily reminder to check in with yourself.
- Observe the minutiae of an eating experience; the flavor, texture, sight, smell and sound of eating the food. Third party YouTube video by Parkviewhealth 'mindful eating exercise'
- Observe what each of your senses perceive at any moment
- body scan exercises
- Affect labeling. It is counterintuitive that owning your negative emotions in the moment minimizes its control over you. Research shows that it allows you to go into response (versus reactive) mode. For instance, if you recognized, even openly acknowledged your nervousness about public speaking, you are ironically less affected by that nervousness.
- Use the heightened suggestibility of the alpha waves to train yourself to be calm. Alpha brain waves occur in states of deep relaxation, like during deep meditation, hypnosis, and the first few minutes after awakening. Imagine yourself responding calmly during states of deep relaxation. Do this first thing in the morning upon awakening (as opposed to scrolling through social media).
CONTENT RELATED TO EMOTIONAL CONTROL THROUGH STOICISM
- Executive function disorders
- Narcissism, psychopathy & sociopathy
- Narcissists and their flying monkeys
- Machiavellianism
- Character assassination
- Emotional control: responding not reacting through stoicism
- Social psychology
- Cord cutting
- Psychic cords & Psychic Vampirism, Solutions for Psychic Vampires and Victims
- Coercive control (Link to bookmark this section about 'coercive control')
- Article on Coercive Control
- The Dark Threat of Coercive Control by SBS Insight (YouTube video)
- How to prove coercive and controlling behavior by Hear the Truth OnRecord Podcasts / Jill Canvin (YouTube video). A list (above) has been created based on this video.
- Internal links: "What if it all works out";
