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It's essential to remain level-headed this year. With the biblical significance of the number 8, astrological predictions, historical trends, or claims made by influencers, 2024 is shaping up to be a significant year for those committed to spiritual growth and personal development. As we brace ourselves for potential obstacles, let's explore the art of flourishing in difficult circumstances and dealing with challenging individuals.
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Despite your ability to plan and develop SMART goals for your journey, you may still experience moments of sadness, fear, loss, doubt, worry, and challenging encounters that may affect you emotionally. No matter how hard you try, how incredible of a person you are, or how much success you achieve, there will always be something that has the potential to trigger you into negative mental reactions, which can impact your ability to keep moving forward.
Success, in any area of your life, demands emotional intelligence.
By mastering control in trying circumstances, you can unlock the power to shape your outcomes and enhance your inner well-being.
What Is Emotional Control?
Emotional control is an essential tool that can help you overcome limiting self-beliefs, transcend pain, and navigate through challenging situations. This does not mean that you should suppress or ignore your feelings, but rather, it enables you to make conscious choices on how to react and present yourself to the world. People who are in control of their emotions don't try to numb or avoid their feelings; instead, they face them to grow and develop a deeper awareness of self. By doing so, they build the strength and persistence needed to thrive beyond negative emotions.
Becoming skilled at controlling your emotions takes time and experience. Embrace the challenges that produce emotional responses, for they are the stepping stones to mastering the art of emotional control.
Strength is not attained by avoiding struggles. It is only through experiencing them that you cultivate an unbothered mindset.
Why Bad Things Happen
Challenges are a part of life and no one is exempt from them. When difficulties arise, it's common to question yourself and your journey. You might wonder if life is against you, or if you're on the right path to achieve your dreams. You might even question why God would want you to suffer. If these thoughts cross your mind, it's important to remember that negative events aren't happening to you because you're being punished. Instead, try to shift your mindset to one that helps you learn from these experiences. Bad experiences can often be a chance to learn something new. Instead of asking, "Why is this happening to me?" consider asking, "What can I gain from this?" Remember, bad things happen to everyone, but it's up to you to use them as stepping stones to become the best version of yourself.
Benefits Of Staying Calm
Remaining calm is an underrated skill. It takes a lot of mental toughness and knowing who you are but pays dividends into your life and your ability to thrive in the face of adversity. When you stay calm in difficult times, you give your brain the space it needs to think logically and beyond fear. You begin to assess the situation from the space of who you are and not what’s happening to you. When you remain calm, you welcome your spirit to lead you toward choices, decisions, and responses that propel you into a space of control, inner peace, and confidence. You see, once you understand that you’re not exempt from experiencing challenges, you begin to utilize those moments to help you assess where you are along your self-improvement journey. Are you in a space of reacting to everything sent to destroy your peace or are you remaining focused on understanding yourself on a deeper level? When you remain calm, you are telling chaos, uncertainty, fear, doubt, worry, stress, and all those other negative emotions, that who you are and the #InnerWork you have completed thus far along your journey, does not warrant or demand those emotions to control, direct, or dictate how you live your life.
Developing the Resilience to Overcome
Overcoming the desire to be “in your feelings” takes grit, tenacity, courage, and a lot of self-love. It takes you recognizing that you hold the power to either allow external factors to control who you are or surrender to trusting that who you are is enough. When you commit to a life of progression, you give yourself permission to feel pain, breathe through it, and live beyond the pressure. If you’re not there yet, don’t worry! Life will provide you with many opportunities to withstand and recover quickly from difficulties. When they present themselves, here’s what you should do:
Munch On It - As soon as negative feelings arise, don’t try to push them away or ignore them. Allow yourself to feel it completely and give yourself time to understand why you feel that way. When you try to immediately release or move past negative feelings, it’s impossible to grow. Give yourself the permission to feel, understand, and extract the nutritious value of the experience.
Make It Personal - Make the experience all about you. Completely remove the person, place, or thing associated with your pain. Although who or what initiated it, does sometimes matter, in the grand scheme of who you are becoming, what matters most is you. It’s about you becoming the best version of yourself. It’s about you finding more reasons to love you. It’s about you uncovering why some things trigger you so that you may dilute it’s power and control. At the end of the day, the most valuable way to invest in yourself is to take every difficulty and make it an opportunity to grow, develop, and maintain a healthy perspective about yourself and your life experiences.
Move With Growth - This is where your resilience can be seen and felt by others. This is how you exercise and execute your morals, principles, and values. This is the only way to show difficult people and circumstances who you are. Are you doing the #InnerWork to grow beyond toxic behavior and responses? Are you truly committed to a life of progression? Do you really desire to live your joys? If the answer is yes, prove it with how you respond, react, and make choices. This is the only way to exude emotional control. This is the only way to make yourself proud and silence those negative feelings. You must move in your power and show that you aren’t just talking but truly about that action. The action of improving who you are. The action of developing yourself. The action of knowing and loving yourself from a space that welcomes and makes it easy to love others. You see, as cliche as it sounds - hurt people tend to hurt people. Therefore, if you are not hurting, if you are not in pain, and if you are healing and making improvements within yourself, you must showcase that or else....you contribute to the wound.
Life is all about you. How you handle things sent to destroy you. How you overcome challenges and difficulties. How you choose to live and move forward, despite how you may feel. It is not always easy; sometimes you may cry, feel like giving up, or forget everything you learned and grew into, just to have a moment of being petty.
However, that’s not a good way to use your art. That’s not a good way to tell the world who you are. When life and its challenging moments arise, as Mrs. Michelle Obama once emphasized, you don’t go low. You stay high.
Continue Your Journey to Wellness
Your growth and well-being are ongoing journeys, and we’re here to support you every step of the way. If you found this post helpful, consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi to help keep the content flowing.
Don’t forget to check out our Mindfulness Journals, You Can Do This!, and Soul Work Affirmation Cards, crafted to help you thrive in your everyday life. These resources are here to empower your journey.
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Together, let’s keep exploring and nurturing the best version of you!
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Amirah B. Abdullah, DrPH
Dr. A is a Mindfulness Coach with a passion for helping individuals build the muscle that influences everything they do. For Your Inner G is committed to helping you improve your mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being to support and encourage adulting success!
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