Talk It Out
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a biologist or a psychologist. This is just based on my observations.
Whenever you are having a strong, unhealthy emotion: anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety, TALK IT OUT!
Am I the only one that can take a small little thing, for example a side eye glance from Aiden, and BLOW IT UP? I can take that half second glance and roll it over and over in my mind until I have got myself all spun up. I will be mad as hell over that little glance. I will spend hours stewing on what she meant by that and how disrespectful it was and how dare she. And then, David will come home, and I will tell him about it, and I swear as the words are coming out of my mouth, the anger is defused. Why?
Well, with the little knowledge I have from a few Psychology classes and a few Physiology classes, I started pondering on it, and this is what I came up with. Picture with me your brain. Now imagine there are little boxes inside your brain that we can label. Let’s label 2 of the boxes: #1 Emotion Center and #2 Logic Center.
Emotion Center box is where Anger, Frustration, Sadness, Anxiety, etc. live. The Emotion Center box does not have the capability of doing anything outside of your body, such as making you walk or sit or wave your hand. The Emotion Center only effects you and your internal feelings.
The Logic Center box is where your rational thoughts, learning, language, music, etc. live. The Logic Center has multiple ways of expressing itself and is capable of effecting the world around you. When we can push our feelings from the Emotion Center to the Logic Center by using the language skills in the Logic Center to form words to be spoken out loud, all of a sudden, we can experience those feelings in a whole different way.
Speaking your emotions out loud is a powerful thing! As I spoke the words, “Aiden looked at me all side eye, and I am so ticked off,” I had to use my Logic Center to form those words and gave my Logic Center a chance to process that emotion for me. Once the Logic Center had a crack at it, I was able to see that I had blown that WAY out of proportion and was being kind of silly about the whole thing.
Talk it out! Talk to someone, anyone. Just the act of talking may be enough to banish those ugly emotions, or maybe they are more serious and talking about them can allow someone else the opportunity to offer you support. Don’t bottle up your unhealthy emotions so that they fester and harm you. Don’t allow those emotions to steal your joy!
