Choose your feelings wisely
Do you ever feel like you are sometimes hijacked by your emotions? I certainly do. There is a psychological term for this – emotional hijacking. It occurs when a person’s rational thoughts and actions become overpowered by his/her emotions. Sometimes I find myself being taken over by an extreme emotional outburst or an emotional explosion caused by an incident that has triggered an angry or fearful response in me.
And now for the science bit…
Science has taught us that such emotional explosions are neural hijackings. A centre in the limbic system of the brain, the amygadala (the seat of all emotions in the brain)takes over the neocortex (the part of the brain responsible for our thinking). During this moment the neocortex stops functioning. The amygdala gets triggered and in an instant takes control of the brain, in a sense hijacking it. Thus, it is called emotional hijacking.
While it can feel like the outburst occurs out of nowhere, this is usually not the case. You may be stressed out, or angry about something that might have occurred before. So it makes sense to try to take measures to prevent the hijacking happening in the first place. I am learning to work on this by practising mindfulness, but it is a slow process. I have lived so long reacting emotionally to life, that I have needed to relearn that we are all capable at any time of changing those overwhelming emotions if we wish.
Always, at the heart of our being, we are in control. The emotions we experience are the emotions we create, but we are not what we feel. Listen to what your feelings have to say, and then if they don’t serve you well, choose to let go of them. Remember your feelings are your choice. Choose your feelings wisely.
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Wow this is really insightful and so true! I am consistently emotionally driven which leads me to all sorts of hairy situations, creating a snowball effect…
Thanks for the insight!
Mwah,
Ruby
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Ruby you are so welcome. I am glad it spoke to you too 🙂
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“Always, at the heart of our being, we are in control…Remember your feelings are your choice. Choose your feelings wisely.” Wise words!
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, about his sources of strength in surviving the Nazi death camps, is one of the great books of the last century. For Frankl, life was not primarily a search for pleasure and happiness, but a search for meaning. The greatest task for anyone is to find meaning in her or his life. Everyone is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his or her own suffering. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless. We give suffering meaning by the way we in which we respond to it. “Man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate,” wrote Frankl.
For me, Frankl’s most lasting insight, one that I have looked to very often in my own life, was that forces beyond our control can take away everything we possess except one thing, our freedom to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances and how we will respond to the situation. We cannot control what happens to us in life, but we can control what we will feel and do about what happens to us. We are never totally without as long as we keep the freedom to choose how we will respond. It is this freedom, which cannot be taken away, that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My life is one long sequence of inner miracles.” – Etty Hillsum, the young Dutchwoman, written in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later
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Once again Denis, you have enriched this blog post so beautifully with your wisdom. I had forgotten about Frankl’s book and its relevance to this post. One of the most pertinent and beautiful books written on this subject ever. Thank you for reminding me.
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wow, this post was so helpful – thank you for sharing
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Denis your comment is fantastic!
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Thank you so much for helping me understand my own emotional hijackings. This has been really enlightening.
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This really shows us that we should not let disturbing feelings build up inside us!
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Wow! I really recognized myself in your post today.
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Never knew it was called Emotional Hijacking – how interesting
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I agree that Frankl’s book is one of the most amazing books I ever read.
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Our cavemen ancestors pretty much functioned on a “fight or flight” response. While we like to think of ourselves as better educated, more sophisticated and better at “processing” our feelings, when all is said and done, primitive man’s fight or flight response is still alive and well in our most basic makeup. I think we are more aware of our emotions and therefore, probably better at finding ways to moderate them. I do pretty well on the donut response–I flee–but still need more work my will breast cancer come back?
XOXOXOXO,
Brenda
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What an excellent post – really helped me understand the biological basis of my freaking out!
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Our unhelpful and destructive thoughts use a lot of our energy and resources.
We see this in our breast images too. On our questionnaire we ask women if they are stressed or stressy. It impacts on the hormones and affects breast health.
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This is really interesting Jo. Thanks so much for sharing this with us.
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