Managing Emotions
Emotional Self Management builds on the basis of self-awareness and is the ability to control your emotions so that they don’t control you.
It means you're able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.
This activity can be focused on any emotion, but the example we will be using focuses on anger. Make a worksheet similar to the example below to do this exercise. Here are the instructions –
Think of a time when you were angry and how you handled it.
Describe your reaction and behaviors in the space provided in the worksheet.
Fill in the blanks – "The last time I was angry I…"
Once you have filled the worksheet with your answer, move on to planning for how you will handle future episodes of anger.
Think about how you would like to process anger in the future.
Describe healthy management skills and behaviors and write them in the space provided.
You might list management and coping skills like – breathing deeply, taking a break, going for a walk, taking a shower, or distracting yourself.
Write about it.
Keep these planned future coping skills in mind and make sure to pull them out the next time you get angry.
Refer to the list of emotions to get an idea of which one you would like to work on. You can do the exercise for more than one emotion. Feel free to share your experience about the exercise in the comment section below.
When you understand your emotions, you don't let your feelings rule you. You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways and adapt to changing circumstances.
