You Cannot Control Your Emotions

Total Read Time = 3 min.

“Why are you crying?”

"Why can’t you control your emotions?”

Because I am human.

Growing up, I was always ashamed of being so emotional.

Whenever I showed my emotions…

• Laughing out loud in public.

• Crying when nobody else was.

• Raising my voice and looking pissed.

I beat myself up about it—I squashed myself into believing I was “weak” and “sensitive.”

My mother judged me for being emotional, but I don’t blame her.

Men should have full control of their emotions, right?

After years of battling with my own heart, struggling with control, and breaking down…

I finally realized:

We Cannot Control Our Emotions

At least, not completely.

Sure, to a certain extent, we can calm our negative feelings down with meditation. We can invite joy into our lives by practicing gratitude.

But beyond that, I’d say the whole notion of trying to control your emotions is flawed.

Think about it:

• If somebody yells at your face, why feel angry?

• If your parents died today, why feel depressed?

• Negative emotions = Bad. So just control them! Don’t feel them, right!?

I hope you see my argument: We “can’t help but feel” our emotions.

We don’t need a neuroscience or psychology degree to know that we can’t just dial up our happiness by 100% or end our depression on command.

If it were that easy, we would all be doing it. No one would have emotional pain.

We are not robots. We are human. Our feelings are valid and volatile.

By nature, they are! Our feelings are our neurological response to both external and internal stimuli (they are created in the brain).

We cannot control our emotions.

But instead, we can make peace with them.

How to Make Peace With Your Emotions

Here is a three-step process for making peace with your emotions.
I call it…

The 3 A’s:

1. Awareness

2. Acceptance

3. Allowing

Step 1) Awareness

• Become aware of how you feel. Try to think of what made you feel a certain way.

• You aren’t trying to change how you feel. You are just trying to understand how you feel.

Step 2) Acceptance

• It’s one thing to know how you feel. It’s another thing to accept what it is and embrace it, not stuffing it down.

• You don’t have to like how you feel (who likes feeling angry, depressed, or lonely?)

• Instead, you can acknowledge your emotions for what they are, and you can acknowledge that you have them.

• Be gentle to yourself—do not judge yourself for feeling what you do.

Step 3) Allowing

• After accepting your emotions, simply allow yourself to feel them.

• Feel the emotions for how they are. They are a part of you. Embrace them.

• And invite peace to your heart.

And once we make peace with our emotions, we can work to gain control.

No, not over the emotions themselves.

But our reaction to them.

From peace, we can make calm, grounded decisions moving forward:

1. Channeling negative emotions into an external activity
   (gym bros know this well)

2. Sharing positive emotions openly with others
   (the world needs good vibes)

3. Calming ourselves
   (through deep breathing/meditation/prayer)

Whenever I feel down, I like to shift my perspectives. I think of how small I am in the vast comparison to the universe.

And while zooming out like this may seem pessimistic, it reminds me of how fortunate I am to have my tiny life.

From this perspective, I gain gratitude.

But your approach to handling your reactions can look different from mine. Trust your intuition and judgment when you control your reactions.

The important thing I want to stress here is how The 3 A’s help us become less reactive and make better decisions. In a way, this is how we don’t let our emotions control us.

This all starts with emotional peace.

Your Takeaway Message

You cannot control your emotions.

But you can make peace with your emotions, and control your reaction to them. The 3 A’s can help you ground yourself and invite peace to your heart.

More importantly, I want to remind you that your feelings are valid—no matter how ugly they may be.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should go on emotional tantrums. More on that in a future Letter.

But be kinder to yourself.

You are human.

That’s all for this week friends.

Now, I’ve been talking for a while. I want to hear from you!

What is something you want to read more about? It can be anything you are struggling with or curious about. Tell me in a reply to this email!

Thank you ❤️

Until then, have a blessed day!

—Chris Son