Nowadays, I have been observing the weather very closely, and I feel that constantly changing weathers, help me to step into the wisdom of my emotions. We might not like the weather, but we accept it. Similarly, even if we are not comfortable with some emotions, what if we could accept them. Every weather teaches us something, and every emotion teaches us something. No weather lasts forever, just as our emotions do not last forever. The more I think about it, the more similarities I find in weather and emotions. People experience approximately 27 emotions during every waking hour! Rather than ignoring them, what if our goal was to move towards them, into them, and eventually through them. In this blog and the upcoming ones, I will share how every weather teaches techniques to manage emotions.
Let us look at hot weather. Hot weather reminds me of the moments when our amygdala gets hijacked, and we end up reacting instead of responding. Here are some analogies that may help –
When you enter a room during summer, the first thing you do is switch on the fan or the AC. Similarly, you could ‘pause’, and get in touch with your breath when you encounter “hot trigger” situations. ‘Pause’ is an effective tool to cool down. It helps to activate the rational brain allowing you to respond rather than react in your default patterns.
When you go out during hot weather, you wear sunglasses. You can change the lens with which you are looking at things. You can work on the triad -the three things that impact our emotional state, focus, physiology, and language. Ask yourself –
What are you focusing on?
How are you using your body?
How are you speaking internally and externally?
You can start with whatever comes naturally to you. If you are
wearing the lens of focus, ask yourself, where are you
focusing right now?
If you are wearing the lens of physiology, breathe, change your location, move around, go for a drive, go to a different room, etc.
If you wear the lens of language, check your self-talk. As Tony Robbins says, “Nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning you give it”. Note the meaning that you give to a particular situation and how it serves you. Also, observe the way you talk to others, for example, if you say to someone, “You
are making me upset”, then you are giving the remote of your happiness to that someone. With this awareness, you can build your proactiveness muscles by owning up that you are upset.
Let me know which tool you found most helpful in dealing with hot trigger situations.