The Sneaky Mental Rule that Lets your Emotions Control You

Summary

This video explores the common mental rule that dictates controlling one's emotions, particularly focusing on the notion that expressing emotions is a sign of weakness. Using stories, such as the one of a man avoiding watching football because of the emotional pain associated with his father's passing, the video highlights how this rule can impede living a fulfilling life. It shares examples of how avoiding emotions can lead to avoidance of life activities and relationships. Instead, it suggests embracing emotions and making choices based on love and connection as a pathway to a richer life.

Highlights

• Learn why avoiding emotional experiences limits your life. 🚫
• Discover how embracing emotions can lead to a more fulfilling existence. 🌟
• Understand the role of emotions in shaping our life choices and relationships. 🤝
• Explore strategies for managing emotions without letting them control you. 🛠️
• Hear stories and examples that illustrate the impact of emotional avoidance. 📚

Key Takeaways

• Controlling emotions is not about avoidance; it's about learning how to live with them. 🌊
• Avoiding emotions can prevent you from experiencing meaningful parts of life. 🚫
• Emotional resilience comes from allowing feelings and making choices based on love and connection. ❤️
• Expressing emotions is not a weakness but part of a healthy life experience. 💪
• True strength lies in handling emotions and not letting them control your life's decisions. 🔄

Overview

Have you ever stopped yourself from doing something you love just because it might stir up emotions? You're not alone, and this video unpacks that sneaky mental rule which suggests controlling emotions by avoiding them. With relatable stories, like a man's struggle to watch football after his father's death, it paints a picture of how this rule creeps into daily life, unintentionally steering decisions and interactions.

The video doesn't stop at just identifying the problem; it advocates for a change in the way we relate to our feelings. By comparing avoidance with acceptance, it highlights how you can live a richer life by embracing your emotions rather than bottling them up. Practical examples show how even difficult emotions, like anxiety at a funeral or guilt when setting boundaries, can be managed in a way that honors both your past and present self.

Ultimately, it offers a refreshing perspective that challenges the ingrained notion that emotions need to be stifled. It empowers viewers to make decisions not based on fear of feeling but grounded in love and personal growth. By retraining our emotional rules, the video promises a path toward a more joyful and resilient life, suggesting that the real strength lies in the ability to feel fully and deeply while still pursuing one's dreams and aspirations.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: The Sneaky Mental Rule The chapter discusses a 'sneaky mental rule' where emotions can take control. An example is provided of a man who hasn't watched a BYU football game since his father died, revealing his fear of feeling or possibly crying. This illustrates the mental rule that one must always control emotions, suggesting that emotions dictate behavior and decision-making.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Cultural Background and Emotional Control The chapter 'Cultural Background and Emotional Control' discusses how cultural upbringing influences emotional expression, particularly in older generations. It uses the example of a 60-something-year-old man from a conservative, rural background who likely learned that 'boys don't cry' and showing emotions signifies weakness. This reflects how he has been conditioned to control and repress his emotions to appear strong, highlighting a cultural norm that suppresses emotional expression. The chapter suggests a balance is needed between emotional control and expression.
• 01:00 - 01:30: The Consequences of Avoiding Emotions The chapter discusses the misconceptions around expressing emotions and the societal rules that discourage showing emotions, labeling it as a loss of control. It emphasizes the negative impact of avoiding emotions, such as cutting out activities one loves to prevent emotional exposure. The example given is someone who stopped watching BYU football to avoid experiencing or displaying strong feelings associated with the game.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Real-Life Examples of Emotional Avoidance The chapter discusses the concept of emotional avoidance using real-life examples. It highlights how adhering to rigid mental rules can lead to avoiding important aspects of life to maintain emotional control. This avoidance strategy, though intended to prevent emotional discomfort, often results in losing control over making life choices that matter. The chapter aims to encourage replacing these unhelpful mental rules with more supportive ones, thus promoting a richer and more fulfilling life. The narrative starts with an example of a person who avoids thinking about his deceased father to prevent crying, demonstrating the struggle between emotional expression and the ingrained belief that emotions are negative.
• 03:00 - 06:00: Overcoming the Need to Control Emotions The chapter discusses the societal perception that emotions, particularly negative ones, are embarrassing and need to be controlled. It highlights how internalized beliefs, like considering crying as a sign of weakness, lead us to suppress feelings. However, in the attempt to avoid emotions, we inadvertently allow them to control us. The chapter questions how one can enter a new relationship without fear of heartbreak, noting that the only sure way to avoid being hurt is to avoid relationships entirely.
• 06:00 - 09:30: Conclusion and Encouragement The chapter emphasizes the importance of controlling emotions not by suppressing them, but by understanding and managing them in relationships. It criticizes the strategy of keeping people at a distance to avoid getting hurt, arguing that this prevents the development of meaningful relationships. The key message is that by letting the fear of being hurt dictate our emotional responses, we fail to form strong connections with others.

The Sneaky Mental Rule that Lets your Emotions Control You Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 here's the sneaky mental rule that lets your emotions control you I heard a man say that in 30 years he never missed watching a BYU football game with his dad but his father died two years ago and he said I haven't been able to get myself to go since then and as I listened I realized that what he really meant was I haven't been able to go without feeling something or because I might cry and he has this sneaky mental rule that says you have to control your
• 00:30 - 01:00 emotions and and this makes sense right he's a 60-some year old man he grew up in a conservative R rural town he was probably trained from a young age that Boys Don't Cry and that having emotions or even worse showing emotions was a sign of weakness or a sign that you're failing to control yourself and I'm not saying it's better to let your emotions control you either hang hang with me for a minute right so he's a good man who tries to live right so he followed that mental rule that basically implies you
• 01:00 - 01:30 shouldn't do something if it makes you feel or Express a negative emotion showing emotions means that you're losing control but here's the real problem when you have that rule that you have to control all of your emotions how that really shows up is through the second rule which is if I might get emotional I should avoid that thing so he cut something out of his life that he loved in order to avoid having or showing feelings he could no longer watch BYU football because he'd lose
• 01:30 - 02:00 control he might cry thinking about his dad and that would break this sneaky internal mental rule by maintaining his internal rule he lost control of choosing how his life would go he had to avoid something he cared about in order to control his emotions so let's talk about how to replace that mental rule with something that's a lot more likely to help you live a rich and fulfilling life so many of us have picked up messaging that emotions are negative or
• 02:00 - 02:30 embarrassing that they need to be controlled that crying is shameful so we've internalized this mental rule that says something like I don't let myself feel so-called negative emotions because that makes me weak and then in trying to not have feelings we accidentally let them control us let me give you a few more examples how do you get into a new relationship without being afraid of having your heart broken the only way to guarantee that you can't get hurt is to
• 02:30 - 03:00 control your feelings to Tamp them all down and how do you do that whether it's a romantic relationship a friendship or a family tie you avoid getting hurt you avoid hurt feelings by keeping the other person at arms length you don't really invest in the relationship trying to avoid getting hurt prevents you from building good relationships you think you're controlling your emotions but you're really letting your fear of being hurt control you it decides for you that you will not get close to anyone we're really focused focused on here is how
• 03:00 - 03:30 you can make choices that help you live the life that you really want to you can influence your feelings by how you think you can influence them by how you act you can influence them with your relationships and with the choices and the decisions that you make but if you have a rule that you have to control your emotions it doesn't leave you with that many options other than avoidance let me give you another example Rachel was a guest on my show she shared her story about doing better with anxiety in the comment section someone asked how do you go to the store without worrying the only way to want 100% guarantee that you
• 03:30 - 04:00 won't feel some worry is to not go to the store so avoiding anxiety is preventing you from doing your shopping you think you're controlling your anxiety by staying away from situations that trigger it but instead you're letting anxiety make your decisions Rachel learned the skills to decrease her anxiety but the only way that she took back control of her life was by doing things even when they made her anxious she had to let go of some control in order to gain back the life
• 04:00 - 04:30 she wanted it's a paradox isn't it so let's talk about panic attacks right let's let let's do another example with panic attacks how do you make sure you don't have a panic attack in public the only way to 100% control that is to not go out in public suddenly Panic is running your life and deciding where you can and can't go trying to control panic attacks usually fuels them but it also drastically limits the types of activities you can do so the Paradox of panic attacks is that you can learn to stop them by allowing yourself to have
• 04:30 - 05:00 them okay let's talk one more boundaries are another one it can feel really scary to set a boundary and to hold it so how do you set this is something people ask me a lot how do you set a boundary without your voice shaking or without feeling guilty and the only way to guarantee that you don't feel something is to not set a boundary or to numb yourself with a substance or to get really angry first so that you don't feel guilty and still you're out of control of your life again trying to control emotions is actually letting them emotions stop you from setting a
• 05:00 - 05:30 boundary the author of boundaries said that feeling a little guilt when you set a boundary probably means that you're learning and growing okay here's another one another subscriber asked me how do you not cry at a funeral now by now you probably realize that the only option here is avoidance you can skip the funeral or you can attend and you can just try to stay numb to try to not care but why would you do that a funeral is a good place to gather and to remember the good things about the person who finished their life and to mourn
• 05:30 - 06:00 together the emotion is part of love it's part of the experience of love so avoiding crying is actually forcing you to avoid some of the most beautiful loving parts of yourself and and to try not to remember the beautiful loving parts of your relationship with that person so can you see how ridiculous this mental rule is I have to control my emotions it implies that if you have a feeling you must be doing it wrong so then you arrange all of these elaborate avoidance habits to prevent yourself from from having feelings but it's the
• 06:00 - 06:30 avoidance not the feelings that ruins your life suddenly you're not going to the store watching football setting boundaries or supporting your loved ones your attempt to control your emotions backfires now I'm not saying that you should let your emotions control you emotions should not be in the driver's seat either they should not be making your decisions there are a lot of long-term strategies that can help you be more resilient more confident and decrease your overall anxiety and increase your happiness these are things like scheduled worry POS positive affirmations the locus of control
• 06:30 - 07:00 exercise uh building up positive support living a Valu spased life facing death honestly and carefully all of these are skills for experiencing emotions in healthy ways without just stuffing them down and controlling them so I'm I'm not going to give you a magical strategy to make your emotions go away because guess what emotions serve a function anxiety prompts us to be careful crossing the street guilt can motivate us to make repairs or make better choices in the future love and pain connect us to
• 07:00 - 07:30 people you cannot selectively numb just the painful emotions when you choose to not feel the negative emotions you numb the positive emotions as well so hear me out here a lot of emotions are painful that's okay we cry at funerals because we care about people they matter to us we helped them they helped us the only way to not care about them is to not love them to disconnect and to withdraw so we've got to replace our old rule of
• 07:30 - 08:00 you've got to control your emotions with a new rule the truth is that truly strong people have gotten so good at having all the feelings they can worry and do the thing anyway they can feel unmotivated but they start anyway they might be afraid of being hurt but they choose to love anyway the new rule is I can influence my feelings but I can't control them I'm going to allow myself to feel difficult or uncomfortable feelings
• 08:00 - 08:30 but I'm going to make my choices based on love connection and living a rich and fulfilling life not on trying to control my feelings and there are exercises to build up these skills you could you could check out my other videos or the courses on my website here's the bottom line feeling safe with your emotions isn't about controlling them it's about trusting yourself with them you can develop the skills to build trust in your ability to handle your feelings and when you trust yourself with your feelings you don't try to avoid them and
• 08:30 - 09:00 they don't control your life so feel scared and do the thing anyway feel sad and love anyway allow yourself to have the occasional panic attack and get out of the house anyway to my BYU loving friend go watch that football game even if you cry a little bit let yourself feel the love and the Nostalgia and all the good memories with your dad cheer for the touchdowns yell when they fumble or have a turnover and let yourself feel all the feelings you're going to begin to trust yourself that you can have feelings and live a rich and meaningful
• 09:00 - 09:30 life too the painful and the joyful emotions are all part of it and you're going to find that it makes you stronger and happier so go live that life [Music]