UNSHAKEN Scientifically Proven Ways to Control Your Emotions Before, During, and After Difficult Conversations

120 Pages·2019·0.67 MB·English

by  Sofia Santiago

UNSHAKEN
SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN WAYS TO
CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS
BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER
DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

Make Anger, Resentment and Frustration Work for You.
Kill the Anxiety and Get What You Want.

Sofia Santiago
D i s c l a i m e r
I’m not a health care professional. If you experience disabling problems
involving your emotions (e.g., chronic jealousy, anger problems, panic attacks),
and/or persistent swings in mood (e.g., bipolar disorder), you need to seek the
advice of a medical doctor immediately. Please do.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
QUICK QUIZ: HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT EMOTIONS?
1. ARE WOMEN MORE EMOTIONAL THAN MEN?
2. DO MEN DECIDE RATIONALLY AND WOMEN EMOTIONALLY?
3. CAN PEOPLE BE RATIONAL AND EMOTIONAL AT ONCE?
4.DO MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT EMOTIONAL CHALLENGES AND ABILITIES?
5. DOES YOUR CULTURE INFLUENCE HOW YOU DEAL WITH EMOTIONS?
EMOTIONAL CONTROL 101
UNHEALTHY ALTERNATIVES
HEALTHY ALTERNATIVES
WE TAKE EMOTIONAL REGULATION FOR GRANTED
HOW EMOTIONS WORK
1. STIMULUS
2. APPRAISAL
3. EMOTION
4. BEHAVIOR
EMOTION REGULATION STRATEGIES
BEFORE-THE-EMOTION STRATEGIES
AFTER-THE-EMOTION STRATEGIES
MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS LIKE A S.T.A.R.™
S IS FOR SITUATION
T IS FOR THOUGHTS
A IS FOR ATTENTION
R IS FOR REAPPRAISAL
SELF-REAPPRAISAL: FINDING YOUR SUPERPOWERS
EMOTIONAL DETTACHMENT
POWERFUL TECHNIQUES TO CALM YOUR FEARS AND WORRIES
FIRST, PUT WORRY IN ITS PLACE
DISTRACT YOUR INNER TODDLER
GET A HOBBY
SUPPOSE THE WORST DID HAPPEN
BECOME A PROFESSIONAL CUDDLER (OR JUST HUG A LOVED ONE) PART 1
BECOME A PROFESSIONAL CUDDLER (OR JUST HUG A LOVED ONE) PART 2
REMIND YOURSELF IT’S ONLY 20 SECONDS OF COURAGE
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A: PREPARATION CHECKLIST
WORKS CITED

Introduction
That morning I woke up with a lot of cramping, so I knew it would happen again.
We were staying at the barracks in Fort Hood, Texas, while our new house in a nearby military
neighborhood was ready. It was 8 AM when the pain started, and by 8:01 my heart was broken. I
recognized this as the same pain I had had on the two previous occasions my pregnancies hadn’t come to a
good term. This was the third year in a row, and it had to happen exactly on the same day we had access to
our house for the first time. Holding back the tears I told Mike, my husband, about my pain.
“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me!” he yelled, furiously, as if I had chosen the
timing. “Today we should be painting the house not going to the hospital!” he
added, slamming the door of our bedroom on his way out.
I stayed in bed quiet, trying to make myself as small as I could. On those days I
wanted to be invisible; living in constant fear makes you feel that way—you just
want to disappear. Except my five-year-old daughter needed me: I was her only
family since her father had passed away when she was just a baby.
A few minutes later Mike came back still mad, and all he said was “Fine.”
I got up and started getting dressed as fast as I could. I could barely make it to
his truck without fainting. My little daughter kept holding my hand and asking
me, “Mom, are you okay?”
“Yes sweetie, I’m okay,” I’d reply.
On the way to the hospital Mike said, “We’re gonna stop at Lowe’s to buy some
paint.”
I pondered whether to reply or not. I decided to speak up. “Why don’t you do
that after you drop me at the hospital?” I asked, trying to keep a neutral voice to
avoid igniting his anger.
“Nah. It will only take a few minutes,” he said, as he always did. It was never
true.
While walking at Lowe’s, I suddenly started bleeding copiously. My jeans
turned red all the way to my shoes. I was walking far behind him, desperate to
catch up with him, but the pain didn’t let me walk any faster. “Wait for us”, I
implored. He didn’t turn. I had asked if I could wait in the car with my daughter,
and he had said, “Of course not! I want you to choose a color too!”
Like I cared about anything other than not dying.
Dramatic perhaps, but fear tends to be dramatic.
“You have great taste,” I had said. “I’m sure I will love any color you pick.” My
sucking up hadn’t worked.
I got so dizzy I couldn’t walk anymore, so I lay down on the floor. Right there,
in the middle of the store. With my little one standing next to me, holding my
hand.
As I write this, and the memory of her sad and confused face looks at me, my
eyes start feeling watery and swallowing becomes hard. All this happened about
15 years ago, but I remember exactly what she was wearing: purple pants, a
white shirt with little pink unicorns, and her favorite pink hair band. She was
carrying her gray stuffed dolphin under one arm and holding me with her other
hand.
I was embarrassed that people would see my red jeans. Then, one of the cashiers
approached us and asked if she could help. I told her what was happening, and
she immediately paged my husband, stating it was an emergency—but he didn’t
come until he finished buying all the painting supplies. She had already paged
him a second time, and gotten me a cup of water and a wheelchair, when he
finally came. He saw us, and turned around to walk away. “Hey,” I said, “Why
are you leaving me?”
“I’m going to buy something to protect the seat of my car so you won’t stain it,”
he said, condescendingly. And he left for what seemed a very, very long time.
The cashier took me in the wheelchair to his truck, where we waited for him to
pay for the paint and everything else he had bought.
He let my daughter into the back of his truck on his side and the cashier helped
me climb on my side. As I climbed up, I turned to look at my daughter, and saw
she was quietly crying. “What is it, baby?” I asked.
“Daddy slammed the door on my foot,” she said. She called her stepdad
“Daddy.”
And that’s when all hell broke loose. I hadn’t yelled at Mike. I had taken all his
cruelty and negligence submissively. Until that moment.
I bet you understand how hearing that Mike had made me wait for him to buy
paint but hadn’t waited for my little daughter to fully climb into the truck turned
me into an enraged animal. I didn’t care about the consequences and I felt
nothing but anger. Even the physical pain went away. At that point, I might have
hit him, because all my emotional control was gone and all that remained was
the outburst of rage that overpowered me.
A part of me really, really wanted to hurt him like he had hurt my daughter. Or
worse.
Still, I didn’t punch him. All I did was yell at him. I guess I hadn’t lost all
rationality. As if, in the background, my rational mind was still protecting me
from the repercussions of punching him, of which swollen knuckles would have
been the least painful.
*
Sometimes it almost seems impossible to control our emotions. And perhaps
sometimes we shouldn’t even try, because there’s a good reason they exist. Take
anger, for instance. Anger exists to give us the fuel to defend ourselves, our
loved ones, our values, and everything else that matters to us, as in my story
above.
Anger tells us something needs to change.
Had I not accumulated enough anger over time to rebuild the minimum self-
esteem and courage I needed to leave that abusive man, my life would have
remained a living hell. And, perhaps more important to me at a time when my
self-love had been crushed, my daughter wouldn’t be the emotionally healthy
young woman she now is.
Anger is the hero in that chapter of my life.
Emotions are good and expressing them is also good, but only to a certain point.
While consistently suppressing your emotions is unhealthy (for instance, people
who tend to suppress negative emotion have health problems[1]), letting your
emotions roam free and out of control all the time is not healthy either. You
might hurt someone and later regret it.
In this book, we’ll discuss alternatives that will serve you better.
We’ll start with a Quick Quiz, just for fun. As you check your answers, you’ll
become aware of any myths or inaccurate stereotypes that may have been
holding back your emotional-regulation skills. You’ll also learn a few tricks to
help you understand and manage your emotions better.
Then, I’ll show you a scientific model of how emotions work. It will help you
better understand why the strategies you’ll learn afterwards are so effective.
Our next step will be to review and illustrate several practical strategies you’ll be
able to use to regulate your emotions and control your worries before, during,
and after a crucial conversation.
Finally, we’ll wrap up with a preparation checklist you can keep as a template
when emotionally preparing for a confrontation.
Let’s get started. Get a pen and your favorite drink.
C H A P T E R 1
Quiz #1:

How Much Do You Know About Emotions?
Take your time to answer the following questions honestly. Don’t rationalize or try to guess the “right”
answer. This is for your eyes only, so use this quizz as an opportunity for insightful awareness. Once youre
done, check your results.
1. What are emotions?
2. People can’t be emotional and rational at the same time.
True False Not sure

3. Your culture influences how you deal with emotions.
True False Not sure