Temperance

It's ironic to me that to get mad easily is to have a 'temper.'
And temperance is about balance. It's the part I'm reading about today.
"Keeping our distressing emotions in check
is the key to emotional well-being."

I had an emotional reaction today about my thoughts about
that dude who said "let's go get a coffee" like he wanted to get to know me.
It actually doesn't matter because there will be someone
who will take the time to get to know me
and it won't be just because he wanted to sleep with me.

I did say at least 5 times that I'm not ready for a relationship
and that I'm not thinking about any of that.

However, it doesn't matter. Except I let it bother me.
I let other people's opinions bother me also.
And all that time I spent reacting emotionally to those
is time I wasted because those are old habits that I'm trying to stop.
I realize that I do not have to keep reacting to things that don't matter.
I used to get angry and even more upset. I guess I'm just disappointed,
but really, I can't expect anything. Not everyone understands
that what is important to them isn't as important to others.

"Extremes - emotions that wax too intensely or for too long -
undermine our stability."

This is part of why I was having stability issues. Because I was going to extremes.
I was having extreme reactions. When I didn't need to have a reaction at all.
But what is a reaction? A re-action. Acting a way we've acted before.
To change how we react, we have to change the way we act.

We learn how to act by watching others act the way they act.
But not always, just primarily.

When I'm in a good mood or even great mood, I tend to want to play.
I don't see others wanting to play and they tell me not to want to play.

I tried to tell them: "This is how I have fun."
"That's how you have fun?! What's fun about that?! It's annoying!"
And they are annoyed because it's not a conventional way to have "fun."

"It's not that people need to avoid all unpleasant emotions to feel content,
but rather that stormy feelings not go unchecked, displacing all pleasant moods."

It's not about not getting angry, it's how we choose to express our anger.
There are healthy ways and unhealthy ways.
The healthy ways are mature ways and the unhealthy ways are the immature ways.
The thing is that a lot of people who get angry to an extreme,
have learned to express their anger in a way that someone demonstrated to them.
And they never questioned whether it was healthy or unhealthy.
They never looked at how they expressed their anger
so they keep expressing their anger
in the same way they have since they were kids.
But as we get older, the way a child expresses their anger
isn't appropriate for an adult.
If we never develop the capacity to control our impulses and actions,
then we will never have it. It has to be developed or it won't be developed.
If it isn't develop, it'll just stay at the same level it always was.

I've been able to develop more control over it, myself.
By observing the way I am acting when I'm acting that way.
That's how I can tell I'm having an emotional reaction.
It usually wakes me up and snaps me out of it,
but a lot of the time, I've already acted on it
before I've made the observation. The point is to make the observation
so that I can realize what I'm doing and how I am being.

I know some people will defend their bad habits and defend themselves,
by trying to escape any responsibility for the way they act.
I've seen it a million times and this is what was taught to me.
I had to learn that, yes, I am, and only I am responsible for my own actions.
When people realize that and become more accountable, they feel guilty
for all the sh*t they refused to take responsibility for. I get that. I've felt that.
But no amount of guilt is ever going to change anything from the past. Ever.
The only thing it can change is how we act in the future.

Like certain words trigger me sometimes. Certain other things, too.
I still have no idea why, words are just words...
It's how I feel about it because there's some thought about it
that triggers how I feel about it and I'm reacting to that thought and feeling.
Also the thoughts about the thoughts, the feelings about the feelings.

Like: "I don't like the way I'm feeling right now"
But instead of saying: "What so and so is doing and saying
and how they are acting
is 'making' me feel and think and react this way,"
We can start saying: "This or that may be going on right now.
I don't like the way I am feeling and I don't have to like the way that I'm feeling,
but nothing and nobody is making me feel this.
Feeling this way is a reaction to what I'm thinking about this."

Which isn't the easiest thing to do while you are feeling the way you feel.
But impulses can be controlled. Tempers can be controlled.
Actions can be controlled, and chosen, and changed.
It doesn't happen at the 'push of a button' (see what I did there?)
It happens with reprogramming. Which takes time and effort.
A lot of time and effort to change habitual reactions.
But the point is that it can be done!

We have a steady murmur of background thoughts going on every day.
We also have a steady emotional 'hum.' People's moods are pretty average,
but emotional extremes happen and they can get intense, if we let them.
If we become aware that they can get intense, we can tell people
to stop pushing our buttons, but that won't guarantee that they will listen.
If you tell someone, they might purposely push your buttons
just so that they can react to your reactions. I've experienced this. Many times.

But when we become aware that we don't have to react to it, any of it,
we are that much freer from being controlled and manipulated
by our own emotions. We can learn to take ourselves down
from an escalated state to a less escalated state
by removing ourselves from the triggers or removing ourselves from the situation
and if we can't do that, we have to talk ourselves down from it.
Which is hard. Almost impossible when we are fully engaged with it.
So we have to disengage with the people and even our thoughts.

The times I've had emotional reactions after the event took place...
Was because I couldn't stop myself from thinking about it.
I was engaged with my own thoughts about it.
I still find myself doing this. It is a habit.

But the reaction doesn't last as long because I can watch myself doing this.
I feel myself getting engaged and I tell myself that I don't have to engage.
But this happens after I've already engaged. Not before, yet.
At least it doesn't last as long. It still can get intense depending on
how much it bothers me, but it's my thoughts ABOUT it
that are bothering me. The thing itself is a thing.

"This isn't what I want! They were so rude! How dare they treat me that way!"
All the beliefs and thoughts of injustice of it all.
Instead of like: "Wow, I wasn't expecting that from them.
They ought to know better than to act that way, but they don't." Etc.

Things from months and months ago, even years ago still come up sometimes.
"I still feel the same way about it now as I did then"
and the same thoughts will come up, and the same feelings,
and even when I stop engaging, and know it's been 'over' for a long time,
I know that it'll come back up in the future because I still feel the same way about it.
Sometimes I can let them go after it comes up a bunch of times,
sometimes I still can't. Sometimes it stops coming up, but the feelings are still there.

Either way, it's about becoming aware of it
so that we can work on it and change it by working on changing it.