How To Build Superhuman Emotional Control

Welcome to this masterclass called Increasing Emotional Control. Now, this masterclass is for you if you want to increase your emotional control so that you're able to go through life and not feel so triggered, not feel like you're always on edge about to explode, and really just be able to control your emotions. And also, I'm going to hopefully convince you that you should not only be focusing on emotional control and that there's actually something else that's more important to focus on than emotional control. But there are also some very good techniques and things that you can be doing to increase your emotional control as well, and how to increase your emotional control in a way that does not just shove everything down so it stays stuck in there forever, which is what most people's conception of emotional control is, because Like when you think about it, like what I used to think emotional control was, was just ignoring my feelings and never dealing with them. Just pushing them away, locking them up, putting them in the safe and throwing away the key. It's like that's what I used to think emotional control was and that's what it is for a lot of people is they just push their emotions away forever until the point where their emotions— there are so many emotions that have been pushed back into the safe or they push it back in the closet and there's so many things in the closet back there that it's overflowing and Then they get to a point where they're completely debilitated and then they have to focus on what's in the closet. So, I am not going to just say, hey, you increase emotional control by shoving things out in the back, because that's a short-term solution. Like, if you are in an emergency scenario where you can't, like, deal with your emotions, it's fine to push down your emotions. And there's a lot of scenarios in life where, like, you don't want to just be breaking down and feeling emotions. So, emotion control— emotional control is very important. Like, if you're in a business meeting, you don't want to be breaking down. You want to be able to have control over your emotions so that you can function, right, and move towards the goals that you want to move forward to and take logical action despite the emotions that you're feeling. So, like, knowing how to, like, control your emotions is, is very important. But where most people find themselves when it comes to trauma is that they have that closet in the back that is just overflowing with so many traumas and past, past things that they've shoved down. And it is just— it's, it's It's overflowing out of the closet, out of the room, and out of the freaking house. There's just so much that's back there. So I'm not only going to show you how to control it better, but I'm also going to show you how to actually take what everything back there and deal with it and get it out of there for good. So there's actually a less necessity. There's less necessity for you to actually control the emotions because there's just less emotions. And that is like kind of like the overall premise and thesis of what I'm going to be talking about today is like I'm going to give you tools. To control the emotions better. But what's more important and what's better is actually dealing with emotions so you don't have to control them, right? What if you got to a point where you just process all these past emotions so they don't even come up, and then you don't have to try to control them, right? Or you only have to control the emotions that are new, that like the new things that are coming in instead of all the old stuff that's coming up from the past, right? Because I'm not saying that you never will feel an emotion again. I'm not saying that like you're going to go out into the world and you'll just be the Buddha and, you know, just never feel anything. It's like you're going to experience— you're going to experience pain in the future, you're going to experience fear in the future, probably some anger. It's like we're human beings, we experience emotions. But the goal here is not to not feel emotions on the front end or not experience new emotions, it's to not let them all pile up in the back. So we have to control the emotions on the front end and on the back end. And that's when people get overwhelmed, is when You're getting bombarded with emotions on the front, and then you pile everything up else in the back that's coming forward, and then you just go get overwhelmed and you can't control the emotions, right? Because there's just so much of them. And then you get debilitated, and then you start isolating, and that's when PTSD starts to spiral out of control because more stuff keeps coming in the front, but you're not clearing up the things in the back. So that's the overall premise, the overall thesis of, of what I believe about emotional control, because it's not— It's not just about controlling your emotions. It's not getting better at controlling emotions. That's one aspect to it. We want to continually like just improve in all areas of life. But it's like, don't we want to solve the root? Don't we want to like start, you know, chucking out some of those, you know, some of the things that I got for Christmas 12 years ago that are still in the closet that I don't need? Like, don't I— shouldn't I clear some things out and make room for the new so then I can clear that out? I don't know. Maybe I do. I think I do. So anyways, the way that I like to think about this is the stress threshold, which we teach inside of the program, right? So when we talk about emotional control, we all start out with a certain level of, like, a certain strength, certain power to control our emotions. And let's say that's right here. And whatever our level of emotional control is, We can control all the emotions that are below this, this line. So if the y-axis here is like emotional intensity, so I'll just write intensity, intensity. If this is the intensity of the emotion on this side, then, and this is our threshold of how much emotion we can withstand, emotional control is basically asking us, how can I increase My threshold, so I can withstand more. Now, what I'm proposing is yes, we want to increase the amount of things we can control, but also let's say that's whoa TT. Let's see that's T one trauma one. T2, trauma 2. T3, trauma 3. So what I'm proposing is that in order to deal with the traumas in our past, the goal is not just to increase our threshold from here to here so that we can control these emotions. What I'm saying is let's go in there, let's increase it, and let's go in there and start removing these traumas. So not only can we withstand more, but also there's just less. And also, when you clear up all the traumas from your past, you get more energy. So with every trauma that you heal and you process, more energy, more energy you free up, and the less emotional control you need to have. So Let's talk about first, number one, how do you actually improve the emotional control that you have? How do you go from a threshold of here to here? So how do you increase that? Number one is like you need to be aware of when you need to exert emotional control, because if it— if you are aware and you can anticipate something happening, a situation happening where that would stress you out, you can mentally prepare for it, right? So you can prepare yourself for an event if you're aware of it. If you're completely unaware and you're just sleepwalking through life and You know, you don't analyze, you know, this thing triggers me, or this thing makes me anxious, or whatever, then you'll just be walking into traps. It'll feel like you're just walking into trap after trap after trap after trap after booby trap. You know, like, it'll just feel like there's things just constantly happening and pinging, and just all these emotions are just flying by you and flying at you for no reason. So number one is like, you need to become aware of, of when you need to exert emotional control and all the times where you lose emotional control as well, right? So you can think of that as like triggers. Triggers is a great, uh, thing to become aware of because it shows you all the moments and all the things in your life that cause you stress, that cause you to feel very emotional and probably act in very emotional ways as well. So listing out all your triggers, and we do this in the program as well, but just being aware of the triggers is number one. Um, another way is getting— is, is To move from here to here is really just getting better at holding your emotions in, getting better at pushing your emotions down. And I say that temporarily. So pushing your emotions down, comma, temporarily, right? So that you can deal with them and process them, right? But there is an element of being able to hold in the emotions when you need to hold them in. And this is a common misconception some people have when I say you need to release your emotions. Sometimes people interpret that as I need to be an emotional person and react emotionally to all scenarios at all times. All the time. So, if I am at the grocery store and I need to cry, I'm going to allow myself to cry. Or if I'm having a conversation with my significant other and I feel these emotions, it means I need to feel those emotions right then and there. It doesn't mean you can't express them in a logical way, or maybe it is the moment, maybe it is the time to release that emotion in that conversation, but I'm saying you're not making those emotional decisions. You're not reacting out of emotions. You can release emotion. Consciously and logically, you can allow yourself to feel that. So you're not being controlled by your emotions, and that's a common misconception there. But what I'm saying is like you can literally just get better at pushing emotions down temporarily, knowing that you will deal with it with the future. Deal with it. Deal with it in the future, if that makes sense. So pushing it down, like literally, and that's just something that you like you just practice. It's like you get better at pushing it down. However, most of us here. Have gotten to that point where we push it down for so long that it's coming out the front door and we can no longer push it down, right? So that's like, that's kind of like a temporary thing. Does it really, really increase it? Increases it temporarily, increases your emotion control temporarily, and then you might get better at pushing it down over time. But the risk of pushing it down is that you might push it down so far that it becomes very hard to even pull out again so that you can actually solve it, right? So you might shove it so back, so far back into the closet that it takes An extreme amount of effort just to go back there and find it so that you can get rid of it. So that's, that's like the danger of pushing emotions down, but there are moments where you'll need to do it. Now, the next thing that you could do is start practicing some tools that you can utilize in the moment of being emotional. And I just used one right there, which is breathing and the body scan, right? So those 2 tools right there, breathing through your nose slowly when you're stressed, you can do it right now, and just exhaling. Even speaking slower, just moving, slowing everything down, slowing your breathing down, breathing deeper, moving slower will calm you down, calm you down, calm your nervous system down. And then also on top of the breathing. Scan your body, see where the tension is, and start relaxing your body. So the more you can relax your body, the slower that you can move. And just like tell yourself, just slow down. This isn't like— this is something I would tell myself. This isn't life or death. You can slow down. You can take a breath. You can relax. So using just slowing everything down, slowing your breathing down. Scanning your body and relaxing your body will get yourself into a more relaxed state and allow you to control your emotions at a higher level. And that's just, oh, it's just a nice thing when you start breathing slower. Even me, it's like, it feels good. You just start to feel more relaxed. Feels wonderful. I just want to keep doing it. So practicing tools. So the first one was like, push it down temporarily, knowing that you're going to deal with it in the future. Second one, know the tools, which was breathing and body scan, relaxing your body. Third one here is going to be monitoring your self-talk, and I'm actually just going to write these things down so you guys can see them. So push down temporarily to breathe and body scan, and this really was like slow down. Just slow everything down. Number 3 here is self-talk. So what can happen is like when, when something starts to breach your stress threshold, what can happen is that your body starts to react, right? So your body starts to speed up, your breathing starts to shorten, you start to get more tense in your body. And so that's one reaction. So to counteract that, you can breathe and start to relax your body and just slow everything down. Another reaction for emotions crossing your stress threshold can be stress or sorry self-talk. So your self-talk can start to go off in crazy directions, right? So you might get this spike of of stress, which then might cause your body to like react in a certain way, start you to quicken and start you start start you get you to speed up and move faster. And then also you might start having negative thoughts about yourself. Be like, oh man, here it goes again. Blah blah blah blah blah. This is gonna go terrible, whatever. And a lot of times we're just completely unaware of these 2 things, how surpassing our stress threshold can cause us to be— cause our body to react negatively and our mind to react negatively. So a lot of times we're just completely unaware. So the first step is like to become aware of these. Second step is to actually start controlling these, and you start controlling these by monitoring your self-talk, monitoring and being aware of the thoughts that are there, and consciously changing them. To something more positive, saying, hey, I can handle this. Everything's going to be okay. This isn't going to last forever. I'm going to be able to deal with this. Yes, I'm stressed now, but I'm going to deal with this later. Having self-talk like that that actually causes you to slow down, even just telling yourself consciously, say, slow down. This isn't the end of the world. This isn't life or death. Everything's okay. We're going to get through this. We're guaranteed to get through this. We've gotten through everything so far. We got this. We just have that self-talk as you're going through a stressful situation while breathing, relaxing your body, and just getting better at pushing things. That sounds bad, just pushing things down, but it's true. Like, sometimes you need to hold your emotions in, and you can get better at doing that, and you can get better at holding them down temporarily, temporarily, and actually processing them later. So you can actually get better at both ends. You can Get better at holding them down and letting them go. So, that's the third one there, monitoring self-talk. Fourth one is, I'm gonna say preprocessing. I did a masterclass on this already, so I'm not going to go super in-depth with this. So, number 4, preprocessing. Slash plan. So, preprocessing is putting yourself into a stressful situation before it actually happens so you can prepare yourself mentally for it. So visualizing yourself in a stressful situation before it happens so you can mentally prepare yourself for it. That's what preprocessing is. So you visualize this thing happening, this stressful event happening, and then you imagine yourself going through it successfully. That's what I mean by preprocessing here. If you want more information on that, I did a whole masterclass on it. It's awesome. Go check it out. Breathing deeply just feels good. And then the last one here is to actually put yourself into stressful situations. Right? Put— I'll just say, yeah, put self in uncomfortable situations. So then you're able to withstand things more. Now there's, there's an argument of like, do all these things actually increase your emotional control, or do they actually just reduce The number of things that are there. I would say they probably do both, and a lot of these things can be a combination of both. So like putting yourself into uncomfortable situations can increase your emotional control, but then it can also, by putting yourself into uncomfortable situations, remove some trauma and start processing some trauma in the past as well. So the argument is it's kind of a moot point because it has the same effect regardless. But these are just some things that you can do to improve your emotional control. Um, But like I said, the thing that I want you guys to like really focus on is like, this is a great video, just like, okay, here's a handful of tools and things that I can use in the moment so that I can be prepared for these moments in my life where I get emotional, so I can control myself better, so I can function better, right? So this whole video so far has just been like, are these tips, how can I function better? Which is great. It's like, I want you to be able to function better. And also, I want ideally to remove these things from your life for good. I want to eliminate these traumas in your past so that you lack the necessity, you lack the need to have to control everything because there's just less to control. That's my goal. That's what I want. It's like I want you to eliminate the underlying causes of stress so that it reduces the need to have superhuman emotional control, right? And I still want you to increase your emotional control because like Just the more you can handle, the better, right? So like, there's going to be other stressors in your life that's not trauma. That's the point of this as well, is like, not all the stress that you experience in life is going to be from trauma in your past. It's like you, you pushing yourself to become, you know, better in your career, to, to do more, to work harder, to whatever, work on your fitness. All of those are stressors, and you will face those stressors in your life. But if you remove these traumas in your past, you can now fill it up. You can fill up the stress in your life with good stressors, right? So there are good stressors and there's bad stressors. So like you going to the gym, that would be a good stressor. You pushing yourself and working harder at work to either get a promotion or get your dream job or start a business and pushing through that stress there is a good stress because you become a better person from that stress. That is the difference between good stress and bad stress. Good stress is you go through the stress and you're better. Bad stress, you go through the stress and you're worse, right? So like a trauma would be an example of bad stress. It's like you don't want to experience traumas. However, at the same time, you do become stronger over the long term from those traumas. It's just immediately you don't, right? So then like the idea would be like, let's remove all the past trauma so that I can start filling this with like, with like the gym. I want like the stress of going to the gym Being in a caloric deficit and things like that. And I can fill this with the stress of, you know, starting a business, right? Biz. So I can start my business. So then you start removing and eliminating the necessity to have superhuman emotional control over your past trauma so you can start filling your life with positive stressors that actually increase— improve your life and make things better. So definitely increase your emotional control But overall, I want you guys to be focusing on processing, healing those underlying traumas so that they're not taking up all your energy, they're not draining you to the point where you can't do anything, they're not making you so fearful where you can't do things, and they're not just spiraling you down further and further and further and further, right? So that you can replace them with things like going to the gym, starting a business, working on your family, whatever it might be for you, whatever you— like your dreams, your goals, and whoever you want to be. Right. So that's one way. So processing is one way to remove the underlying stress. Another thing is like removing and eliminating unnecessary stressors. So some other unnecessary stressors could be— so you might have like, these are good stressors. Another bad stressor could be like toxic people. Another one could be Just negative, negative inputs in general that cause stress for no reason, right? You surrounding yourself with toxic people does not improve your life. You are not a better person for surrounding yourself with toxic people. That is a form of bad stress. So the more negative inputs that we can remove from our life too, the more we can input the positive stressors in our life. And that's like, that's like a key thing to like to look through life, a key lens to look through life as well, is like Life is stressful, right? Like, if you want to be healthy, it's like you're going to have to be in a caloric deficit. Or if you want to lose weight, you have to be in a caloric deficit and you have to exercise. Really, you just have to be in a caloric deficit, but that's not like fun. It's like, what's more fun than that is like eating 1,000 cheeseburgers. So it's like there's a level of stress and there's like a level of willpower that you need to have to go through, to go to the gym. A level of willpower you need to have to start the business, all those things. So if you're filling your life— if your life is filled with past trauma that's unprocessed and negative inputs and toxic people, you have no room in your life. You have no willpower left over to fill it with the good things to push yourself for, because you need willpower. You are going to face challenges in life. Like, it's hard to start a business. It's hard to go to the gym. It's hard to build a positive relationship, right? All those things take effort and focus, and if all of your effort and focus is being taken up by trauma and negative inputs, then you can't, you can't build a better life. So if you have toxic people in your life, if you have negative inputs in your life, that's another way to reduce the unnecessary stressors in your life. So I want you to be able to reduce the unnecessary stressors in your life. So you can replace them with more positive ones, right? So like negative inputs, if you're listening to like, even there's negative music, like even the music that we listen to programs us and we're not conscious about like the music that programs us. But let's say you're just listening to whatever, negative podcasts, negative crime show podcasts that make you feel stressed and whatever, focus on all the negative in life and how whatever, all these bad things might happen to you as well. You could replace that with a positive podcast, you could replace that with the program, you could replace that with positive audiobooks, or whatever. You can replace that, and then you remove— not only do you remove that, but you also input something that's positive that gets you moving in the right direction. So you start actually reversing the momentum of the feedback loop little by little by little. And it's those little actions taken consistently over time. It might not seem like much if you just start changing one little thing at a time, But it's those little things that add up over time that create the big win. We all want the big win. We all want full recovery at the end. But full recovery isn't one thing. It's a lot of little things added together. And that's why it's important to focus on those little changes, removing those little negative inputs from your life, removing toxic people. Actually, it would probably be a pretty big one. If you remove toxic people from your life, your life would probably dramatically, dramatically, dramatically Dramatically— did I say dramatically? Improve. So it's how you increase your emotional control. But really, I didn't even really talk too much about increasing your emotional control. I mostly talked about how to remove emotional stresses in your life so it reduced the need to have superhuman emotional control. So hopefully this was helpful. I enjoyed being here. Make sure to breathe, relax your body, have positive self-talk about yourself, and have a wonderful day.