Five Ways To Handle Emotional Situations

How did you handle the last intensely emotional situation you were in? Because the way that you handle that is directly related to your success, to your reputation, to your ability to learn, to your ability to navigate the world. And when we're unable to keep control of our emotions in those intense times, that's when we blow up. That's when we choose poorly in life and make things harder for ourselves or can do irreversible damage to relationships, to projects, to purposes, to our missions. And we really don't want that. So. Hi, I'm Sean Butner, certified High performance coach, and this is all coming up. This topic's hot on my mind for this week's video because, you know, it's been really intense the last month or so with me because I had to move my dad from Chicago to Seattle, and that was a huge mess and a lot of emotion going on there, which I'll explain in a minute. He was then in the hospital for a while, so that was really intense. And through it all, there are a lot of emotions. Right. It's difficult seeing a parent who is very physical in their work and in their life growing up to now be, you know, having a hard time moving around and just having a hard time in life. It's hard to have a lot of that responsibility fall on your shoulders to help him get the house cleaned up and get him packed and moved across the country. Thanks. Thankfully, I had some friends that could help out, but, you know, that was a lot of emotions, A lot of emotions going through. Just how the house had frozen in time after my mom passed and having to deal with those subtle reminders and kind of being poked and reminded that, hey, like, you're still kind of grieving about that, even though it was seven years ago. So there's a lot of situations in life, and that's just, you know, in my personal life, I've had, you know, people scream at me at work when I was working in tech. I've had, you know, people just completely shut down at work because they were burnt out and just could not catch a break. And so one of these essential life skills, in my belief, is to really be in control of your emotions, but not in a way where you're just stuffing it down. You know, that was something I had to learn, too. Growing up. I was definitely a stuff your emotions into the dark pit in your stomach and eventually it would go away, but that's never really the case. So, you know, as we're talking about this, you know, I. Handling emotional situations isn't being Emotionless in a situation. And so I wanted to make that distinction because a lot of times when we feel emotion and those intense motions and anger. Anger or anxiety or, you know, motivation or whatever it is, it's basically a response for our body to go into action, right? And, you know, if we look at how things used to be way back before we had civilization and stuff, it was like, fight the line that's attacking us. Run away from it. Those types of very kind of more basic instincts that we've inherited from, you know, previous, you know, iterations of humans. Or it's. That's not how today's work world works. That's where I'm going with that. It's. We don't have to have those responses, but because we're physically in danger. But having someone scream in your face for no reason at work can trigger that response where you want to fight them or you want to run away or you want to, you know, do something to move that situation. So we have these urges and these things that come up all the time. And how do you manage it? On a scale of 1 to 10, the last big emotional situation that happened in your life, how did you handle it? 10, being like, nailed it. I felt in full integrity. I felt it full of character. I felt like I handled it the best way I possibly could. And one being the exact opposite. Hot mess. Really dropped the ball on it. Probably hurt my career prospects, probably hurt particular important relationship or important work relationship or something of that nature. Or I really hurt the cause that I was working on. And so write that down and think about, what do you think really could have helped you move through that in a different way? And I love that question. Before I go into the five things that I consider important in managing your emotionality in those intense situations, because, like, it's such a good. Everyone has their own way of doing things. So, you know, something might come out from that that is helpful. And so it's really worth journaling on that. So, okay, so as you're journaling about that real quick, hopefully you have your notes and whatnot. So I have five things that I think through when I have an. A very intense emotional thing, a situation come up, and I'll share some examples of how that showed up in my life. Right? So the first thing to do when you have one of these intense emotional situations is to call upon your best self. Like, literally in your head, you're going to be like, okay, like, how was the best version of me show? How would the version that I would be Proud of, show up in this particular moment and you know, for me, those couple of moments that defy me, or like when the first time I performed music in front of people, I was so scared. But I knew that I needed to do it to be able to have somewhat of a functioning life after high school. So at that, I've told the story a bunch of times. I had signed up. A friend was running a coffee club after school in the school auditorium. In high school, my junior or senior year. I was super shy, super introverted, and the last thing I wanted to do was get up in front of my peers and play guitar and sing because I couldn't hold. Hold a tune. And I had like three months worth of lessons. I could barely play. I could barely hold the damn guitar, let alone play it and sing at the same time. But I knew I was going to college. I knew that if I was going to have. I needed to make friends. And in order to make friends, I'd have to get over some of that social anxiety that I constantly felt growing up. So how do you do that? You put yourself in situations where you proved yourself. You can work through it. And so try to like the going on stage. I remember, like, the lights. I remember being called on. I remember dissociating from my body a little bit, you know, And I also remember, like, I had the thought, like, I could just not do this. You know, there's always a choice. We always have agency in our life. And I remember thinking, like, no, this needs to happen, and whatever happens, happens. And then you'll know how it is to basically make a fool of yourself in front of a room of about probably 50 people. And it turned out that people were supportive. I got people clapping, people singing along these songs that I thought were kind of obscure. And yeah, it helped boost my confidence. So. But it happened because I knew that the best version of my story of myself, even though I didn't feel it at the time, and I was really fearful and anxious and wanted to throw up and all of that. In that moment, I'm like, no, I can. I can get through this. And my best self, right, the version of myself that I want to be does this in my head going forward. So that is a very powerful tool to help you move through some emotional things, whether it's fear or sadness or, you know, depression. And for a lot of those big emotions, since we are talking about emotions, make sure you talk to your mental health professional if you are really struggling. You know, I. I'm a coach. I deal with Psychology, I help people develop that positive frame of mind, but I can't help trauma. And, you know, so we're kind of leaning inching towards that gray zone between coach and therapist. And I just want to point out that I'm not a licensed therapist. You should go see one if you think you have issues that you really need to solve. Or you can sign up for a free one hour strategy session and I'll pick up on that real quick and be really quick to refer you to a mental health professional. So if you are constantly trying to handle emotional situations or control your emotions in a way that helps propel you forward, that strategy session could really help you. If not to just say, hey, you probably have some trauma. Go talk to the people that know how to deal with it. That's not me. So there's a link below there to sign up to apply for that free one hour strategy session and then get it scheduled. So hit that link if you're interested. I'd love to help you in that way again, either if it's redirecting you to the proper authorities, the proper people with the skills that can help you, or using the high performance stuff, which is really good at helping you make better choices going forward. So I offer that to you. So, okay, second thing to do when you are in an emotional situation that's overwhelming that could cause you to lose control, because losing control makes it worse, is to try to redirect the emotion in the moment and not block it. Right? As soon as you start to block it, that's when your head goes kind of all weird and screwy and you're not able to make decisions going forward because you're trying so hard to hold everything in. At least that's been my experience. So redirecting is like the situation I alluded to at work where this guy was out to pick a fight and it didn't matter what I said, how I communicated to him, and I had a whole bunch of different ways that we talked with each other about this particular thing that he was really upset about. And he came in and he's like, starts cursing me out, you know, you effing mother effer moth. You know, fff. And like just going really, like kind of amazing, right when that happens and somebody is blocking you from leaving your office red in the face, screaming these profanities at you. And so, you know, your initial thought is, at least for me, it kind of triggered like the bully thing. It's like, oh, you're gonna bully me? I'm going to get in your face and start screaming. And I'm taller than this guy. And, like, it would have escalated to a fight, which is not ideal when you're working in a giant corporate tech company. You know, generally it's frowned upon to get into a fist fight. And so I remember thinking, like, okay, if I respond calmly and I talk slowly and I don't make any sudden movements that are super threatening, I could probably get by this guy and probably get to a manager and probably, you know, get to a place where we can actually resolve this. And so, you know, instead of having that, like, hot energy come out and come out as screaming and getting, you know, in somebody's face, it just came out as a deep breath and like, hey, we need to go talk to a manager. Hey, come with me. Let's go do this. And I gently walked past him. He didn't, like, try to stop me, thankfully, and he still was kind of yelling at me as we're walking. But he just kind of, like, got walking, got moving, got to the manager, and then, you know, was able to be like, hey, this is not really cool to have somebody this pissed off. And, like, you go on from there. But again, that was what my best self would have done in that moment. And redirecting that into purposely trying to be calm helped me not get caught up in the immediate, aggressive, kind of let's go fight this guy type energy. So redirect, don't block again. Third idea to think of as you are handling emotional situations is it really starts from all the work that happens before then. So it's much easier to respond calm and coolly and collectively and to keep control of yourself. If you're coming from a positive mindset that you've been fostering outside of said situation. And what do I mean by that? It's doing your health routines so that your body feels relaxed and strong and loose. It's from doing journaling to, you know, I mean, the classic thing in personal development is the gratitude journal, but, like, just taking account of why you're successful, all the good things going on in your life, those types of things. It's priming your head with questions in the morning in the shower of, like, what am I excited about this week? What am I excited about today? What do I hope to get accomplished today? How can I make the day for my spouse? You know, those types of questions that happen every morning should happen every morning. If you don't have that habit, I highly recommend those questions. What am I excited about? Who can I. Whose day can I make what do I got to do today? And then the other question that I do in the morning, like that is what's something that's going to cause me to stumble that I can plan around? And so in case it happens, you know, I have the backup plan, right? So what's going to something that's going to cause me to stumble that I can plan for right now so it doesn't impact me as much. And so that's all happening in the shower in the morning. So that's super great. So usually entering my workday when I worked in corporate America or now in my coaching business, I'm starting the day happy and excited and looking forward to something that day and making my wife's day a little bit happier too and all that stuff. So when something happens, it's not an immediately like, you know, it's like, oh, okay, like I can recognize it and have the ability to then what would my best self do in this? How can I, you know, get my body moving a little bit to redirect this energy so it doesn't like well up and pop. And so that's the power of having a positive mindset. So again, whatever habits you do, health wise or mentally to help you foster that happy, healthy mental state is great. But again, mine is exercise and mine is those four questions in the shower in the morning. So check it out. Okay. Fourth idea to handle emotional situations is to take responsibility for your part in it. Right. And what do I mean by that? Like in that situation where that guy came in screaming at me, it's like I knew that I had done something to upset him. And so it's not, I'm not responsible for their response, I'm responsible for my response. Right. It's a Dale Carnegie quote that, you know, we can't control what happens to us, but we can control our attitude on what happens to us. And a lot of times that'll make or break how you respond. Like if you're like, oh, this is happening, okay, like that's where this goes. I'm confident I can get through this and I also will take responsibility for how I am going to respond to this. It's much different than when you yelled at me. I snapped back at you. Right? That, that, that very unintentional response. And then it's not what I did, it's what they did to me. Right? That kind of like, I don't want to say victim mentality, but it is kind of that. So you have to be able to say like, I'm responsible for my own emotions. I'm responsible for how I use those emotions for good or for evil. And I'm responsible for the outcome that's going to happen because of this. And it's not also saying that you're like, there is responsibility on the other party too. But you can do your best to own what you can own, right? Own what you can own. Don't own what you can't own. It'll, you know, work out, you know, again, like, and again, this is like the initial, this particular point is what allows you to start doing the other points we've talked about today. So, okay, and what are those points again? They're call upon your best self. They're redirect, don't block. They start from a positive mindset and kind of like banking it, taking responsibility. And then finally after the emotional event has happened, it's self care. And I've alluded to this already in this video, but it's taking care of yourself. It's moving, it's getting that energy out. Right? Because you can redirect some of it. At the end of the day though, you need to kind of process it out. And that could be journaling, it could be moving. It could be a combination of those things. It could be, you know, doing something that you absolutely love like playing music or writing poetry or creating and sewing or whatnot. But whatever that is, after the emotional thing happens, the emotional situation or whatever, it's really important to take that moment to self care at all of these points again or are to help you better handle those emotional situations. Because when you let go of control, it makes it worse. And we don't want to make it worse. We want to leave the world a better place. And I believe we can all do this. I believe you can do this. So go. And if you would reply to the email where you got this email or this video, if you're on the newsletter or reply below on YouTube on what are one or two points that really stuck with you from this video? And if you want to share it with a couple of friends who you think might need to know, because I think we live in a world where there is a lot more of this. Like there's not a lot of emotional control. It's like this happens and you're shouting back on Twitter or YouTube or whatever. And we need a little bit more of this calm approach of the, this purposeful choice to act in integrity and character. And you guys got it. I know if you're watching this that you all are open to learning that skill if you don't already have it or improving it because why would you be watching a video with about personal development if that wasn't you? So I'm cheering that on. I'm sharing you on. Guys again, if you need help with your emotionality, hit the link below. Apply for that free strategy session. I'd love to work with you, provide a plan or you know, get you to the right folks again because we're talking about emotions. I would love to do that for you. So with that said, see you guys next week. And Sean Bunders, they live with more joy, growth and impact in your world. Now if you loved this video, if you go over here you'll see last week's video where we're talking about, you know, five signs of a strong friendship and how to build strong friendships because it's super important. So click on it, watch it. It's awesome. We'll see you in that video. Take care.