'Tis The Season to Be Emotional, Part II: What To Do When Things Get Tense

A crucial key to being able to manage your emotions is anticipating and preparing for situations or interactions with certain people where you know, from past experience, that your emotions go haywire. But what do you do in the heat of the moment when your emotions flare up?

1. Recognize the signs of the fight or flight response.

Heart pounding, stomach turning, palms sweating: these are signs that the part of your brain that is on the lookout for threats to your survival (your amygdala) has been activated.

The amygdala, however, is the reactive, not rational part of your brain, and might very well interpret shallow breathing - which happens when we feel insulted, angry or upset but your life is far from endangerment -- as a threat.

Step 1: Assure your brain that survival is not at stake -- take a deep breath.

2. Use your body to ground you in the present.

When your boss says "I need to speak to you later," immediately, your mind starts racing - into the past (is he upset about the question I asked in yesterday's meeting?), or the future (Am I being taken off the project?). Neither is helpful. What you need to do is get out of your head and back into the present moment. Your body can help you do that.

Step 2: Feel your feet on the ground, your arms on your desk, your butt in the chair.

3. Hit the pause button.

When are your emotions most likely to cause you trouble: when you're talking or not talking? Often, people start talking because they're uncomfortable with silence, not because it will help the situation. When someone is making provocative comments or needling you, they're looking for a reaction. If you don't react, there's nothing for them to attack.

Step 3: Learn how to be okay with the silence. Give yourself 10 seconds (at least) to let your rational brain kick in.

4. Check your crystal ball.

Before you start talking, do a quick peek into the future. If you give this person a piece of your mind, how will the other person respond? Will it help or harm the situation? Is the instant gratification of "putting them in their place" worth the potential long-term damage?

Step 4: "Watch your tongue and be forward-thinking."

Review and Recap

When you have some distance and are feeling calmer, take a moment to reflect and ask: "What was going on there? Why did I get so angry?" See if you can identify the exact trigger: "I lose it when my boss gives me that patronizing smirk. I feel like he thinks I'm incompetent." And by drilling down -- is there any evidence that he does think you're incompetent? -- you can understand what your beliefs about the situation are and why it triggers a feeling of powerlessness or frustration, for example.

When it comes to mastering your emotions, there are no shortcuts. With practice, however (just like anything), it gets easier and more familiar.

Need Creative Solutions? Need New Ideas? Get Out and Move

Here's an all-too-common problem: You are stumped for a solution to a problem. You need new ideas and you need to turn on your creative mind.

Next time you find yourself in this situation, try this method for coming up with new ideas:

1. Write out a list of open-ended questions that describe the problem you are trying to solve. The more thoroughly you write about the problem in the form of questions, the better your answers will be.
2. Next get outside and take a walk. Really you can be flexible here, you can also go hiking, running or hop on a bike. The main two ingredients you are looking for are fresh air and exercise.
3. Often your ideas will come to you while you are walking and you will hardly be able to wait until you can get back to write down your new ideas.
4. At other times, it will seem as if your solutions are just on the edge of your mind, but not yet clearly in focus yet. When this happens, come home and start doing some non-stop writing in a journal you keep. This means you write down everything that comes to mind and you don't stop writing until you have written for ten minutes (a kitchen timer is a great tool for this).
5. If you came up with your new idea when you wrote, then run with it. Otherwise, simply review what you've written, also review the list of questions you wrote before you took your walk, and highlight a few segments that seem almost on target. Then if need be, write again for another ten minutes.

Almost inevitably, your solutions and ideas will have come to you before you get to this stage. On the off chance that you still have little to show for your efforts, get with someone else and do some brainstorming.

Ideas need time to grow, but the change between sitting at a desk "thinking" and getting out and moving your body is an idea generator that you should find works at least 90% of the time. When you add the non-stop writing exercise, you are bordering on a sure thing.