Don’t Grin and Bear it.

Grin and change your perception about what you are trying to bear.

It’s not about bottling it up.

If you are bottling up your emotions in the moment, then lashing out later, either through revenge or by slandering the offender to a safe group of people, you are missing the point of “controlling your emotions.”

I believe that using the term “Control” regarding our emotions or thoughts does us a disservice.

When it comes to our thoughts and emotions, “managing” is a better term than “controlling” but it’s still not ideal. To me, managing something means manipulating it. Your manager at work aims to manipulate the staff and customers to meet their ideal vision of that workplace. The manager of a coffee shop would never accept their staff as they are and love them regardless of their performance. And yet, the best philosophies for self-control involve just that, an acceptance of oneself not a manipulation of random thoughts and emotions. It’s our perception of the emotion that makes a difference.

Surviving is important. It’s important for us to survive every experience we have every day. If we don’t, we’ll die. Some experiences are harder to survive than others. We work harder to survive a three-mile run than we do to survive eating our breakfast. Sometimes we have to do odd, desperate, or unhealthy things to survive certain situations. One might drink too much alcohol to survive dinner with their in-laws or they might might scroll on their phones to survive a long stay in the doctor’s waiting room. At the moment, what mattered was survival. But, if we are seeking a better way, then those maladaptive methods need to recognized as “bad,” analyzed, and improved upon for maximum satisfaction.

How can we tell if we are managing ourselves in the healthiest way in every situation?

One way to gauge our success is in how we feel. Our emotions can be a powerful indicator of how we are reacting to a situation. If we are feeling a negative emotion, one of two things is possible. Either the situation we are in is causing the negative reaction or it is the way we are perceiving the situation that is causing the negative reaction. The purpose of my work and all of philosophy is to motivate us to aim for the second option: our perception and perspective.

This barometer applies almost all of the time. There are certain situations where our perspective is not as important as the event itself. For example, if you find yourself upset because you are in a burning building, please do not spend any time reflecting on your thoughts about the situation. The only thing to do is to get yourself out of the burning building. In that case, it is the outside world that is the problem.

However, scenarios like this are rare. Thanks to Winston Churchill, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and a few billion other people, our lives don’t include too much actual danger. For anyone reading this right now, it’s safe to say that the main source of their misery is in their perceptions not in the object of their perceived misery. In short, for modern people, the problem is in our heads. That’s where mindfulness and self-reflection come in.

Another way we can tell if we are reacting to life in the best way possible is to look at the life we are living. The law of cause and effect is real. Every action has a reaction. Everything that exists is the result of something, including everything in your life. In some way, shape, or form, you caused it all, the good and the bad. To be more specific, your perceptions and thoughts about situations caused it all.

If there is something in your life you don’t like, recognize that you created that situation, find out how you did it, and stop doing whatever you did.

If you your banana bread came out too sweet it’s because you added too much sugar to your recipe. If you have a terrible relationship with your neighbor, it is because you added too much or too little of something to the recipe of that relationship. You can tell that you’re not using the best recipe.

So, if your strategy in dealing with your neighbor has been to stay quiet when the neighbor offends and then gossip to your other neighbor about the offense, your results will tell you if that strategy is successful. You might believe that you are coping with the situation in the best way. You might think that, by not confronting the rude neighbor, you are keeping the peace or being mature. But, if the effect is a strained relationship and more irritation, you will know that you have been kidding yourself. Saving your dissatisfaction for a later is not acceptance of the dissatisfaction.   

That’s why, when it comes to philosophies about life, our work should start and end with our perceptions. It’s not about hiding our reactions. Our perceptions cause our reactions. A different perspective creates a different reaction.

For example, when served a hot plate of Veal Parmigiana, people with different perspectives will have different reactions. Someone who feels that eating veal is cruel to animals will feel dissatisfied. Another person who does not consider animal treatment will, instead, focus on the delicious smell of the entree and feel very satisfied. In both of these scenarios, the object, the veal, is the same. It is only differing perceptions that cause a differing view.

Let’s compare the veal dinner with our rude neighbor to see that the situation is the same. If your neighbor makes noise and you PERCEIVE that noise as rude, you will feel dissatisfied. But, what if the neighbor was playing your favorite songs at a time of day when your work didn’t require quiet? In that case, you might PERCEIVE the noise as pleasant or, even, great, and feel very dissatisfied. As with the veal dish, the object is the same, a noisy neighbor.

It is only our perception of the neighbor’s actions that affect our satisfaction. And, more importantly, hiding the dissatisfaction does not remedy the dissatisfaction.   

Burak Uzun is an award-winning writer and a Certified Meditation Teacher.

Burak Uzun also co-wrote a feature film called Team Marco, which was featured in over fifty film festivals around the globe and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Please feel free to reach out to Burak here.

Learn more about SOCA LLC and Burak’s classes here.