Learning how to control your emotions is the most valuable skill you could ever acquire. Not only is it a precursor to unconditional confidence, but it prevents your power from ever again, being drained by toxic people.

The idea of controlling your emotions always felt like a “get rich quick” scam to me. It sounded too good to be true and I knew better. I wasn’t interested in having to forfeit my truth and withhold how I felt just to “win.” This was not a game, it was my life and I wanted to live it authentically. The right people would understand me and where I was coming from.

So, I kept inflating the narcissistic life raft I was on by justifying my emotional reactions, internal dialogue (that was all fear/insecurity-based), and convincing myself that my emotions had no control over me.

Continuing to end up abandoned, used, cheated on, rejected, and misunderstood started to poke holes in that raft. Over time, it disenchanted the dysfunction that I kept labeling as “authenticity” and “emotional availability.”

There is nothing authentic about allowing anyone or anything to hold you hostage. There’s nothing liberating or sexy or cool about allowing your emotions to control you to the point of acting in ways that devalue and disempower you. The most authentic thing you can do is identify and act on your hunger to be free and experience better. A better quality of life, better standards, better people, better relationships, and better results.

The times that we feel the most emotionally powerless are the times we will try to convince ourselves that we have the most control.

I couldn’t control the kind of men I was attracted to. If they looked a certain way, that was it. I was immediately blind to red flags, pink flags, and internal ugliness because I was superficially obsessed. I valued everything that didn’t matter. And because I had no control over my emotions, I had no control over my life.

I always stress the importance of thinking of yourself as a business. You are the C.E.O of Y.O.U. If you automatically bend over every time one of your employees comes into your office, how are you supposed to even hear your employees with your head to the ground, let alone run a successful company that attracts the kind of clientele and investments you deserve?

How are you supposed to be taken seriously? How are you supposed to command respect from your employees if you can’t respect yourself and act in accordance with your position as C.E.O?

If you don’t believe it, they’ll never see it.

Your emotions are your employees. And the boss of any successful company knows how to manage his/her employees to work for them and the good of the company – not allow the employees to work over the boss and bankrupt the business.

Your employees will do their job effectively if they feel acknowledged, understood, validated, and directed in an empowering and positive way.

Contradiction is the root of all misery and ignorance. You can’t be so powerless that you allow your employees to run your business but also view yourself as powerful enough to be referred to as a C.E.O.

There are a lot of C.E.Os in this world. Some put “C.E.O” in their online dating profile when in reality, all they have is an idea for a business and not one employee, deal closed, or dollar made. Others are more legit.

Allowing your emotions to control your actions is as embarrassing as claiming you are the C.E.O of a company that only exists in fantasy land.

If you are controlled by your emotions, other people will always be able to manipulate and control the state of those emotions.

Knowing how to control your emotions will introduce you to a life you never knew you could call your own. Today, I have the kind of power, confidence, and luck I never thought was possible because I have control over my emotions. I’ve put them in their place as the employees that they are. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have bad days, feel insecure, or that I disrespect or try to micromanage my emotions at all.

It means that I acknowledge and respect the fact that they work for me. I no longer work for them. And if I want them to keep working for and not against me, I have to honor, manage, and domesticate them when they get triggered. This is what successful C.E.Os do.

It may feel like you can’t control your emotions, but remember… emotional control is not about “turning off” your emotions. It’s about choosing to not react to/act on them in a way that endangers your mental health.

Here’s how to control your emotions and reclaim your freedom…

When it comes to learning how to control your emotions, it was a four-step process for me.

STEP #1: Get power-hungry

There is nothing more attractive than a high-value person who confidently stands in his/her own power.

The one thing standing in the way of your power is knowing how to control your emotions. The key to emotional Jedi mastery is learning to fully feel every ounce your emotions while completely restraining from acting on them. When you act on emotional impulse, you show others how weak your emotional core really is. It translates to the world that you don’t know your value and are unsure of who you are.

Toxic people will see you as an easy target for being manipulated and emotionally available people will not be attracted to you.

You’re no longer a player. You become the self-imposed water boy in the game of life (the “water,” being your energy, spirit, and dignity for others to readily consume when thirsty). Emotional mastery comes from feeling every ounce of your emotions while committing to the superpower that non-reactivity is.

Emotions cloud reason. And if you can’t clearly see what’s going on…

You will act on the fear that going blind ignites and the subsequent anger for not being able to see at a cost you will never be able to afford.

Do you want to know how to control your emotions? Be more scared of losing your power than you are of not scratching the mosquito bite of emotional reactivity. This is what your white horse is for.

Patience is the only way out of the prison of your emotions. It is a skill that will protect you from acting on emotional impulse and appearing weak.

Knowing how to control your emotions is more about what you choose NOT TO DO – What you will no longer act on, put up with, and get yourself dragged into.

STEP #2: Just FEEL. Stop getting down on yourself.

Being able to feel your way through the most unbearable triggers of pain, loss, embarrassment, abandonment, fear, anger, the need for revenge, doubt, etc., and not act on those feelings is the definition of power.

Stop feeling guilty for your spiteful side being triggered. It’s okay. It’s normal to get angry and have vengeful feelings. The secret to success in life is learning how to use those feelings to your advantage. These are what I call “gasoline emotions.” If you drink gasoline, you’ll get sick. But without it being put in a gas tank, your car won’t go. Stop drinking these emotions and allowing them to use you while making you sick. Feed your emotional gas tank with these feelings and use them to make your car GO. Speak with your actions. Gasoline emotions are rocket fuel.

By the time you’ve felt your way through it all, if you’ve really taken the time to feel, you will see the pointlessness in reacting and the pure gold that responding with your actions is. The more you do this, the more you will respect yourself. You will feel confident knowing that no one can ever mess with you to the point of unlocking your reactivity for their own egoic survival.

When you have your own back, you’ll never need anyone else to have it. You’ll just appreciate it if they do and not take it personally/flush if they don’t.

STEP #3: Looks don’t matter.

When it comes to knowing how to control your emotions, I couldn’t control mine when it came to a certain physical type of man I was attracted to. It didn’t matter how many red flags there were, I couldn’t help myself.

I also could not control my emotions to be attracted to good men who didn’t fit this stupid physical ideal I had.

My heart was only open to closed doors and closed to the open ones that I claimed to want. I was all about the superficial because I had no substance.

When it comes to looks, keeping yourself up MATTERS. I always try to put my best foot forward and be as healthy as I can. I take pride in caring for myself and my body – superficially and substantially.

There definitely needs to be a physical attraction, but always make sure to take the time to really get to know someone. If you focus on substance and connection instead of physicality, you will find that people show you who they are very fast.

It’s amazing how incredibly attractive someone can become when they are given a chance to show you who they are – instead of being judged for either winning or losing a genetic lottery.

Of course, there are certain physical attributes that you just aren’t attracted to and never will be. And that’s okay.

A few weeks ago, I really surprised myself.

I recently started watching a show that is already a few seasons in. It’s so good and whenever I have any free time, I’m watching it.

Anyway, there is a main character on the show who is the physical embodiment of everything I am simply not attracted to and never have been. He is not some sort of hideous, unhealthy and unhygienic beast but I’ve just never been attracted at all to his look. I’m telling you right now if this person existed in real life and we were both single, I’d date him in a heartbeat. And it would probably shock everyone.

And I could care less.

He is a very rich man on the show but I don’t care about the money; I make my own. What attracts me is the ambition. It’s the work ethic, loyalty, empathy, confidence, and power as a result of the humanity that got him there (and that he never lost).

Actions are this man’s first language and words are his second. 

Dynamic people who are honest, ambitious, and have integrity are so attractive that looks have become secondary for me.

The same goes for quality people. Because they are emotionally available and can connect, they will see how interesting, powerful, confident, and dimensional you are. And you will be the most beautiful person to them.

This is not about being blind or settling in any way for what physically turns you off. It’s about learning to be attracted to what’s good for you, instead of what triggers you into becoming a crumb-hungry performer.

STEP #4: Accept the gift.

Use your emotions for what they are meant to be – a gift. Invaluable insight into a situation, relationship, and yourself.

When you get triggered, ask yourself why you feel this way and be honest with yourself. This will lessen the need to tell others until you process everything. Guard your privacy and respect it always.

You can dissolve a lot of triggers, pain, and drama in your life just by taking the time to think about your emotional responses.

Know how to control your emotions. Next time you get triggered, stop for a moment, and allow yourself to feel every emotion that comes up. Take note of how you feel emotionally and physically. Experience it with yourself first – the one person who has been by your side through it all. Don’t ask yourself if the emotions are constructive. Emotions are not the main issues here. Ask yourself how reacting – in any way – to these emotions would be constructive and elevate your reputation (instead of destroying it).

If not, you have to drop the rock. There is no need to throw it.

If a rock was thrown at you, whether intentional or not, that doesn’t mean you have to throw it back at the person who threw it at you. It does not mean that you have to throw it at the situation, at yourself, at an innocent bystander, or out into the world in any way – no matter how badly you are bleeding and cut open.

I have learned (in the most humiliating and painful ways) that it will boomerang right back every.single.time.

Most people can’t put the rock down; they don’t know how. This is why those that can are so desired, powerful, rare, and the hardest to forget/get over.

Written by: Natasha Adamo