Written by: Meagan Brody, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
One day I woke up and made a promise to myself that I would never let anyone dictate how I felt, emotionally, ever again. This wasn’t an easy task to conquer. I didn’t feel bad one day and then, overnight, wake up having this revelation. It took me two years to get to this point. However, there was a moment, one single moment of having the realization that I was the only one in control of my feelings and I never looked back.
Going through a breakup and suffering the feeling of a loss taught me entirely how one person can control how you feel… if you let them. When you rely on someone to give you happiness (and not yourself, which we will get into) then they have full access to control your feelings.
After lots of introspection, I consider these 5 points to be successful in maintaining control of your feelings.
1. Focus on what makes you happy that is not influenced by other people
This was one of the hardest exercises I have come across. Why is that? Most people let their happiness fall into the hands of the people around them. My initial response to this was “my friends”. Wrong. Those are other people making me happy, try again. My second thought was my fashion career, creating art with photographers made me happy. Wrong. That happiness comes from the influence of other people praising me. I was then forced to dig deep. What did I like to do that had nothing to do with people around me? This was hard as I am an immensely social person and I started to notice that a lot of what makes me happy comes from other people. I realized there were things that I felt happy doing that maybe weren’t so obvious in my daily life. I like to write, read, and play tennis, all things I enjoy doing that I didn’t notice brought me so much pleasure. Dr. Martin Seligman speaks about authentic happiness and where to find it. He points out three elements that he believes are the core structures of authentic happiness: positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. Now look at your own life and think about the things that make you happy that you can do completely alone with a smile on your face.
2. Understand that your happiness comes from yourself, not others
No one is perfect, not even you (sorry to burst your bubble). When we decide to allow our happiness to come from other people, we often set ourselves up to be let down. If you can maintain happiness from within, the joy that is brought to you by people around you is a bonus to the happiness we have already created.
3. Acknowledge that anyone who has control over your feelings is toxic to you
This can be because they are manipulative, making you feel guilty or love bombing you, but not all circumstances are so obvious. You should always be able to stand on your own two feet and if the right person walks into your life and adds to it, then that is a healthy relationship. When you feel like many aspects of your life are being affected by your relationship, you may identify it as a toxic relationship. If you feel like you cannot survive without the other person and there is constantly a roller coaster of emotions between the two of you, that could be a red flag. The highs feel so high, but the lows feel even lower. If anyone is capable of making you feel the ups and downs so drastically and often, there may be some questions you want to ask yourself if this person is right for you.
4. Choose to wake up daily in a mindset that will push you forward, not hold you back
You can’t live in the past forever and you can’t worry about the future. Appreciate each day and plan what you want to accomplish for that day. Ask yourself, “What can I control? What can I not control?” and then focus on the things that are in your control. Keep positivity flowing at all times. You should never say “I can’t do this, I’ll never succeed”. You should say “I can do this, and I will look at it as a challenge until I have completed it”. We put so much pressure on ourselves to get over a relationship within 24 hours, to create a successful business overnight, and in general not face the feeling of failure. I have a theory that I like to call the Volcano Theory. When we see other people succeed, we usually only see the eruption. We don’t see all the hard work brewing inside the volcano for years. It is easy to see a new actor in a movie and watch his career blow up big in front of our eyes and say, “Wow he became famous overnight”. No, he didn’t. You are only seeing the lava, but this actor has been on the scene for years. Playing small parts in TV shows and acting as an extra on movie sets where you would have never noticed him, but he kept pushing forward. His mindset was that he would make it to Hollywood and that he one day would become the actor he wanted to be. Your positivity is all about your mindset. How will you choose to live today? And tomorrow? And the day after?
5. Know that you are going to be alright, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment
One of my favorite quotes, by Oscar Wilde, reads “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.” You cannot control other people and therefore other people cannot control you. You are the only person in control of your life. Do you want to wake up happy? Make a list of things that make you happy and do those things tomorrow. The sorrows of today will disappear and time will move forward. Will you waste today on something that did not work out for you? Or will you come to understand that this bump doesn’t mean it is the end?
When you finally come to a place of pure content, you will never again crumble under someone else’s actions. We can’t control our partner deciding to leave the marriage, we can’t control our company laying us off and we can’t control losing friends who aren’t keeping up with their side of the friendship. If we let things be as they may, we can better understand what is meant to be in our lives and what is worth keeping around. When we rely on our happiness to come from those around us, whether it’s a lover, a friend, or a job, we are giving up our own right to happiness.
Meagan Brody, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Meagan Brody is a Relationship and Communications Coach who helps her clients connect better within their own relationships and helps those looking for a relationship find the right partner. Although she studied Psychology, for ten years she worked in fashion pursuing the creative side of marketing. As she has transitioned into Life Coaching, she has realized that her creative abilities have helped her clients in reaching their full potential; whether that be in their relationships, personal growth or confidence in the real world. Meagan is NLP Certified (Neuro-Linguistics Programming) and has used these techniques to help her clients with various mindset goals.
