Emotions don’t have to control you, these powerful emotional intelligence quotes show how to understand and use them to your advantage.
A name for the moment
Daniel Goleman once said that recognizing a feeling as it happens is ‘the keystone of emotional intelligence.’ What does that mean? Essentially, you don’t shut down or snap when something happens. You stop.
You tell yourself, ‘This is frustration,’ or ‘This is anxiety.’ Giving your feelings a name gives them an edge. Once they have an edge, they become easier to deal with.
What gets easier once it’s spoken
Fred Rogers had a lot to say about emotions.
One of his best was, ‘Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.’ It’s a pretty practical way of seeing things.
He’s saying that ignored feelings will only sit there and grow. Don’t let that happen. Instead, you’re better off telling people, ‘I feel left out,’ or ‘I’m overwhelmed.’
Rogers might’ve been talking to children when he said that quote. But us adults could learn something from it, too.
The part people skip
Brené Brown understood that you can’t choose your emotions. That’s why she said, ‘We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.’
You can’t just turn off your bad feelings.
It doesn’t work like that. Turn off stress or shame, and you turn off the good feelings, too. Say goodbye to excitement and joy. Sadly, there are no shortcuts around any uncomfortable feelings. You’ve got to let them happen.
Not the same thing as control
Here’s one that sounds like a contradiction. Marc Brackett once said, ‘Emotion regulation is not about not feeling.’ It doesn’t sound right at first. However, he’s saying that we should allow our feelings to exist. That’s the first step.
Don’t confuse control with repressing yourself. You can still feel angry, and you can still feel nervous. The only thing you should change is how you react to problems. That’s how you stop letting your emotions get in the way.
The fee at the door
Time for a harsh truth. There’s no way of avoiding discomfort. Sure, you can try all you like, but you’ll never truly live that way. Susan David gets that.
She said, ‘Discomfort, quite simply, is the price of admission to a meaningful life.’
She believed that we shouldn’t take discomfort as a warning to stop. No, we should remember it only appears when we’re doing something that matters. Having no negative feelings means you’re not doing anything meaningful. Who wants to live like that?
A different starting point
Carl Rogers was another person with a bit of a backward idea.
He said, ‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.’ All that means is you’ll start changing when you accept who you are now.
You can’t fix yourself through pressure. You certainly can’t do it through criticism. Try admitting what’s already there, including your negative feelings.
Maybe then, when you stop fighting the feelings, you’ll start working with them.
The line that protects your center
Eleanor Roosevelt’s most famous quote is, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’
It’s a pretty great way of seeing things. You should separate other people’s words from your own feelings. After all, does it really matter what they say?
They can be rude, and they can be dismissive. It can still hurt you. But it’s up to you to decide how much it hurts. You can choose to stop your reactions from controlling how you feel. Now that feels pretty freeing.
Something still belongs to you
Viktor Frankl really understood how much power we have over ourselves. That includes the power over our feelings.
He once said that our choice of attitude is ‘the last of the human freedoms,’ even in difficult situations.
That doesn’t mean things can’t be hard. Of course they can. But how you feel about it is your decision. No matter how challenging things might get, you’ll always have that freedom to choose. Make the most of it.
The hidden hand behind the mood
It makes sense that a psychiatrist like Carl Jung has a lot to say about emotions.
One of his best quotes is, ‘Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.’
You essentially can’t let your unconscious run your life.
Sure, you tell yourself that something ‘just happened.’ But look at the pattern underneath it. Chances are, your old habits and past experiences have a much bigger role to play.
It’s when you notice that pattern that your life starts changing.
Something to hold while it passes
Most people know about the importance of mindfulness. That includes Thich Nhat Hanh.
He said, ‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.’ It’s a simple idea. But it works.
Stop treating feelings like they’re always there because, guess what? They’re not. They’ll move through. The only thing that’s always there is your breath. Focus on that. You’ll find your intense emotions suddenly don’t seem so permanent.
The extra layer
The ancient Greeks had a lot of good things to say about emotions. That included the philosopher, Epictetus.
He said, ‘Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.’ Sound familiar?
You can go through the same thing as someone else, but feel completely different. It’s because you tell yourselves different stories about it. Yes, the event itself still matters. But it’s the way you attach meaning to it that’s different.
Not too much, not too little
Here’s another wise Greek philosopher.
Aristotle once said, ‘The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised.’ That sounds more complicated than it is.
All he’s saying is that it’s okay to get angry sometimes. As long as it’s the right amount of anger for the right situation and the right reason, you’re good.
The door you usually avoid
Poetry can teach us a lot about our emotions, too. In Rumi’s poem, ‘The Guest House,’ he tells people to ‘Welcome and entertain’ their emotions. That includes a ‘crowd of sorrows.’
There’s no reason to block out things like anger or sadness.
No, you should let them in long enough to see what they’re doing there. It doesn’t mean you like them. You’re just recognizing that they exist.Â
Even when life feels torn up
Confusion’s a tricky emotion to deal with. But it doesn’t have to be.
Muriel Rukeyser said that we should face it directly, and she said, ‘However confused the scene of our life appears […] it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.’
You don’t need everything to be clear immediately. Why? Because it’s okay to feel uncertain or pulled in different directions. It’s okay to be unsure about what to do next. Just keep on moving, and you’ll be okay.
A better question to ask yourself
There’s one pretty simple question you can ask yourself. Kristin Neff calls it ‘the quintessential question of self-compassion.’
Ask yourself, ‘What do I need right now?’ That’s it.
You should treat yourself with the same care that you’d show other people.
Don’t jump straight to criticizing yourself. Instead, give yourself some support and work out what you need. Do you need some rest? Some alone time? Whatever it is, it’ll help you control your emotions a lot more easily.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
