I’m going to be honest, I’m a bit nervous in writing this blog post, and that’s pretty rare for me. Most of the time, I’m excited to write these because I think this is a way to encourage and help the many people who I can’t see in session, but this one is different. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I also want to offer a new perspective that might seem unkind at first. But, if you stick with me, I hope to show how taking ownership of your feelings is an incredibly empowering act.

So, here’s what I mean by the title: You get to decide how to feel, because nobody can make you feel anything. Your circumstances and the people around you certainly can influence your feelings, but at the end of the day, you’re in the driver’s seat of your own mind.

So, I’ll confess that I think the phrase “They made me feel bad” isn’t a true statement. Let me break this down with an example:

Hypothetically, let’s just say that my wonderful wife made us a special barbecue dinner one night, and then proposed that we sit down to watch the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team play (to clarify, this would be my perfect date). Now, I could see this wonderful gift she’s given me, and see it as a reflection for how kind and loving of a person she is, and as a result I would probably feel very happy and content. However, if I wanted to, I could accuse her of having false motives and ruin the whole night. “Why is she being so nice to me? What does she really want? I bet she feels guilty about doing something bad and she’s trying to butter me up before she tells me.” If I thought this way, I would probably feel angry and afraid, and she’d probably be very confused and hurt.

So here’s what I’m driving at: Our feelings are a result of what happens to us and how we process these events. We don’t control what happens to us, but we do control how we think about it. If I have a fear-driven view of myself, people, or the world, then I’m going to feel bad most of the time no matter what happens to me. As a result, I’m going to have a really hard time enjoying the good times in life, and I’m going to have an incredibly difficult time enduring the tough times.

Now, let me clarify something really important: Your life circumstances are important, especially the actions of other people. So, if someone wrongs you, then you’re going to feel bad, as you should! It’s not right what they’ve done, so I would never want you to suppress or ignore those emotions. But, here’s how to empower yourself: You can process these events in such a way that you aren’t devastated by them, and you won’t stay in this bad place forever.

I know this is hard, and none of us can process our emotions in a helpful way all the time. But, we all have more autonomy and control than we think, and we are not destined to be controlled by our circumstances and action of others. Managing our own emotions and interacting with our emotions in a healthy is one of the most important skills we can gain in life, and working with a therapist to grow in this skill is something I recommend to everyone.

I try very hard to be intentional in how I talk about my feelings, because this will reshape how I think about my own feelings too. So, to return to the example involving my wife planning our wonderful date, I would try to say “I feel so loved when you prepare such a nice night for us.” Inversely, if traffic was really terrible on my way home from work, I would try to tell my wife “I let myself get very angry in traffic, and I really don’t want to let that affect our time together.” On our best days, we can respond to our emotions like this, and over time that can become our natural reaction.

None of this easy, and certainly none of this is natural. But, the reward is great: You get to process your emotions in such a way that your life and relationships will flourish. That, more than anything else, is my hope for your life.

Thank you for reading my practice’s blog, my library of all the random thoughts that would make a terrible book but make a halfway-decent blog. To request a session or contact me, head to my Scheduling page to get in touch with me today!