“When we have no emotional control, chaos ensues,” Zebthe3rd.  All my life I’ve been told that the outside reflects the inside meaning that if our homes or our spaces look disorganized our minds are typically in that state as well.  I can attest this is true….  I never really took this to the next level to understand that this has to do with emotions and our ability to cope with whatever is happening.  If things are chaotic or anxiety ridden in our minds, that is why our outer space reflects anxiety and chaos as well.  Things half-started or half-finished, clutter.  All of it is a way to hide the reality of what’s happening and what we are afraid of.  It doesn’t matter if we fear failure or success or responsibility, if we aren’t managing that fear, the outside will never be a place we can trust as a foundation.  If we don’t regulate our emotions and understand what they are really telling us, we will never get an actual read on what we feel because we allow the moment to dictate our response rather than taking the moment to determine what we feel.

When we make emotional decisions rather than connected, thoughtful decisions, we lose sight of what’s actually happening.  Emotion is a strange thing because we need it—we need to know how we feel and what we feel for certain things because that is a guidepost.  But we must always be clear that it isn’t the determining factor—or at least it shouldn’t be.  Emotions tell us when something is off or when we are heading in the right direction.  It isn’t meant to tell us WHAT to do, it is just meant to guide us where we need to go.  We need to find a balance between what we feel and what we know.  We have to understand that we may not always be able to control the triggers, but we are ALWAYS in control of our responses.  That isn’t to say there aren’t people and events out there who simply push our buttons to get a rise out of us-but those are the times we have to ask ourselves if this is the environment we want to be in. 

We will never be able to control the circumstances around us, that isn’t how the world works.  But we can always control our decisions and our actions and we can always respond with grace and presence and thoughtfulness.  I don’t claim this is easy—I spent the entirety of my life living in chaos thinking it was just how things worked.  I thought people who made non-emotional decisions were just stoic or didn’t feel things the same way.  That was true for some of them.  But I had to learn as so many of us do that emotions aren’t the best decision makers.  Emotion will lead to chaos because it isn’t the reality of the situation.  And I stand by what I said, that emotion is a good guidepost.  It is meant to show us when we are on the right path by indicating the good/bad feeling.  When we feel off, when we feel disorganized, when we feel flustered, or when we start to see our physical spaces falling apart, then we have to stop and ask ourselves if we are letting emotion get the best of us.  Don’t allow our lives to become chaos because we have a few moments of feeling bad/sad/fearful.  Take stock and choose again.