Acquire the tools of emotional flexibility to give yourself the love and encouragement you need

Hashem rewards us for being happy. Feelings of joy satisfaction love appreciation and other high-energy positive emotions join with low-energy positive feelings such as serenity acceptance compassion and forgiveness to produce healing and replenishing hormones in the body. The result is a stronger immune system better health more energy and better overall functioning.

Feeling good even enhances our thinking perceiving understanding and problem-solving capacities. In fact feeling good for only a few minutes generates a cascade of long-lasting positive chemistry that replenishes and nourishes our entire system enhancing our physical mental emotional and even spiritual health and well-being.

All of these findings have been substantiated by recent research: Feeling good emotionally has been shown to create good chemistry that contributes to good health and optimal functioning. And feeling bad emotionally has been shown to create harmful chemistry that depletes our system and leaves us open to increased disease and mortality.

Indulging in the Negativity

Negative emotions such as frustration anger fear worry resentment and overwhelm are toxic to our system. They drain us psychologically and physically leading to other negative emotions such as despair depression hopelessness and apathy. If we appreciated just how toxic these emotions are we would flee from them as we would from a fire. Instead we actually indulge in them.

My husband is a selfish mean man. He aggravates me and the children without end. He picks on every little thing we do. I haven’t got a moment’s peace.

We feel upset hurt and aggravated because we feel badly treated. These emotions are the natural consequence of our experiences. The initial pain during the provocation harms us in two ways: first by hurting us emotionally and second by damaging our body and soul. A five-minute release of adrenaline in our body results in hours of higher pulse rate along with perhaps a 12-hour release of the toxic chemical called cortisol. In other words a little bit of stress goes a long way.

This being said no one but us can prevent further harm from occurring. No matter how entitled we may be to feel miserable resentful and aggravated it is in our own best interest to restore ourselves to a state of ease and balance as soon as possible — ideally immediately.

Learning to Generate Good Chemistry

Toddlers have this one right. One minute they’re screaming in misery and the next minute they’re laughing in glee. They have what’s called “emotional resilience” and “emotional flexibility.” They don’t get stuck in ruminations and long sulks. Adults on the other hand tend to take a little bit of unhappiness and stretch it out as far as it can go by analyzing it thinking about it talking about it re-experiencing it and otherwise giving it their full attention.

This might be considered a harmless pastime were it not for the fact that each moment spent dwelling on negativity releases so much harmful chemistry into one’s system. This chemistry has been directly linked to the development of cancer heart attacks and increased morbidity from all causes. Indulging in instant replays of interpersonal wounds is plain dangerous. It is far healthier to learn to generate good chemistry from one’s own internal chemical factory no matter what challenges Hashem sends along.

Self-Preservation

Family life does cause stress — and plenty of it. We can minimize the effects of this stress by managing our internal world more carefully. We can all learn tools and strategies to increase and sustain emotional resilience.

For instance rather than waiting for family members to mature change and improve we can use simple tools to provide love comfort acceptance compassion and forgiveness to ourselves. Notice that these are the positive replenishing emotions that build and preserve our optimum functioning health and well-being. Here is a short protocol that can be used by anyone immediately following an upsetting or frustrating incident:

1.  Notice the feelings of distress and acknowledge them to yourself.
2.  Rest compassionately with your distress for a minute or so — just “sitting” with the feelings quietly.
3. Provide comfort and healing to your system by turning your attention to something that gives you pleasure gratitude or joy.

If the distressing incident requires action to be taken or a problem-solving session or some other form of practical intervention make an appointment with yourself to take care of it later on.

It’s necessary to address challenges in our family life but it’s not necessary to suffer constantly or destroy our bodies and souls in the process. Emotional management is a personal responsibility; emotional flexibility is a skill that we can acquire with practice and commitment to ourselves and our well-being.