Being young means learning new things and making decisions, but it also means knowing how to manage what you feel.
Joy, anger, sadness, fear and frustration are emotions that are with you all the time. These drive you, motivate you and almost always help you. However, sometimes they can confuse you or make you react in ways that are difficult to understand, and this is completely normal.
Managing emotions does not mean stopping feeling or “holding it in.” It is learning to recognize what is happening inside you to know what to do with it. You can’t help but feel, but you can learn to respond better.
Why is it important to manage your emotions?
When you are not able to understand what you feel, it is very easy:
- react impulsively
- Saying things you later regret
- Push away important people
- Feeling overwhelmed or confused
- Make hasty decisions
When you learn to manage your emotions, you can:
- Think more clearly
- Relate better to others
- Make more conscious decisions
- Feel more in control of yourself
What usually happens to all of us
Sometimes we don’t manage our emotions well because:
- We ignore them or repress them
- We explode without thinking
- We don’t know how to put into words what we feel
- We believe that feeling is a weakness
- We react without stopping to think
Over time, this can lead to conflict, such as stress or emotional distress.
Key skills to manage your emotions
Managing emotions is not learned overnight, but you can start with small actions:
- Recognize what you feel: Before reacting impulsively, ask yourself: what am I really feeling? Sometimes it’s not just anger; It can also be sadness, fear or frustration.
- Name your emotions: Naming what you feel helps you understand it better. Saying “I’m bad” is not the same as saying “I feel frustrated.”
- Pause before reacting: Not everything needs an immediate response. Giving yourself a few seconds or minutes can avoid many problems.
- Express what you feel appropriately: Talking about what you feel is not a weakness, it is a skill. For example, instead of saying, “You always make me angry!”, you can say, “I felt upset by what happened and I would like to talk about it.”
- Find healthy ways to release emotions: It’s not about saving everything, but about channeling it. You can do this through physical exercise, writing, talking to someone you trust, or listening to music, among other options.
The traffic light of emotions
This technique can help you in intense moments:
🔴 Stop: stop if you are very angry or upset.
🟡 Think: what am I feeling? Why?
🟢 Act: respond calmly and consciously.
Something important that you should not forget
- Feeling doesn’t make you weak.
- Crying, getting angry or feeling afraid is part of being human.
The important thing is not to avoid emotions, but to learn to understand and manage them.
Test: How are you managing your emotions?
Adolescence Series
Adolescence is the series that Free press that provides practical and reflective tools that help young people strengthen their emotional intelligence from a close and understandable perspective.
Each topic includes a self-test designed so that young people can identify how developed they have that specific skill.
In total there are six topics and two will be published per week with these themes: self-knowledge, emotional regulation, emotional communication, self-esteem and self-love, interpersonal relationships and emotion management. In the print edition look for the plates on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, April 7-22.
With information from Violeta Velásquez. Source: MA Silvana Ferrari, educational coach, educational psychologist and university professor. Website: ProEducación Gt. https://638a650893374.site123.me/