metonymy4u

My current project is to notice and amplify emotional flexibility. What does that mean, specifically? To be emotionally flexible is to be intimate with an emotion without reacting to it in a urge-full and impulsive manner. The idea is to be able to validate the emotion, and not be ruled by it. An example for me would involve validating anger when someone behaves in a way that I experience as violent or threatening, and not reacting in kind. It’s a matter of validating my emotions about someone jumping off a cliff right in front of me, without having to jump off with them. For my own emotional health, I need to find a different path to validation. From now on I want my question to be, always, “how can I respond rather than react, to this important event?”