Keep Going Bro

I still get caught up in my emotions.

I’m glad that it doesn’t happen as often as it used to, and I don’t stay stuck for as long. But sometimes it still happens.

What’s different now is, I usually catch myself a bit quicker. I can almost feel when I’ve slipped into a loop: frustration, guilt, overthinking, and all that. And once I know I’m in it, it’s like I’ve bought myself a bit of space. Enough room to pause, even for a few seconds, and decide whether I want to stay in that headspace or not.

That pause… that’s been everything.

I used to think emotional mastery meant not having any or certain emotions. That I’d someday reach this point where I just wouldn’t get angry, or anxious, or deeply disappointed. But that’s not how this goes. Now I see it more like — learning to feel it, without letting it take over. Letting the wave pass through, but not letting it carry me miles away from shore.

It’s tough some days though.

There are times when something small throws me way off centre. A tone in someone’s voice; a missed deadline; a mistake in an advertising proof; a memory that comes back louder than it should. I’ll be doing fine and then — BAM! — I’m mentally somewhere else, spiraling into scenarios or old wounds that have nothing to do with the present moment.

And it’s usually the rumination that drags me. Some days I wake me up way too early, and my first thought is my mistakes or worries. Sometimes it’s not even the emotion itself. It’s the looping, the obsessing, the trying to solve something that already happened or hasn’t even happened yet.

I was recently reminded of this quote by Marcus Aurelius:

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

That hits hard for me every time I read it. Not because I’ve mastered it, but because I forget it so easily. I read it, I nod, I highlight it in his book “Meditations”, or write it in my journal — and then the next morning I’m overthinking a conversation from two days ago. So dumb!

But here’s what I’ve been learning: the present moment, more often than not, is actually a safe place.

I don’t mean that in some fluffy, disconnected-from-reality way. I mean that right here — where my feet are, where my breath is, where my protein shake is nice & cold — that place is usually okay. It’s not perfect, but it’s not the chaos my mind can create either.

So I think the work is learning to stay “here” longer. Not forever, just longer than last time.

And sometimes, it helps to hear it from someone else. This quote attributed to Viktor Frankl put it:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”

That space — however small — is the work.

I may not have quite mastered my emotions, but I understand them a bit more now. I can name them quicker. I can sit with them a little longer, and when I slip, I can usually find my way back sooner.

That feels like progress.

That is something that I can be proud of. I hope you can too!

Keep Going, Bro.