Choosing is a big one. Something I learned later in life about emotional maturity and controlling your emotions is that it's just choosing to feel an emotion.

Like, feeling angry for longer than I needed because I didn't know how to make the choice to feel happy or calm.

Of course there's more nuance to it but I agree with choosing

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phyzix5761 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Emotions are not controllable or choosable but our reactions to them are trainable. One good technique for this is mindfully observing and labelling the emotion until it goes away; not trying to change it but also not acting on it. With practice one can observe the emotion subsiding within a minute or so. This, eventually, leads to less emotional reaction overall because we're taking away the habitual pattern of the mind to constantly react to everything it likes or dislikes.

	▲	praash 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You are controlling your emotions with that technique, accepting and waiting emotions out is just not the only option. Getting indoors from a cold rain is an obvious choice. I can't really decide to stop shivering, but changing my clothes and grabbing a hot chocolate helps. It still takes a while to warm back up, meanwhile I can actively choose not to open windows or go right back in the rain.

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watwut 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, people are not choosing emotions. You can show them or not, but it is not true that one "chooses" them.

	▲	47282847 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		A popular perspective is that emotions are the result of quick analysis of a situation, trained on survival instincts originally but later mostly pattern matching and beliefs. By observing emotional reactions you can drill down to the underlying belief, and over time adjust to new circumstances. For example, based on this theory, anger is the result of an analysis that determines that something is deemed wrong and it is within your power to change it (or extract yourself from the situation). If it’s judged to be not within your power, the resulting emotion is sadness. And these judgments can be changed to have a different emotional experience - beyond feeling them or acting on them. This adjustment requires to identify the original deep pattern/beliefs, not just surface-level desire to do so. This introspection typically requires third party assistance, available in various therapeutic and coaching settings.