Haleh Banani – How To Master And Control Your Emotions

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person, a woman,

woman in the law.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from one of my clients. She's a professional, very successful, highly educated lady. And she called me and she said, Hi, I have really messed up. I have messed up. So I'm thinking to myself, you know, what, what could it be? What does she do that she's feeling so much? You know, guilt. So I asked her, I said, You know what, what happened? And she starts explaining to me, she goes, Well, you see, I bought into a fight with my husband. And this time, I really lost it. I got so angry, I started yelling, I started cussing. And that wasn't enough. I read and I picked up the phone, and I called my mother in law. And I started yelling at her and say, you know, you don't

know how to raise your son, and I am frustrated. And she has some more. And she still wasn't appeased. She called up the grandparents. And she said the same thing. And she got very angry. She's like, you know, the son is he's horrible. We can't stand him and she has some more, and she still didn't feel good.

In order to feel a little relief, she went, and she keyed her husband's brand new $70,000 car.

And this is the result of not being able to control your emotion. How can someone so rational, so educated, so sophisticated, able to resort to such a behavior? Right? I'm sure most of us would not resort to King or spouse's car, right? We wouldn't do that. Yes. And but we all have our irrational moments, there are times when we may not act in a way that we are proud of. And we need to reflect and see what is it that causes us to be so irrational at times, it's usually because we start justifying our behavior, okay, and I'm going to show you some of the ways we justify, and I find this, this, what's going to be very unnatural, is that you're going to hear this list. And you're

going to think about the people that this refers to my spouse, all the time, my mother in law, my sister in law, I challenge you to only think about how this applies to you. Because many times we attend lectures, we hear football, and we think that this is about everybody else except me. Okay? So I challenge you listen to this with an open heart and an open mind, and really trying to see how this applies. So one of the biggest justifications when someone overreact is that you know what, I have to get things off my chest, if I hold it in, it's, it doesn't feel good. And many of you feel that, you think that by getting it off your chest, you're somehow magically going to feel better.

But in the process, you break relationships, you break people's hearts, you're gonna feel awful, and you're gonna feel awful for a very long time. So that's justification number one.

Number two is people say, you know, I just want to be honest, I'm honest, I'm authentic, I can't be fake. So I have to say, whatever I feel because I am an honest, authentic person that does that sound familiar? Some of you think that way. Well, I

hate to break this to you. But being honest, doesn't give you a license to be rude. You can't laugh people with the truth. Okay. So that's the second justification. The third justification is, I don't want to bottle things up. If I bottle it up, I'm gonna get sick, I'm gonna have heart problems, I'm gonna have high blood pressure. So I don't want to bottle it up. I'm going to just put a lid on there. But you know, what happens when you learn it out there is that it really causes a lot of damage, you may have a momentary relief, but you have to deal with this for so long. And then the last justification. In fact, people will say, you know what, I want to stand up for my rights. I

don't want my rights to be taken. But you don't step on others in order to get your rights. Okay? So those are the justifications now.

What are the obstacles? What are the obstacles that happen? where it leads to these kinds of behavior? Number one, the number one problem is a lack of self awareness. You know how many clients I have to tell me, you know what I don't I don't even know why I have such rage inside of me. Sometimes I get so depressed, I don't know where it's from. So when you don't introspect, when you don't know the reasons for your, for your sadness, you don't know the reasons for your anger, and we're just going through waves of emotion, then this is the problem. And this is why there's the overreaction, the Sahaba used to interest them, they used to take inventory every day, they would

reflect at night, what did I do? What did I do that was good, what was it that was something that I'm proud of, and something that was worthy of, you know, it was actually worth it. And then we think about things, and maybe they want to correct them themselves. So we need to do that with ourselves. And if you think about it, within the team, it is ingrained for us to introspect, if we do it properly cried many times when we're doing the rituals, we're going through the motions, right. But if we do it correctly, if we do it with the concentration with sincerity, let's say just a call, okay. I usually have people do.

Either 100,000 as a call, you know, and they want, you know, they feel so proud about it. But where's the reflection? Where's that? You know, really thinking about? What is it that they're saying? So hon Allah. So next time you are doing your upcloud I want every time you say a word, thinking about what is it that you're amazed about when you sit and think about the fact that you've been given some of the most amazing gifts, when you say that, and you do it with introspection and mindfulness. That's how you're going to have that inner introspection, okay? When you say a sufferer alone, just don't see it for yourself. And be happy about the numbers. One more, it's better, if I'm

not mistaken, to do less, right, do less but with concentration and with focus, and be mindful, rather than doing so many without any substance. Okay, so the one thing is the lack of self awareness. Another thing is a lack of self control. Many times I find people just react because of the fact that they are angry. I've had clients tell me, I got into a fight. So I just, you know, I got physical, I got physical with my husband, I got physical with my spouse. And this is not acceptable. As a believer, as a motivator. As an as a movement, we need to control ourselves, we need to be riding that horse of emotion and we got to be in control. For us what happens when you're

on a horse? We're in Texas, guys, how many horse riders out here? Okay, great. We got one person.

You know, when you get on a horse, I remember one horseback riding in college. And everything was going well, we're just going very slowly. And suddenly, the horse started galloping, and started galloping. And it went towards the fence. And I thought I am dead meat, right now, the horses gonna jump.

It's gonna be horrible. So we're stuck right before the fence 111. That's why I'm here today.

But the owner of the horse came up to me and said, Ma'am, you need to mine your horse. And when I got out of my car, so you got to take it by the rain, and you got to show his boss, okay, this is what we need to do with our emotions, we need to take the reins of our emotions, we got to be in control. If we're sitting, and we're allowing the worst to just go wherever it wants to go. That's where you have the broken relationship. That's where you overreact to your kids, you break the ties of friendship and sisterhood the Brotherhood. And it's all because of what we are not in control of our emotions, okay. And the third thing is there's a lack of coping skills. If most of you have been

in households where mom and dad fought, where they ignored the issues, they didn't know how to do things, then what's gonna happen, you're gonna do the same thing. So we got to get the skills, we gotta learn how to deal with it properly. And another thing is that there's a lack of thinking about the consequences. How many times when you get into a fight, you think about, well, if I say this, what is going to happen? How is this going to affect my wife emotionally? How is this if I see a disrespectful word to my husband, how's it gonna affect him? And how's it going to affect our long term relationship? Right freedom with your client?

sweating are the type of work that you lose your cool, how is that going to affect your work? So we need to think about the consequences. And if there's also a lack of wisdom, right, if there's a lack of wisdom, you know, people aren't just learning things out whatever causes their head. It's just like going,

what clients how to get unstuck. I just can't hold it back, if I have a thought I have to share. But what we need to do is really think about what we say how we say it. Because this wisdom, wisdom is a gift that Allah says,

In the Quran, you're attending today

by the EU, to

the euro.

He gives wisdom to whom He wills, and who would ever hasn't been given wisdom have certainly been given much good. And none will remember except those who understand it is a gift doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many degrees you have, how many PhD how old you are, you can see someone who's nine years old with zero hikma, right, I've seen him you've seen people in your community and your family. It doesn't have to do anything with age, it has nothing to do with degrees. It only has a gift from Allah. So if you don't have hikma and you know who you are, if you don't have wisdom, pray for him. Pray for him. Now, it's really important to realize that there is a thought, body mood, and

behavior connection, what we think about affects the way we feel, which affects our mood, and then it leaves us to a behavior, okay, and I'm going to give you an example. So all of you can relate to this. if, let's say your spouse will use the husband as an example, your husband is late, two hours afterward, okay? I'm going to give you different scenarios, different ways of thinking about it. And the different ways we think about it will affect your mood, and it will affect your behavior. So, Scenario number one, a person could be like, oh, Habibi, he works so hard. He's such a good provider, Mashallah.

What is the mood? What mood would you have? If you have these thoughts?

Blah,

blah, there will be compassionate. How many of you would think that be honest?

Very good. We're off to a good start. All right. Now, what would your behavior be? If you think, oh, he worked so hard? And you know, if he comes home, you're going to be compassionate, you're going to want to help you're going to want him to relax, right? What is the scenario? Someone else has the thought, Oh, my God, I know. He's in a car accident. Oh, my God, what are you gonna feel? What's

sad, fear, anxiety? And when he comes home, how are you going to rehab? Hopefully, all

right. What about the third scenario where you say,

he doesn't care about to care about us? We're not a priority. It's all about his work. It's all about his family.

priorities, what's the

anger? And how are you going to act when he comes home?

ready for a fight? Right? You're ready. Now what if the last scenario How many of you would think come on? Be honest? Okay.

The last scenario would be you may think to yourself, I just know, I know he's cheating on me. I know.

He's been acting really funny. How many witches? How many of you would think that?

I can tell by the lobster.

What is the

fear is range. And if he comes home, how are you going to add?

So we see that the way we think affects our mood, which affects our behavior, so we got to be really aware of that. And we have to see the example of our amazing prophet.

Did he ever have rage towards his wife? Did he ever have rage towards his kids, even in the situation where he was faced with his enemy, the enemy that oppressed them, the enemy's family members, he let them go, let them be free. He railed in the emotions, he did not allow me to cry and not allow his emotions to get out of control. So if we want to emulate him, then

We need to definitely take control of our thoughts. You know, our brain is so amazing. The prefrontal cortex here is where all the thought processes take place. This is where you make decisions. This is where you, you can decide between right and wrong, controlling your age and your urges and your desires. And you know, what happens upon a line how miraculous that we're honest. Now, how Allah when he describes it, he describes the people who transgress the people make bad decisions, says he says they will be grabbed by by their for long right here. This is where it all happens to the prefrontal cortex. And so when a person knows right and wrong, that they choose to do

the wrong Anyway, when they succumb to their desire time. And time and time again, that means we're not using our facility properly, right? So what we need to, what we need to do is be more aware of this. And the way I want to explain this is that most of the things that we do, is out of habit, right? A lot of our behavior is in the basal ganglia of our brain, okay. And here, it's kind of like when you're driving a car, how many times you get in the car, and you just, you're on autopilot, right? You just go you dry, and you could be half asleep. Hopefully, we're not as pleased but half asleep, and you can make it home, right? Because it's all happening here. What happens if someone

suddenly cuts you off? If they cut you off? It's right here in the prefrontal cortex, you're thinking, What do I do? Do I sort of like oh, and so we need to really apply this area. And when we do when we you can start counting backwards. Okay, how do we get to this area? Okay, so you go 54321, you go from habitual behavior to

prefrontal cortex, everyone with me? A little science class short, short, little science. But here's why I say this, okay? Because a lot of times, when we're emotional, we stop thinking, right? A lot of the times when there's a therapy session, and the heart rate of the couples that I'm working with, it goes up to 100, I stopped therapy, I do deep breathing, I get them to relax, because you know what, you stopped thinking, you stopped hearing, you start reacting rationally. So we need to figure out how can we stop those irrational behavior. So what I mean is what you count backwards, 54321, and you start thinking, Okay, whatever it is, the team are enraged, or angry at your child,

because they didn't listen to you for the 10th time, you're angry at your spouse, because you keep telling them not to just keep doing that annoying thing. So you stop right there. Okay. And that gives you a moment to pause. That moment to pause is so powerful, because it gives you a time to do what to think. Because a lot of the things that you do is just like not thinking for thinking my client was not thinking without thinking about the consequences when she went and copied her husband's car. So whenever you pause, you're able to reflect, and you're able to think about the consequences, think about what's gonna happen. If I, if I take out my anger on my child, what's

gonna happen to his self esteem? If I you know, if I just cut ties with this sister in the community over stupid, stupid thing that happened? What is that going to do to our own lives? Each person cutting ties, just as easy as that, what's gonna happen tomorrow, we need to think about that. And not just react out of emotions. Remember, I said get on the horse, and take your emotions by the rain, and really be in control of it. Don't let your emotions control us. So we can count backwards, you pause, and then you have to think about your thinking about your thoughts. Okay. Remember the exercise we did about the husband coming home two hours late? How different was the mood and the

behavior depending on the false? It was extremely different, right. And so we have to make sure that we're having the right kind of thoughts, and we are evaluating and interpreting our situations properly. Because if not, imagine if the poor guy was staying late. Because Yeah, extra work and you wanted to make extra money. And then you're thinking that he cheated on you. I mean, how unfair Is that right? And we do this harm.

We're constantly having negative thoughts we're having so is that, right? We're thinking, assuming the worst of the people around us. And we react, and we think we're correct. So really be aware of that. And it's about the yield out, I didn't see slowdowns. Zuma, like a camera, when you have a camera, and let's zoom in on someone, and you take a picture of them, and you just capture that pimple on the forehead

and try zoom out and you see the full picture, you see the beauty of that person, you're not just zone, you're not zooming in on their flaw. Okay, you let's say you have a bouquet of flowers and you zoom in on that petal that has been wilted, you lose the whole beauty right? zoom out, see the bigger picture, seeing the bigger picture of of that person you're dealing with? See their good qualities. You know, a lot of times we're so focused on the negative traits of the people in our lives. We can even come up with one positive thing. I've had that where I'm in a marriage counseling session. And I turned off, you know, I turned to the sister and I'm like, you know, what is it that

you like about your, your husband? And

provider and is a good father usually likes

to come up with something, I turned to the husband and I said,

What is it that you like about your wife? And he's just like, Oh,

brother, what do you like about your wife, which

is probably making her cooking, it

must be a great mom.

Gonna be deadly tonight, this guy will

come up with one positive to take and married for over 25 years, not one positive change to come up with. And why is that? Because in his mind, all day all night is thinking about how annoying she is. She's a nag. And I'm sick of this. I'm sick of that. And when we focus on those things I've always seen, so zoom out. Okay, and just seeing the bigger picture and realize that every person, every single person that you deal with, they have their good qualities, and they have their basketballs. Okay, focus on that thing that is good. That's all we can do can't change. Okay, unless they want to change. There's a running joke about how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? You

all know the answer. None. The light bulb has to want to change.

Psychology, alright. But the thing is that if a person does not want to change, there's no way that you're going to change, right? And people come, they end up the time they have the money to change behavior when working with me.

And they you know, it's still it's challenging, right? They will achieve their goals, but it's still it's you have to want it.

Also give yourself time out for yourself. When you find that you're enraged or angry or frustrated, instead of reacting, you said you pause, think about your thoughts you are you are zooming out, right. And you can also when you zoom out something I love that is that it helps to say that there is a master plan. There is a master plan. And you may not be happy with what's happening right now in your life. You may not like the test you're in you may not like whether it's your spouse, or your kids or your financial situation or anything that's going on. But you have to realize that this is being executed. And this is the most violent, most divine. And there's hikma there's Hickman, in

what is happening, and just embrace that, if you embrace it, you will have a lot less depression, a lot less anxiety, and you will be able to have that inner peace. And it's really about having you know, that timeout that I was talking about trying to find, try to find something that you can do, let's say whether it's going for a walk, whether it's taking, you know, due to records of prayer, whether it is whatever it is that relaxes you, I remember being at the VA hospital, I was working there and we had 50 veterans came they're all like they I was in my 20s imagine 20 year old mahadasha. And there's like these veterans that had all been in like the Gulf War. And they were

like 30 years older than me and they had a lot of anger and frustration inside. So it was a group therapy session. I was teaching them about how to control their emotions, their anger. And so one of the things we suggested I had a quote therapist suggested is that when you feel anger, just

Do you take a break, go, you know, do something to distract yourself. The net, took this advice, and he ran with it. Okay, take this advice. The next time he got into a fight with his wife, he booked the ticket to Mexico web, and then it tells his wife

and he came back, he's like, you told me to take a break. And I said, Go in your backyard.

I don't want you to misquote me, okay?

You just take something you do, and you relax, then it's about having an outlet, you have to have a conflict, you have to have something, all of this bottled up emotions, instead of like, you know, letting people have it and lashing out, have an exercise have something you did. I remember when my kids were very little, they were like, five, three, and maybe newborn. And it's hard. You know, as a mother trying to balance you're trying to balance the work you do the kids the house, the career. And so it was a way that I coped with that with the frustration and everything is by going to kickboxing, kickboxing was great because it just like, you know, it lets you let out all that all

that energies, so make sure that you have some kind of outlet, you have an outlet that you can just let it out, but in a healthy way. And the last thing I know I'm a little bit over time, but it's it's about knowing your triggers your triggers, you have to know what is it that angers you, you yourself have to know you know, many times when I'm talking, I'm doing the session, the couples therapy, and, and I have asked the spouse, you know, what angers you they don't even know they're like, I don't know, like, how do you expect your spouse to know if you if you yourself, don't know your triggers, and know how to deal with that. I really I pray that all of us will have the wisdom,

the patience to take control of our emotions, and be in charge be in charge of our emotions so that we don't destroy our relationships and solid care for your time and your attention. Salaam Alaikum.