It's only been a few days back at work, and I am starting to feel myself deflating a bit emotionally. It's something I struggle with at home too. I am a very open and genuine person, filled with passion and emotion, so much so, that I sometimes have trouble controlling it. I "wear my heart on my sleeve," and "what you see is what you get," to quote a few applicable cliches. The problem with this is that there are times when I need to better hide or not allow my emotional/passionate side to take over in moments of frustration, hurt, or difficult situations. There are some very positive things about being passionate and emotional, but this particular part is not one of them. Unfortunately, my youngest son is very emotional too, so you put the two of us together, and "BAM," sometimes you get a bit of that "passion" overflowing as once quiet moments become heated debates with raised voices.
And at work, I can't say I've always been able to keep my emotions in check, so I've realized lately (because of the amount of stress it causes me when I get so wrapped up in work and discipline of my son emotionally) that it's time to learn to separate work relationships from personal relationships, to separate discipline and patience with my kids from the personal hurt and frustration that comes with raising them sometimes. Just the other day, my baby boy said to me (during one of our discussions after he had been very disrespectful to me, and I had asked him to try harder to use nice words and a nice tone of voice with me), that he couldn't control himself. That was the most honest answer I've ever had from him during one of our talks. I can understand that. I've been there myself. I have a hard time controlling my emotions and reactions too sometimes, but now more than ever, primarily because I don't want my son to struggle with same things I've struggled with as a result of not learning early on how to separate my emotions and passion from the "business" side of the world, I have to learn to delineate the two and teach him how to do the same.
I don't want to begin feeling like I am not at ease to be my usual open, genuine, and passionate self at work and at home, but I do want to know that I can stop when I feel myself getting emotional, take a deep breath, and a "time out" if needed before responding and saying something in a way I wish I hadn't. It's not that it happens to me every day or even every week. It's once in a while, but it's enough to make me want to reduce the stress in my life that working myself up that much causes. I can't solve everyone's problems, and I now realize that is what is causing me to get so emotional about the difficult issues I face regularly. I want to help my son do the right thing and learn how to treat others with consideration and kindness. I want to help my co-workers resolve their issues with others they have trouble communicating with or come to me to vent frustrations about working effectively with, but by allowing myself to invest too much emotionally, I am not able to help anyone, and I only bring more stress to myself, so I am learning to separate.
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