Family Business

Hello Peanut,

Thank you for your question. I am not sure the context of your question/or if I am interpreting what you are asking correctly so let me first premise what I am interpreting your question to be. I am gathering that you work for a family business and you are having a difficult time not reacting to either the customers/clients/patrons or possibly to your family/other coworkers. Hopefully I am interpreting your question correctly. With that said, I believe I can offer some sound insight.

First, try to remember that the emotion is okay; it is okay to be frustrated/angry/disappointed/etc. It is just about not responding poorly to the emotion. If you are wanting to push the feelings away that will not help in the long run. What you need to do is to validate the emotion, but then to use positive strategies to help you to work through that emotion so it does not result in reactions you do not want to actually engage in.

When you get really angry (or any other really strong negative emotion), that anger hijacks your brain making it very hard to access the part of your brain responsible for logic, reasoning, and problem solving. Avoiding being reactionary is about learning to slow the process down; to make it that the trigger (rude coworker for example) does not completely hijack your system. You can do this by increasing your ability to be mindful (present in the moment) because if you can engage in what is happening around you then that keeps the brain from firing threat alarm bells and jumping into actions (that seem to be causing you difficulty). 

Some great strategies to help with that are ones that engage your senses or help you to focus on your breathing. Mindfulness strategies work because it shows the brain that you are really okay; it is just a coworker, etc that has upset you. It helps lower the arousal and keeps the logic center of your brain online; which you want to keep online because without it you say and do things you would never say or do. 

I know that all seems over simplified. Without knowing more about what is going on internally for you I can't be more specific on what I think may help, but I want to encourage you to talk with a therapist. Either here on the platform or through other means; the therapist will help you set boundaries in an appropriate way and will help you to develop strategies to not be so reactive.

I wish you the best and am hoping you find some success over responding on impulse. Take care.