In the Face of Adversity

The importance of resilience

by Ron Breazeale

Managing Strong Feelings

Managing strong feelings involves our thinking and controlling our emotions.

Published on June 13, 2011 by Ron Breazeale, Ph.D. in In the Face of Adversity

Tragedy or a crisis stirs up strong feelings. Our ability to be able to recognize these for what they are and to deal with them is one of the critical skills in resilience. This requires that we be able to think clearly, to be able to take action without behaving impulsively and responding only out of emotion. Being able to put our emotions to the side when clear thinking and action are required is a part of being resilient. Being able to use our thinking to manage our feelings is a key component of this skill.

In the novel, Reaching Home, Liz, who is the wife of the main character, Lee, has many opportunities to exercise this skill. Liz's hair is cut short, she is almost completely gray. A beautiful woman, Liz has retained her shape as the years have passed and threatened to take it from her.

When we fist meet her characters, she has been crying. Her eyes are red. Her nose is running. She hasn't slept in a week. Not since it had all started. But tonight she will see him. Lee will be back. At least that's what his attorney has told her. She is waiting in the dark in a booth in the back of Flo's, a bar in the cove. She peers out at the harbor but can see nothing. The fog has rolled in earlier in the evening.

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She knows the newspapers are wrong, as are the TV news reports, the Internet postings. Her husband isn't a terrorist. But she knew innocence sometimes didn't matter. Most of her family had been killed in the Holocaust. Her mother had escaped to Shanghai where she had met Liz's father, and where Liz had been born.

The last week had seemed like a bad dream. The police had come to the house with search warrants. They had gone through everything. They had taken Lee's computer and some of his books. They told her and her daughter not to leave the area or they would be in as much trouble as Lee.

Managing strong feelings is a skill. For many of us, not one easily learned. It involves using our thinking to be able to control our emotions. It is often easier to go with our feelings rather than with our thoughts in a crisis. Facing adversity requires a balance between both thinking and feeling.