...and I’m thinking; how can they be so flippant, they are going to a strange city, they have no plan, they clearly haven’t it figured out, it’ll go wrong, they’ll miss the train and be left in Dublin and then what – one of us will have to drive up to get them!

I have learned at this point in my parenting, that actually I am not angry, I am afraid. I am afraid that something will go wrong, something bad will happen, they will get hurt and I will be powerless to save them.

And even though the default behaviour is to give out and display anger at them, I now know that it is actually driven by fear.

Until you realise what’s going on in your heart, until you have that awareness, you may very likely be thinking that you are feeling one emotion, when it is another emotion altogether.

To get that awareness you will have to;

•Reflect outside of the situation triggering you.

•Be completely honest with yourself.

•Have no judgement on your underlying emotion, just awareness.

•Give it time and practice to recognise patterns in your reactions.

Now you can change your focus!

Now you can work on your fear (or whatever else is going on for you), which is totally alright, remember, no judgement, your emotions all have a purpose.

We live in a fear driven culture now a days and so it’s easy to get pulled into that – however that’s another blog!

It may take you a couple of examples to fully recognise it in yourself, however do give it a little of your reflective time. And when I say reflective, what I mean is that when you are in the moment it is difficult to spot what is going on underneath, because in the moment you are consumed by the emotion, you do need to reflect afterwards and kind of analyse what was going on for you.

It may not feel good at first, as it’s much easier to blame and be right, however the goal here is not to be right (justified to feel angry), the aim to have peace and calm in your heart, and that can only be if you are truly honest as to what is going on inside.

My drive to write about this topic now, is that around Christmas, when families all meet, sometimes we are triggered as old stories raise their head and old childhood roles come back into play – perfect situation for ‘false’ emotions to show up – for example; we blame our sister for always being so controlling, when really, we feel inferior and unseen…

Are you getting to what I’m pointing at?

Find your real emotion. Just have the awareness, nothing else.

Free yourself from a web of stuff that actually isn’t the issue.

Facing the underneath real stuff, will give you healing and peace.

Have a calm, peaceful, real emotions Christmas. xx