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It took me almost a year to recover from pregnancy and childbirth.

I wasn’t able to properly process the trauma that my body had gone through. My body not only went through massive physical changes but also experienced chronic pain that lasted for multiple months. Add to this that my mental health had deteriorated as I unlearned what I thought I knew about myself.

It took me many months to understand my role as a new mom and what it meant to navigate my days with a new family member. My hormones were out of whack and my routine had changed to the core.

All that eventually caused me to overreact to the small stuff. I got overly annoyed over “big” things that were, well, silly. My family had to tiptoe around me while I had to constantly prove to myself that I wasn’t a horrible person; I was just a sleep-deprived mom who was adapting to her new normal.

You don’t have to experience postpartum to know how awful and messy it is to cope with small frustrations. Most of us overreact and explode sometimes, and that’s perfectly normal. But keeping our emotions in check while juggling hundreds of thoughts and responsibilities is not always possible.

However, we can take effective steps to stop letting everything upset us. Personally, it wasn’t easy for me to differentiate between what was truly upsetting and what wasn’t, but I had to do something about it since it was adding unnecessary stress to my life and hurting those around me.

Here’s how to be more in control of ourselves:

1. Stop overthinking. When something upsets me, I often revert to overthinking in the hope of uncovering the reasons behind the annoying event or finding possible solutions. It goes without saying that in the heat of the moment it doesn’t work, so stop right there. Overthinking only aggravates the situation, which could possibly worsen our emotional reaction.

2. Pause. When frustrated, we usually feel our reaction building up in our bodies. Our hearts beat faster or our breathing gets heavier; that’s our cue to pause before we say anything that we might regret later. Focus on your breath and stay in the present moment as much as you can.

3. Ask yourself, is it truly annoying? Or am I just overreacting because I’m hungry, tired, or stressed? Is there any other way I could solve this issue? Is there a better way to respond? How can I be kind to others while remaining communicative and assertive?

4. Make space for Anicca. Anicca is the Buddhist notion of impermanence. Everything—including our own emotions and thoughts—is subject to change. Allow impermanence to take over; it will. Feel all your emotions and embrace them regardless of how negative they may be, but instead of exhibiting anger, watch your emotions as they slowly dissipate and exit your nervous system.

5. Find your triggers. Can you identify what has caused you to get annoyed? It might be an emotional trigger related to the past or it could be as silly as needing food, water, or some rest. Give yourself what you need before you handle difficult situations.

6. Act; don’t react. When we are faced with an upsetting situation, our emotions tend to run the show. However, when we take charge of our actions, we get to choose how to respond and when. Instead of fueling our emotions, we consciously select the action that leads to the best results.

Last but not least, remember that everything begins and ends in the mind. So unlearn what you think you know about a situation and start from scratch every single day.

~