Do our emotions protect us or drag us along? It took centuries for emotions to be noticed and included as relevant characters on the human biophysiological stage. We still inherit some mistakes from that ignorant journey, expressed in statements such as “I am a rational person” or “we need to control our feelings,” or in the association of expressing emotions with weakness.

Researchers from different fields put the understanding of such sophisticated mechanisms, fundamental to living well, or even to living, in their cone of attention. While they studied, they heard (and there are still those who say) phrases such as “that woman is out of control, it’s the hormones!”, “that’s not a man’s thing, swallow the tears!”, “a real man isn’t afraid,” “no anger, dear, be a little princess!” Said by people of importance in a child’s life, these phrases leave traces of guilt, pain, inadequacy and shame, which drive relational behaviors and actions.

In some school and family communities, a movement to provide emotional education to the little ones can be observed. In this way, children can grow up living with emotions, knowing how to name them and understanding their power as partners in survival. That is the way we are moving toward a health that integrates the person’s different dimensions.

We must also consider the life events of the people who make these statements. They tend not to have permission to feel what they feel and end up disguising their feelings, giving them names that fit social demands.

In tensions, some choreographed like ballets of discord, one can see the interlocutors leave the rehearsed role and begin an escalation of emotional loss of control that can trigger the people who, distracted, are around the crisis.

First of all, one cannot divide people into emotional and thinking. Feeling can underlie thinking and, more spectacular, thinking can hurl us into intense feeling. A semiotic reflection on the word “resentment” fits here: it carries signs of both systems, a feeling “felt” again and again, from a thought “thought” again and again. Thus, thinkers also feel, and reason will inevitably be biased by emotions.

A small change of key is needed, starting from a realization: emotions cannot be controlled, since they happen a little before we perceive them. But they can be calibrated.

First, we name what we are feeling: anger, joy, disgust, jealousy, rejection and so on. With the name given and the sensation welcomed, we go to the next step. From the name, we try to understand what triggered the emotion (it may have been a lived experience or the memory of one). Once the emotionally charged moment is identified, it is time to take a break.

Time is welcome for thinking, breathing, understanding and deciding, not necessarily in that order. Each stage is part of the calibration. And it is not much time: ninety seconds can make a difference. If possible, leave the scene. Wash your face, drink water, walk around the block and breathe deeply, slowly. Think about what to do. Ask: “What is appropriate to do at this moment?”

Several actions are needed: identifying whether the trigger belongs to us, when it comes from our own functioning, or whether the arrow was shot by someone nearby losing control. If it is mine, I need to concentrate to welcome my discomfort, accommodate it, understand it and adopt a pattern that will protect me in future occurrences. If it is the other’s, that is where it needs to stay. I need to keep it neatly separate: what is mine is mine; what is the other’s is the other’s.

It is a beginning. Today there is much to read, hear, understand and observe from the wise, whether researchers or generous teachers, who help us understand, honor and use wisely the knowledge of emotions.