How to Master Your Emotions and Reclaim Control Over Your Life

History is deeply shaped by emotions. Leaders have felt- or wanted to feel- jealousy, desire, honor, power, or insecurity, and based on these emotions, they’ve led entire nations into war, with all the consequences that follow.

There’s a powerful saying: “10% of life is what happens to you, and 90% is how you respond to it.”

While we often can't control what happens, we can change how we respond to it. Even as we pray for G-d to change our reality when it's difficult, we should also pray for the strength to change how we react and to ask for help in developing our character traits. We should pray not only for our circumstances, but also for our ability to respond to them in the correct way.

As an example: someone prays that their angry neighbor will move away. Eventually, the neighbor moves and peace returns with the new residents. Did the person really solve their problem? Maybe they handled the neighbor- but not their anger. The real issue often isn't the external struggle, but our inability to cope with it.

King Solomon writes in Proverbs (12:25): “Anxiety in a person's heart brings him down, but a good word makes him glad.”
The Hebrew word “yashchenah” (translated here as “brings down”) can also mean “to lower” or “to subdue.” In other words, the anxiety itself may not be the real problem- but our overthinking and emotional entanglement with it can magnify it far beyond proportion. Statistically, around 70% of what we worry about never actually happens. Write down 10 current worries, and if you check back in six months, you’ll likely see that 7 of them are no longer relevant.

When Solomon says “Anxiety in a person's heart should be subdued”, he’s teaching us to keep worry in proportion and to shrink it down to size.

If someone has a problem that, on a 1–10 scale, ranks at level 3, after stewing over it endlessly, that same problem may feel like an 8 or 9. Not because it got worse, but because of the mental and emotional energy poured into it.

Growth begins when a person realizes that many of their feelings aren’t facts. People say, “I just say what I feel,” as if emotions are always accurate. Or someone might tell a family member, “You’re negative and don’t care,” simply because they feel that way at the moment.

We must stop treating feelings as absolute truth. Emotions are important and deserve attention, but they shouldn’t be the compass guiding our life. Many people make poor choices in the name of their emotions and then justify it by saying, “That’s how I felt.” But feelings are not always reliable guides. They are passengers on our life journey, not the driver.

Indeed, problems are real and pain is real, but that doesn’t mean we can’t handle them. The situation may be unpleasant but is not impossible. A person begins to change and grow when they realize: “I am more than my feelings.”

King Solomon teaches to let go of the burden of worry, and then can we truly live. We’ll discover that we can handle what once felt impossible- and the rest of the verse can come true: “A good word makes him glad.” From the very place of distress, growth and goodness can emerge.

A Beautiful Insight from Chassidic Teachings

In the book Shem MiShmuel, we find a remarkable idea. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son after G-d asked him to bring Isaac as an offering. Then a heavenly angel told him, “Do not lay a hand on the boy.” For Abraham to hear that angel, he had to be in a state of joy, because the Talmud teaches: “Prophecy only rests upon a person when he is joyful.”

We understand from this that during the Akeidah (Binding of Isaac), Abraham was not sad or emotionally numb, but was in a state of joy. If he had acted in sadness, he may have gone through with the sacrifice unnecessarily.

Isn’t it natural to feel sad when you're about to sacrifice your only son? A person doesn’t always need to be loyal to their feelings. We should be loyal to our values, and when we do, our emotions will eventually follow. If Abraham had been loyal to his emotions, he might have performed the act with sadness, missed the divine intervention, and the entire narrative would have changed.

Emotions matter, but they must not control us. They should be partners in our actions, not the ones in charge.

A Teaching from the Chiddushei HaRim

A person once came to the Chiddushei HaRim, saying, “I don’t feel love for G-d. Maybe I should lighten my mitzvah observance until I feel it in my heart.”

The Chiddushei HaRim answered: “The Torah says, ‘Love G-d with all your soul- even if He takes your soul.’ But before that, it says, ‘Love G-d with all your heart’- even if He takes your heart.”

A person must continue to act according to their values, even if their heart isn’t aligned. The absence of an emotional connection doesn’t mean your actions aren’t meaningful. The heart is not the measuring stick of truth. It simply indicates where a person is emotionally, but not what is objectively right or wrong.

Reason Guides Us, Not Emotion Alone

The heart can tell us how much we’re ready for. The mind tells us what is right. For example, someone may know intellectually that Torah study is vital, but emotionally, he feels overwhelmed. He can begin with 30 minutes a day. You don’t ask your heart what’s right- you ask it how much it can handle, and grow from there.