I got my life at church recently. My pastor (shoutout to Pastor Danielle Murphy) was talking about how being caught up in your feelings can stop you from living your best life. Of course, there's the whole connotation of Drake's song "In My Feelings", but in all seriousness, I had to come to terms that my emotions were taking over for a lot of areas I didn't even realize.
While the stigma that women are emotional creatures has arguably been proven, I know I'm one of those people that have made decisions based off of my emotions and they clearly didn't suit me. On the flip side, when you don't let your emotions take control, you'll be closer to living your best life.
Get Over Overthinking & Overreacting
I can be so terrible at this. Our emotions have this super heavy power to make us overthink any situation and then overreact. The worst part is that most of the time it's about a situation that we've completely made up in our head. You have one thought (i.e. that someone has an issue with you), and then use everything that person says or does to justify why you think that about them. It's not only draining (because who has time to come up with Tyler Perry's latest plot line in our mind), but it can also create awkward situations in real life that only started with an assumption in your mind.
Overthinking and overreacting can really cause us to push people away that actually care about us, because we've tried to convince ourselves that they're being shady. One of the ways to overcome your emotions in this case is to address it head-on and trust the answer without trying to make it fit into what you've already come up with. I know this one is hard but it can also be refreshing once you make it a lifestyle.
Slow Your Roll On Decisions
There aren't too many things that are worse than making a bad decision because of how we feel in the moment. Ugh. But being in our feelings can make us do it. It can be something as simple as eating way too much ice cream because you had an amazing day or something as drastic as sleeping with an ex who you finally got away from after a toxic relationship. Look, nobody can judge because we've all let our emotions get the best of us when it comes to making decisions in the moment. So I think it's safe to say the remedy would be to not make a decision in that moment. Like, what's the rush?
I remember when I was looking for a car and someone told me to not give in to the pressure of car salesmen who wanted me to drive off with a new car that day. The person told me I should wait, think it over for a few days, and then make a sound and smart decision. Well, I didn't listen and bought a car that day, and it didn't take long for me to regret it. I feel like this can apply to any situation and can help make us feel better and at peace about the decision.
Point Out Your Triggers
Yes, we're women. But not everything causes us to just react and go crazy. There's usually something that will trigger our emotions and make us want to be petty and have an unhealthy reaction. Even though we might know subconsciously what our triggers are, like having those thoughts, "I hate when they do that," that's not necessarily being intentional about overcoming our emotions in the situation.I think the initial thing is to not only realize how you feel about it but figure out why.
If it's something serious, don't hesitate to try therapy (we could probably all use a weekly session). But once you realize why whatever it is gets under your skin, you might not be so bothered or even shocked when it happens. And you can get on with living your best life, boo.
Focus On The Good
There are a lot of things going on in life that can have our emotions on 100; especially if it's something we didn't see coming. But there are also several positive aspects you can choose to focus on that can help you get control of your emotions. It's no secret that what you put your attention to can get magnified and seem like it's a bigger deal than it really is. So why not make sure it's something positive instead of something negative that can seemingly eat us up inside?
Focusing on the good things in life not only makes you feel better and refreshed about what you have going on, but it lets your emotions know that you're the one in charge.
Get Ahead Of The Game
When those negative emotions come and make you want to react, you literally have to shut it down. At first, you might not even recognize that your emotions are controlling you, but anytime something negative enters your mind, just go with the opposite; even if you have to say the positive out loud. Emotions will try to get you to think you're by yourself and focus on the negative parts of your life and overlook the good. Either way, they have a dangerous power of not letting us live our best life.
Don't feel crazy if you have to tell your emotions, "We're not doing this today y'all," and be intentional about just being positive and having control over your feelings, not the other way around. Just trust that once you do reach this threshold, you'll look up and be living your best life without question.
Featured image by Shutterstock
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak