5yr Old Socrates and Vacation Money Drama

Rarely do my kids leave me speechless, but my 5 year old stunned me today.

We were just hanging out and he says “mom….do we control our emotions or do our emotions control us?”

Well hello little Socrates.

Clearly, this kid’s parents are coaches.

The answer is indeed that we control our emotions. But we rarely take advantage of this fact.

Usually, we believe that our emotions are beyond our control. They are not.

In all fairness I’ll insert a caveat for mental illness. There are times when the feelings are overwhelming. But there are still some takeaways here, so please keep reading.

So how do we control our emotions?

**We intentionally create space between stimulus and reaction.***

When your boss is a jerk, your husband is out late, your kids are fighting, the bill collector calls, when all of life’s stuff comes at you…..you pause.

You take a beat and decide how you want to feel.

Let’s play this out.

Let’s talk about money. I grew up insecure about money and it’s been something I have had to work on. So I have some good examples here.

I get really uptight about vacation spending.