 According to statistics, only a small percentage of you who watch our videos are actually subscribed. If you're not subscribed yet and you enjoy what you see, do consider hitting the subscribe button. This encourages YouTube's algorithm in promoting more of our mental health content to more people out there. Hey Psych2Goers, and welcome back to our channel. Why do most bad situations you face take a turn for the worse? What do you do when you're overcome by a powerful emotion? Do you still end up acting out on them despite knowing better? Especially in the heat of the moment, it's easy to get carried away and end up doing or saying things that you later regret. Yikes! And with whom does the blame lie? Emotions. Your emotions are vital. They tell you a lot about your surroundings and how to best move forward. But how to tell when they begin to control you all together? Here are five signs that you might be acting out of emotion and that it might be beneficial for you to take a step back and process your emotions prior to moving forward. One, you focus on getting back at them. Are you often trying to create in them the same feeling that they instilled in you back then? The saying, two wrongs don't make a right, really holds true here. In a burst of emotion, you sort of retaliate. As a result, you fail to realize that this kind of response really doesn't help the situation at all. It continues to foster ill will and does not allow for the situation to cool or a solution to present itself. Two, you hear rather than listen. Are you in the habit of allowing others to speak just so you can deliver a response? When you hear them out just so you can formulate an answer, you're not really listening. You are unable to truly grasp and understand where the other person's coming from. You may be using that information that they give you as ammo to strengthen your points and shoot it right back at them. It might be something to keep an eye out for as listening without understanding causes one to jump to conclusions. You may feel to see the bigger picture and end up acting rashly. Three, you play the blame game. Are you quick to believe that everyone else has wronged you and that you've done everything perfectly? When emotions run high, you become insistent upon proving the other wrong. This can cloud your judgment of who's its fault. It makes it difficult for you to introspect and own up to your mistakes. As a result, you grasp another shoulder to shift the burden on to, thinking, maybe I did something wrong here can help prevent things from blowing out of proportion. Four, you're set on mulling over the details. Are you replaying that situation over and over again in your head? Do you find it hard to forgive and forget? If the solution seems out of focus, that's because you're more focused on what happened and how it made you feel. And this isn't to say that you're not allowed to express your emotions. You definitely are. But if you're constantly focusing on the negative and not striving to come to a resolution or a better way to move forward, that might be a sign that you're running away with your emotions at that point. Five, there is no pause between intense emotion and action. So think of the last time you experienced a really intense emotion. Did you act on it immediately? Chances are you did not pause to ponder. Oftentimes, when you're acting from a very emotional mind, it lacks logic. Even though emotions tell you how to best respond to a situation, if it's a really intense one, sometimes that reaction or emotional response will elicit something in you even you yourself don't recognize. And so you act in a way that is so not you in retrospect. As the saying goes, think before you act. This shows taking a step back to really think about what just happened and how you should respond helps ground you in the present rather than letting emotions fly high. So should suppressing your emotions, be it out of fear, out of embarrassment, or out of shame, be your preferred response? Rather, it is prudent to best utilize your emotions in an effective way. By learning to recognize, process, and express these feelings, you can stay true to yourself. Even in the face of extreme emotion, staying connected with rational thought helps you reach a state where you're a bit calmer and can respond with a more level head. Such an approach benefits not only you, your mental health, and also the people around you and the relationships that you have. Do any of these describe your experience? Or are there any signs that aren't included in this list? Leave a comment down below and please feel free to share any thoughts you have as well. If you find this video helpful, be sure to hit the like button and share it with those out there wondering why they always see red. Don't forget to subscribe to Psych2Go and hit the notification bell for more new videos. Thanks for watching!