You have a lot of control over your body’s ability to pair a different physiological response with a specific context. All you have to do is calmly experience a different emotion, in the context. Then do so repeatedly, until your body understands that the context is not a danger to you.

When you are asking a child to grow, be careful not to require him to leap to the end, when little approximate steps will be more achievable. Just like you, your child will not enjoy failing over and over again, as they try to obtain a goal that is out of their reach. Just like you, your child will enjoy the feeling of success when they accomplish the approximations of their goal and they can experience themselves moving forward.

Emotional independence is the ability to regulate one’s own emotions without requiring another person’s actions or words. It is important because if we are dependent on another person, in order to regulate our emotions, we will be subject to them. If they give imperfect responses, we will dysregulate. If we are emotionally independent, we can be the person that we want to be, regardless of the performance of those around us.

The most resistant path is someone else’s agency. It is nearly impossible to plot a course for ourselves, when the path is against someone else’s agency. That person might be trying to work on their character and change those tendencies, but such growth can take a lifetime. If we are standing on the sidelines, tapping our foot, and waiting impatiently for them to change, their growth can take longer. If we have focused on their impediment for so long that we believe our only path to our happiness is for them to change, we will develop resentment toward them. When we take a step back and realize that we can achieve our own goals, without requiring someone else to change first, our resentment dissipates. When we realize that there are many possible paths available to us, on our journey to achieve our goals, we experience emotional freedom.