It is against soul ninja policy to freak out. This is a cardinal rule. And it’s a hard one, so it helps that it’s also funny.

Life can be unbelievably infuriating. It can be scary, and unfair, and heartbreaking. It can be violently unjust. Life is regularly overwhelming.

Freaking out does nothing to change this, or help this. It only feeds whatever emotion you already have in ample supply. 

For years, many of us were told that expressing our big emotions, particularly anger, was beneficial. But in recent years, psychologists have discovered the opposite is true. The more we express anger, the angrier we get. And worse, the more quickly we will express anger the next time around.

Rather than releasing our big emotions, feeding them in a reactive way only makes them more destructive.

Practice makes patterns. It’s the law of the universe. What you do creates much of who you are. So, if you don’t want to be a reactive, reactionary person who is at the mercy of your biggest emotions, practice not freaking out.

This is actually possible. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. Your emotions don’t own you. Ethan Nichtern brilliantly describes emotions as houseguests. You can decide who stays and for how long. It’s your house. And nobody makes their wisest decision when their emotional houseguests have overstayed their welcome.

The ninja were genius at this. We have gotten a LOT wrong about the ninja in cultural lore, but here’s one thing we get right: have you ever seen a ninja freak out? No you have not. When they get caught inside someone’s house, they don’t freak out. They get out. When they have to fight off a dozen adversaries at once, they don’t freak out. They get on with it. Even when we get their bravado wrong, we have somehow managed to get their coolness right.

Because ninja never freak out. And soul ninja don’t, either. It’s a waste of energy, and a wrong-headed way of trying to fight the reality of whatever is happening to you. Spend your energy on the real fight, the real enemy. When we rage against what we can’t control, we allow whatever is happening to be even more destructive to us. Not freaking out shifts the energy toward what needs to be done, what can be done. It allows what is possible to override what is happening. But only after you drop the drama and stop freaking out.

This comes up regularly for me as a parent. Pre-teens and teens, as you probably know, are prone to freak out about everything. Our family is not subtle or quiet about any emotion; we’re a passionate bunch. We feel things in a big way. Which means we practice this a lot. When one of my children freaks out, I listen for a while. I let them know their voices are heard and their emotions are valid. And then I say, “Okay, what can make this better? What is in your control to do or change?”

Sometimes, it’s nothing. Life isn’t always fair. People get away with things. Justice isn’t served. In cases like this, our emotions tell us something important (we didn’t like being treated like that, we may not want to trust that person, we shouldn’t procrastinate next time) but then it’s time to let them go.

Other times, I follow up with some tough love and say, “Yes, I see that’s how you feel about your homework, but if you had just done your homework rather than whined about it for the last twenty minutes, you’d be done by now.” Because we have a tendency to rage against the inevitable. (Chores, homework, #adulting…) Raging against reality is like digging a pit and then complaining that we now have to get out of the pit AND do the thing we don’t want to do.

Don’t dig the pit. Don’t get in it. In other words, don’t freak out.

Take a moment to breathe, let it go, re-center.

You’re a soul ninja. You’ve got this. And you will figure it out.