If you’re like most people, even reading the headline above causes an involuntary tightening in your chest. The same phrase, uttered by someone with whom you are debating, arguing, or even simply talking, might produce that same reaction… and quickly swell towards fury.

It’s not surprising given that is usually its purpose.

There are two perspectives to any 1 on 1 discussion between people (well, there are more but let’s keep it simple). Let’s look at both sides of the “relax” conversation:

Most people are aware of the fact that telling someone to relax has the exact opposite effect on them. Very seldom does someone utter those words in nonviolent discussion with their intention being 100% aligned with the statement. A person who feels berated, belittled, challenged, or ideologically threatened may use the “relax” gambit not to get the other person to truly calm down, but to push onto them some of the emotional turmoil that they themselves are feeling. It usually works too: “Don’t tell me to relax!” comes the predictable response. Now the first person isn’t the only one who is upset, and as a happy side effect the subject has now changed to the emotional states of the participants and away from the topic at hand. It’s a brilliant strategy if your goal is to not have a productive conversation

But what is happening on the part of the person being told to relax; how are we responding to this rhetorical gambit? Almost anyone who has ever been told to relax knows exactly how infuriating it can be. It hits us in several ways. We stand accused, deservedly or not. We don’t like that. Our passions are mistaken for blind emotion, our precious ideas relegated to the status of outburst. We really don’t like that. But despite knowing that it’s purpose is to distract us and/or elicit an emotional response we almost always take the bait.

— — —

I’ve always been fond of the saying: “An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.”

Both participants in the hypothetical conversation above are falling into that trap. The first has lost the battle of ideas or the battle with their emotions and is resorting to emotional hostage taking. The second follows suit willingly and usually escalates. Neither are in anything resembling control anymore, and whatever the topic was is now lost.

I read about a recent Turing test competition in which programmers were competing to see if their chatbots could fool humans into thinking they were real people. One of the entrants trained his chatbot to be an asshole, which was a much simpler strategy than many others employed from a programming standpoint: the bot only responded (insultingly) to the statements directly preceding it’s responses. The bot dragged the human into the robotic morass of argument where its narrow constraints were adequate.

When fighting with words (not to be confused with healthy debate) we stop trying to compete on the basis of ideas and narrow our focus to the most immediate insult or sleight. We stop trying to convince and start trying to WIN. Everyone thought the bot was a real person because that’s what real people do when angry: we become robotic. For other examples of this see the comments section of the internet. The asshole-bot won the contest handily, by the way.

— — —

We’ve been talking about conversation this whole time, but there’s a deeper level here and it’s more important than the games we play with language.

We understand on a very fundamental level the degree to which anger, and other strong emotions can impair us. Anger, for instance, quite literally reduces our ability to think and see straight. We also understand that when we feel annoyed, slighted, or patronized our natural reactions, while understandable and seemingly unavoidable, seldom do us any favors. However, this does not often translate to us changing our behavior.

We risk our lives in traffic possessed by rage, we risk our friendships possessed by jealousy. When this happens to you, you’ve become the rogue chatbot. you’ve stopped trying to talk and act with precision and started trying to win. But those victories are Pyrrhic and the costs they come at are myriad: you damage your relationships, you pollute your ideas, you drown your credibility.

You are blind and shouting.

— — —

Unfortunately emotions aren’t something you can control or wrangle. The more you try that approach the more they take hold of you. They are, however, something you can observe, and with observation comes some level of detachment as observed by neuroscientists and meditators alike. The word detachment is often seen as having a negative connotation, being associated with a lack of passion or drive. But in this context it means the ability to see clearly: to let your best self sit in the driver’s seat while your pettier emotions watch from the sidelines, rather than the reverse.

The path to healthy detachment is through self reflection. Learning to recognize the swell of negative emotions that arise unbidden within you is the key. You may not be able to control them, but you can notice them. Noticing them can give you the cognitive edge you need to choose your reactions.

Too often we embody our emotions before we even recognize that they’ve arisen. That emotions arise so suddenly and in such direct response to outside stimuli strengthens the illusion that we are being controlled by external forces. We are not becoming angry, we are being MADE angry! The outside world is having a direct effect on our emotional response mechanisms. This worldview is pervasive and understandable; it certainly feels true, as does the self righteousness that often accompanies it.

But self righteousness is one of the best indicators of inauthenticity and, in this case, the worldview described above saps all of the personal power out of your experience of living. It makes self control, restraint, mercy and other things which we otherwise understand to be real into falsehoods. That should be the first indicator of its fallacy. You are not a victim of your emotional life, you are a participant. And if you are allowing your emotions to drive you to do things that are out of alignment with your values, then you are an accomplice.

— — —

If you refuse to be a hostage to your own emotions then no one can impinge upon the sovereignty of your mind. To such a mind, a car cutting you off in traffic is just a car and not an affront to your honor. To such a mind the anger of others directed at you is just that: THEIR anger. To such a mind the better angels of human nature are always available.

How often do you say things you regret out of anger or annoyance? How often do you snap at people you care about? How often do you let your emotions drag you to places you didn’t want to go?

The answer for most of us is: too often.

The next time you want to tell someone to relax, look inside yourself. See what seed of emotion grows there that is driving you to attempt that particular subterfuge. Notice it and examine it, and know that you are actively choosing the conversation you want to have.

And if someone tells you to relax (or even if they don’t), don’t just react mindlessly. Make a habit of recognizing the swells of emotion that arise in you. Notice and examine them, and choose what you do with them wisely. Just because you are not in control of your emotions does not mean that they must be in control of you.

If you’re honest with yourself, then you know that sometimes you are in the backseat while your emotions drive. When that happens you are at risk of upsetting the balance of your life, you may even be in real physical danger. At best, you are leaving to chance and biology the most important aspect of your life and surrendering yourself to instincts that are not aligned with your best interests.

When that happens, you might seriously need to relax.