"Our emotions are like little children. They always need boundaries and
limits."
Any overgrown part is asking us, "How serious are you?" about truly wanting to
make things be better in this area. Like a spoiled kid acting up, monster emotions are
asking us if we care enough to stop their self-destructive behavior. If we ignore them,
they grow stronger in order to get heard. They're asking us how serious we are about
keeping our impulses, appetites and anxieties from messing up our lives.
We need to see our monster emotions as our potential allies. When we weaken, they act up
to remind us to be strong and not give in to our impulses. They keep raising the stakes by
getting worse until we care enough to stop the vicious circle that's caused by us ignoring
their message.
The secret to carving out a happy and fulfilling life among our immature parts, is
learning which ones we can trust, and which ones are dangerous to us. Our primary job is
to parent our emotions by watching out for and correcting the imbalances among them so
they don’t grow to control us.