The journal · original insights by theme
Emotional regulation & resilience
Meeting strong feelings without handing them the steering wheel.
These are draft editorial groupings for review, not Matt’s original sequence. Each insight keeps its source number and exact wording; entries remain in source order within each theme. Read the complete original list in order.
This personal collection includes opinions, incomplete notes and unverified attributions. Categorisation does not validate a claim or turn it into professional advice.
65 original insights · Draft grouping
For context on the limits of the 90-second framework, read the evidence notes and use the optional timer. Ongoing distress is not a personal failure.
- No. 014
If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.
- No. 037
Fear has a way of making pain feel permanent. It’s convinced you what’s happened before will happen again: but Fear is lying to you.
- No. 039
Strength is not about avoiding pain it’s about knowing you can handle it.
- No. 057
Remember to celebrate the wins, reflect on the highlights and enjoyable parts of what you do.
- No. 060
What triggers you teaches you. Learn to look inward if you’re triggered by something learn to ask your self the question: “what does that say about me?”
- No. 067
Brain scientist, Dr Jill Bolt Taylor discovered the 90 sec emotion rule. Emotions last 90 seconds if we don’t interfere. So take a 90sec breather before reacting. It’s when we interfere with those emotions that they linger and cause infestation. You need to ask yourself the question why do I feel this way and process the emotion. You are not your emotions and you do not let your children drive the car.
- No. 068
Emotions are like children, we love them, even when they’re crazy, BUT… we never let them drive the car.
- No. 080
When you’re, happy you listen to the music. When you’re sad, you understand the lyrics.
- No. 082
Time doesn’t heal all wounds it only teaches us how to deal with the pain.
- No. 107
If life gives you waves, learn how to surf.
- No. 113
No person is ever born with the emotions that are complicated; you are born with innocence and pure joy.
- No. 115
Keep your face towards the sun and shadows will fall behind you.
- No. 117
If you hate a person, then you’re defeated by them.
- No. 118
Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.
- No. 119
Don’t wait until you are rich to be happy. Happiness is free.
- No. 120
The best Fighter is never Angry.
- No. 139
Clarity, creativity focus peace of mind.
- No. 143
Appreciation is glue, and worry repels. If you have something that you want to hold onto you and keep it, you need to appreciate the fuck out of it. The signals that sends to the universe attracts more of the same.
- No. 171
You never gonna know until you know…. So the key is, to get through that shit as quickly as possible. Don’t stress, don’t wig out don’t wig out , you’ll figure it out.- Peter Robinson
- No. 181
Feeding the fire within you without fuelling the fire within you is only possible through Deep acceptance of whatever it is you are experiencing in the present moment.
- No. 182
Always spend more time observing than reacting.
- No. 183
The bigger the reaction the greater the stress.
- No. 187
Be water.
- No. 199
If you allow the environment to control your psychology, you’re not gonna win.
- No. 208
With patience, persistence and a calm mind, I can do anything.
- No. 220
Pain is what drives motivation.
- No. 229
Anxiety and excitement have the same symptoms. (the heart beats faster, cortisol surges, and the body prepares for action. In other words, they're arousal congruent) The ONLY difference is one’s focused on all the ways something could go well, the other on how they could go wrong.
- No. 231
Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water that gets into them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.
- No. 242
You’d be amazed at what you can endure when you have no choice.
- No. 244
If your ok with every outcome then you’ve got nothing too loose
- No. 266
Don’t let pain let define you.
- No. 267
Avoidance is not freedom it’s a prison.
- No. 268
Fear is temporary but regret lasts forever.
- No. 269
Vulnerability is not weakness it’s courage.
- No. 276
Happiness is not a feeling it’s a skill
- No. 284
When your feeling bad, anxious, sad, nervous or out of control write down what your thinking, how do I feel how do I act and what’s the outcome….challenge the thought, recognise and reframe it, reduce their influence on your emotions and behaviours.
- No. 291
Let Go or Be Dragged
- No. 295
Discipline Over Emotion
- No. 297
Rebuilding is a Solo Journey, But You Are Not Alone
- No. 298
You Don’t Need Closure to Move On
- No. 299
The Best Revenge is a Beautiful Life
- No. 300
The moment you stop feeding the past it stops controlling your future.
- No. 307
Don’t trip over what’s now behind you
- No. 309
Patience is also a form of action.
- No. 314
You can only get offended if you allow yourself to get offended.
- No. 316
Self-control your talking, instead shut up and self regulate. Don’t shoot your mouth off because you’re offended.
- No. 323
The price of strength is struggle.
- No. 325
Anything that costs your mental health is to expensive look elsewhere.
- No. 329
Breathe in and out of your heart while walking to anchor your awareness in your heart. Feel the good in your life. This will centre your flow.
- No. 334
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.
- No. 338
If you can control your mind you can control your life.
- No. 341
The root of all anger is an unmet expectation. Sometimes these expectations are realistic and sometimes they’re not.
- No. 342
Surrender expectations and face the insecurities
- No. 346
Anger is a condition when the tongue works faster than the mind so hold it.
- No. 368
Do what you need to do to be in charge of what you think say and feel and everything flows from there.
- No. 371
Suffering in life has no expiration date. It will always keep coming so build resilience and keep moving forward always.
- No. 381
Exhaust the body tame the mind
- No. 398
Clarity and peace of mind - Prem Rawat
- No. 408
Venting doesn’t release the emotion it reloads it.
- No. 415
It is better to be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right, for the quality of life.
- No. 416
Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier only what time could teach.
- No. 421
Part of Healing is realising you don’t need closure, you need consistency, in what you tolerate, in how you speak you yourself etc…
- No. 422
The life you want requires the healed version of you.
- No. 430
Fold your worries into paper planes and turn them into flying fucks.
- No. 431
The amount of beautiful things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.