Take Back Your Power: Why Emotional Ownership Matters

From all of us at The Hillsdale Conservatives, Happy Thanksgiving. 🇺🇸🦃

On a day set aside for gratitude, we’re especially thankful for the people in our community who quietly invest in the hearts, minds, and health of others all year long. One of those people is our longtime contributor, Heather Jessop.

At a time when politics, social media, and daily life can feel like a constant barrage of outrage, Heather’s work is a gentle but firm reminder that real change begins inside our own homes, and inside our own hearts. While we fight hard in the public arena for truth, liberty, and accountable government, we also know that a free people must first be a grounded, emotionally healthy people. Heather speaks directly to that space, the inner life that sustains the outer fight.

As you gather with family and friends today, we invite you to take a breath, slow down, and really sit with the message she shares below about peace, emotional ownership, and the quiet power of one healed heart. Consider this our Thanksgiving “thank you” to Heather for writing it, and to you for walking this road with us.

From our families to yours: Happy Thanksgiving, and may you be the calm ripple in a noisy world.

— The Hillsdale Conservatives

Heather Jessop is a writer, wellness advocate, and homeschooling mom who helps busy women reconnect with their health and emotional balance through real food, simple routines, and mindset shifts. https://www.linkedin.com/in/hmjelitebookkeeping

We live in a world where opinions fly faster than facts and emotions often lead before logic has a chance to speak. It’s not uncommon to see people enraged over someone they’ve never met, a public figure, a neighbor’s social post, or even a stranger with a differing opinion. But here’s the truth: that person you can’t stand, likely doesn’t even know you exist. They aren’t losing sleep over your anger, but you might be.

When we give others control over our emotions, letting their actions, words, or even their mere existence dictate how we feel, we surrender our personal power. That emotional energy we give away? It doesn’t hurt them. It drains us. As the saying goes, “Hating another is like drinking poison and expecting them to die.” It only harms the one holding the cup.

The human body is an intricate system where mind and body are deeply connected. Chronic anger, resentment, or bitterness doesn’t just weigh on your heart metaphorically, it can affect your nervous system, digestion, sleep, hormones, and even immune function. Science has shown that unchecked negative emotions can manifest as real physical symptoms: headaches, fatigue, inflammation, or digestive distress, to name a few.

And ironically, many people caught in this cycle of emotional turmoil are the same ones who crave more control in their lives , over circumstances, outcomes, or other people. Yet, by reacting instead of responding, they hand over that control willingly. Emotional regulation isn’t suppression; it’s sovereignty. It’s saying, “I choose peace over chaos. I choose to protect my energy.”

We may not be able to control outside circumstances, people, or situations, but we can master ourselves. And that mastery has a ripple effect. When we choose peace, patience, and understanding, that energy radiates outward. Others feel it. They see it. It softens the environment around us, inspiring those in our presence to respond in kind. One person’s calm can steady a room. One person’s kindness can shift a day.

That’s how real change happens. Real change doesn’t start in the world around us, it starts within us. Not from shouting the loudest, but from standing in calm awareness. From choosing peace when chaos calls. From holding love steady in a room full of fear.

The more we take responsibility for our own emotions, the more we heal not only ourselves, but those we unknowingly touch along the way.

Every healed heart sends ripples farther than it knows and yours just might be the calm that heals another.

So the next time you feel your peace slipping away, pause and remember: no one else gets to hold the reins to your inner world — unless you hand them over. Take your power back. You are the ripple.


in liberty,
The Hillsdale Conservatives