I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of one simple fact that can have a POWERFUL impact on your life.
You CHOOSE your feelings!
Every single feeling you have ever had has been the result of a choice and even though the VAST majority of the time that choice has been handled by your subconscious, you DO have the ability to wrest control of your emotions from your subconsious mind! You can consciously Choose your feelings!
Most people think that in order to be in control of their feelings they have to supress or fight their feelings and avoid expressing them. However, this atempt at control is actually just another way to put yourself at the mercy of your emotions because they build up and eventually explode over and over again, right? The majority of the population sees the world in very simple terms something like this:
- “When bad thing ‘X’ happens, it makes me upset.
- If good thing ‘X’ happens it makes me happy.”
This is a victim mentality which believes that the power to determine my emotional state and the intensity of those emotions, is held by something external to me. This mentality thinks there must be a set of circumstances present and conditions met for happiness to exist and it seeks those conditions in everyone we meet! Of course when we are constantly needing other people to be a certain way so that we can be happy it makes them unhappy which in turn makes us unhappy and it turns into a vicious cycle of manipulation and emotional blackmail. This is obviously NOT the best way to go!
But if I CAN control my emotions, and even choose them before they happen, how does it work?!?
There are two major choices that go into every emotional response you have. First is the choice of whether or not to judge the situation event or thing. This is something that you don’t have to do. You can look at a rock and not judge it as being good or bad very easily. It seems more difficult with things we are accustomed to being emotional about, but the same rule applies, we don’t have to call a thing good or bad, we can look at it as it is.
Usually, we decide subconsciously to make judgements and this then leads to our next choice; the choice of thoughts and emotions we will respond with. Again this generally happens in the subconscious mind which means it is a force of habit, but a habit is just the consistent and often effortless exercise of a choice, like smoking, or looking both ways before you cross the street.
To get control of these choices it is important to look at what is bothering you. It should be something that is recurring and frequent enough to use as a daily practice. It can be anything at all, like,”The floor creaks when I go to the bathroom at night”, or maybe, “The dog doesn’t listen to me when I call.”
If you are aware that something bothers you, practice observing it without judgement. Watch it happen with the awareness that it is not a bad thing that is happening, it is just a thing happening that you used to judge as bad. If it is something you can cause like the squeek of a floor board, do it over and over again while you notice that it is not a bad sound, it is just a sound.
Once you can look at you issue without judgement, decide on a judgement that seems more suitable like “my dog has an interesting personality” rather than, “That jerk doesn’t listen to me!” When you have come that far it is easy to pick a new emotional response, and the more you practice non judgement, on the little things the more you will find yourself chosing you emotional responses moment by moment as the opportunities come up to express yourself throughout the day!
This subject is actually much deeper than I have room for here but if you would like to contact me to talk about it please stop in at the store and ask Kellie for my email! I will gladdly discuss this in more detail with those who are interested!
Blessings!
Michael Sunspirit
