Saturday 13 September 2008

Master your emotions


Very often, we feel emotions which make us happy, pleased, in security, etc. But very often too, negative emotions invade us and control our thoughts and attitudes. Sometimes, these negative emotions can be more painful than physical pain. People fall prey negative emotions and make the wrong decisions or take adverse actions. Therefore emotions are one of the most important part of human life. Some people spend hours in thinking, crying, or recalling the bad story, isolate themselves or even hurt themselves without really being able to relieve themselves. Others run away and stop thinking of the problem in order to escape the bad feeling of emotional pain, so they try to do 'something else' and pretend to be happy or not caring, a way of repressing negative emotions in order to be released from real life. None of these attitudes will solve really the problem as one should face the negative feeling and not run from it. Here are 11 steps that we can follow regularly each time we feel negative emotions invading us :

1. Accept full responsibility for the emotion. Even if you don't fully believe it right now, tell yourself, "I Create My Reality, and I am Creating this Emotion Right Now". Usually, people never get beyond step one because they actually believe that outer circumstances are causing their emotions.

2. Name the emotion. Giving the emotion a name increases your clarity, awareness, and consciousness. Don't just say you feel sad or bad or mad. Expand your emotional knowledge until you can positively identify the feelings of violation, disappointment, anxiety, shame, embarrassment, and many more.

3. Let go of the story. The story is whatever it is outside yourself that you think caused the emotion. Literally "see" the story being cut off from your emotion and fading away. Let go of the story but keep the emotion that you created and which now has a name.

4. Bless the emotion. Blessing the emotion means not judging it as good or bad. Accept the emotion in a spirit of gratitude and learning. This is necessary in order to do the next step properly.

5. Feel the emotion. With no judging or resistance, simply feel the emotion. Notice where you feel the emotion physically in your body. Raise your consciousness as you become a "witness", a kind of observer of your own processes. What you resist persists, and allowing the emotion in this way is the very opposite of resistance.

6. Ask for clarity. In a spirit of learning and willingness to grow, ask for insight as to the reason for the emotion. Don't go back to the story. The "cause" of the emotion is you, and nothing outside yourself. Ask "What do I need to learn from this emotion." Also ask "What ineffective belief do I own that created this emotion."

7. Identify the belief. Create a space for the answer to come, and it will come. At the root of nearly every painful emotion is an ineffective belief. You may believe that you must make everyone happy. You may believe you can't be loved if you are not perfect. You may believe that you are simply not worth it.

8. Replace the belief. Once you have identified the belief, choose to replace it with a more effective belief. Literally say to yourself, "I now choose to reject this (ineffective belief) and adopt this (empowering belief) in its place".

9. Summary – You will find that during the last four steps of the process, something magical has happened! The painful emotion is gone, completely transformed into something else. The reason for this magic is the clarity and increase in consciousness.

10. Normally, people resist their painful emotions with intense energy, which only keeps them festering and in pain for hours. By allowing yourself to feel in a spirit of openness and acceptance, you can learn your lessons quickly.

11. A fantastic side benefit is that you now have a powerful new belief in place! You can grow more in a few weeks than you have in the past years by practising this process diligently.