Part Two: Becoming the Master of Your Emotions
(Continued from Part One, click here to read.)
In the Grip of Emotion
When we are having a very strong emotional experience, we can feel only that emotion in the moment. Sensible perspective flies out the window! With that loss of perspective, we compound the intensity of the emotion through the power of focused attention. For example, during a powerful unhappy state we might feel as if we’ve always been miserable, always will be miserable and thereby we can literally trap ourselves in misery by faulty loop-de-loop thinking.
Avoid Reacting to Negative Emotion
At My Spirit Care we show you how to care for your own spirit, and this includes coming to the objective realization that you are not your emotions. You are eternal Spirit, Divine Consciousness, unhurt by painful emotions that are processed by your personality in this moment. When we are in terrible emotional states, we need to observe ourselves during these times and to recognize that the emotion of the moment is only a speck in the fabric of time. It will pass.
It’s what we do with the emotion we are having that counts. If we can maintain the presence of mind to remind ourselves when we are having extreme emotions that we are having a temporary state of mind that will pass and that clarity will come later, we can forgo some avoidable mistakes. —Such as lashing out at someone in rage, breaking up a relationship because we just feel like it in that moment, saying terrible things we can’t take back, etc.
Strong emotional states are not the times to make major decisions. So when I say it’s what we do with the emotion that counts, I mean we must recognize it as our own very personal experience and not make it someone else’s problem. It certainly helps to realize that emotions arise from core beliefs which are not the same as “reality as it is.”
We need to learn to control emotion rather than allow emotion to control us. We can acknowledge that emotions run very deep within us and honor ourselves by tracing the roots of our feelings. When we do that, we will find faulty beliefs or self-created deceptions that have in one way or another fueled our present emotional state. When we understand the reality of the situation (a clarity that can only come once emotions are stabilized) we can learn to cope with emotions in a balanced way.
What You Feel Is Real, But it May Not be the Truth of What Is
Reality and perceptions are most often at odds. The old saying, “Things are not what they appear to be,” is very true. Difficult emotions that arise from a resistance to “what is” are simply a symptom of denial. If you are left by a lover and then proceed to tear yourself and your life apart or injure the other person because you are emotionally out-of-control, you are not taking into account the reality of the situation. Although pain may be unavoidable, one must live through the experience, cope with it, and in time an understanding of the situation will come…when emotions are stabilized.
Sadness is to happiness is what winter is to summer. They are partners in life. Both of these opposites are contained in the exquisite experience of being a Divine spirit in a human body; neither are bad or good…they are mere pieces of the spiraling dynamic of a cosmic existence.
Next Post: Part Three, Emotional Addiction and the Influence of Collective Emotions