Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Controlling your emotions


Why is it that some things affect you, and not me?

How many people have no control over there emotions? How many people just react to whatever emotional trigger is pulled in them? When someone says something negative to you, do you just react with whatever emotion comes from within?

The next time you feel a negative emotion being induced in you, from another person or thing, try to for a moment to see the situation from a birds eye view, or in the third perspective. Imagine yourself as an observer to the situation, an observer detached emotionally from the situation. Doing this gives you a higher level of objectivity, and thus how you respond will be more logical. In practice this can be difficult at first, so if at first you find you can't detach yourself from the immediate negative emotions induced in you. Just reflect later, think about the emotion you felt, and ask your self why you think you allowed that person or thing to induce that emotion in you. It's not about what was said or done, it's about why you allowed yourself to feel the negative emotion. Its about why you gave control over your inner peace and contentment to someone else. If it's something that was said, it was just sound, until you gave it power over you.

Someone or something, pulls one of your emotional triggers when they say or do something that causes an emotional response. Some people have a lot more emotional triggers then other people. The next time someone pulls one of your negative emotional triggers, ask yourself in hindsight, why you allowed that person or thing, to have power over you.

I'm not saying don't use emotion, or suppress it to non existence. By all means use emotion when you find it profitable to do so. But don't be a victim of your emotional triggers, and don't allow other people to control you via your emotional triggers. There is a big difference for example, in spontaneously reacting with anger to a situation, and choosing to display an assertive or anger countenance. When I choose to display an assertive or angry countenance, I'm doing so to control you via your emotional triggers. I'm manipulating you, via your emotional triggers. But I can only manipulate you if you have the emotional trigger. What do you think a boot camp instructor in the army is doing when he yells at the new recruits? He is pulling their emotional triggers (fear and anger in this case), to manipulate them to his will.

Removing your emotional triggers doesn't happen over night. It's a mental discipline, that takes time, and a lot of inner reflection. The first step is to identify the negative emotional trigger. The second step is to reflect on them. The third step is to either remove them, or recognize them and choose to have control over them always, and allow only you to pull the trigger.

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