“If you hate, it means you have been defeated”
(c) Confucius
Would you agree, without emotions you would be bored?
Emotions make life rich and interesting. And, at the same time, they can destroy your psyche, health, destiny…
To prevent this from happening, you need to understand, accept, and manage your emotions.
Spiritual sources also confirm this:
“You must strive for emotional harmony and calm within the illusory world of the higher fourth dimension, as you are trying to adapt to the mental plane of the lower fifth dimension environment.” (c) Archangel Michael through Ronna Herman. May 2015
So how do you achieve emotional harmony? Read the article, and much will become clear to you.
How Emotions and Feelings Differ
To begin, let’s break down the concepts of emotions and feelings, the connection and differences between them.
Emotion is an impulsive reaction of a person to an event happening at a given moment. It is a short-term state and reflects an attitude toward the event. It comes from the Latin emovere — to excite, to stir.
Feeling is an emotional experience that reflects a person’s stable attitude toward the surrounding world, significant people, and objects. Feelings are not tied to a specific situation.
Character is the set of qualities of a person that influence behavior and reactions in various life situations.
To sum up: emotions, unlike feelings, are situational; they are a temporary experience of the immediate present moment. Simply put, we perceive the world around us with feelings, and we react to it with emotions.
Let’s look at this with an example of football fans during a match.
They were brought to the game by a feeling of love and interest in this sport (this is their constant state).
But during the match itself, they experience short-term emotions: enjoyment and admiration for the game, joy of victory, or disappointment in defeat.
As a rule, we feel with our Soul, but we express our beliefs through emotions.
Also, through emotions, our feelings are manifested (joy at the sight of a loved one, anger at the sight of a “hated enemy”).
At the same time, emotions and feelings can situationally not coincide or contradict each other. Example: a mother got angry at her deeply loved child.
Depending on character, people display different emotions in the same situations.
For example: the company’s profit dropped.
If the owner is a positive person by nature, they will be a little upset but quickly pull themselves together and start taking action. They will develop an attitude toward the problem as motivation for creativity.
In a person with a weaker spirit, the same situation will cause a state of apathy, inactivity, and depression.
See also: Spiritual Causes of Depression, Lack of Money, and Illness
If you experience a depressive, suppressed state without any particular reason, and even a lack of desire to live — what could this mean?
How Unbalanced Emotions
Destroy Your Life
What happens if you don’t know how or don’t want to understand and control your emotions?
Relationships with People Deteriorate
A person who is overwhelmed by emotions has dulled sensitivity to the people around them, even to loved ones.
That’s why people in a “wound-up” state manage to say many unpleasant and even hurtful words to each other.
Habitual emotional reactions shape your mood and character.
For example, if you don’t work through your resentment, a “victim character” will form. You will react sharply to the slightest comments from others, get into frequent conflicts, and then feel unhappy and depressed.
Your Productivity Drops
You spend your energetic resources on endless, exhausting worries.
As a result, you may simply not have enough strength left for your self-realization and achieving success.
Share examples from your life when emotions threw you off balance. How did you handle it?
See also Let Go of the Problem — Fall into the Solution
An unconventional approach to solving problems… a 3-step algorithm.
Your Self-Perception Worsens
An excess of negative emotions creates the belief that “everything in life is wrong” or “everyone is against me.”
As a result, your self-esteem drops. You may judge and blame yourself, or even fall into depression.
Your Health is Destroyed
Uncontrolled emotions play a major role in the onset of many illnesses. This is called psychosomatics.
Surely you’re familiar with the expression “the illness developed on a nervous basis”?
This happens with
- excessive emotional reactivity (hysteria, working yourself up),
- fixation on negative emotions (when you constantly feel guilty or offended),
- denial and suppression of your emotions (“you can’t be angry at mom”).
See also Causes of Illness. The Body’s Mind Speaks
A detailed breakdown of the meaning of illnesses from Louise Hay
Both denying and working yourself up over your emotions are not options. That will only destroy your life and make it unbearable.
If you want to achieve success in life, you need to learn to understand and control your emotions.
How to Manage Your Emotions
You can make a quality decision to get out of any difficult situation if you are in a state of emotional balance. Only then can you soberly assess what’s happening and act appropriately.
The ability to maintain a resourceful state is inner work. How can you learn this?
1. Acknowledge the emotion and name it
To work with emotions, you first need to acknowledge their existence.
Learn to name your emotions: I am angry, I am sad, I am happy. Look for the shades of emotional states — there are over a hundred of them!
Acknowledge, at least to yourself, that you have “negative,” “unacceptable” emotions: cowardice, schadenfreude, curiosity to dig into other people’s secrets…
If you don’t fully recognize your experiences, you won’t understand what role emotions play for you personally.
The ability to control your emotions begins with accepting all of your emotions.
Otherwise, in any similar situation, you will be forced to experience an emotional explosion and endlessly go in circles.
See also Empathy — Not a Death Sentence. How to Cope with What Seems to Be Destroying You and Your Life
2. Analyze what your emotions are telling you
Learn to recognize the essence and value of your emotions, especially the “negative” ones.
- What are your experiences signaling to you?
- What are they drawing your attention to?
- What is worth thinking about?
- What should be changed?
Be honest with yourself when answering these questions.
Perhaps resentment points to a need for recognition, and anger protects you from a destructive person in your life.
Or maybe, with hysterical behavior, you are used to getting your way from stubborn people? In that case, it’s worth looking for other options…
As soon as you understand the value behind an emotional outburst, they automatically subside.
3. Don’t take it personally
Learn not to take everything that happens to you personally.
If your husband or boss yells at you, it doesn’t mean you did something wrong.
Maybe they are in a bad mood, and it has nothing to do with you personally. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Don’t get drawn into that negativity by reacting with the emotion of resentment or anger. However, you have the right to calmly and correctly assert your boundaries.
4. Apply meditations and spiritual practices
If you are prone to emotional outbursts or prolonged experiences, and you have high sensitivity — learn to calm down even in the most difficult situations.
Meditations help with this. Even after a short practice, you will feel relaxation, and the intensity of emotions will subside.
Regular meditation will train your brain for more positive thinking.
See also 5 Situations When You Need Meditation
During meditation, the brain changes the frequency of its electrical impulses to deep, calm alpha waves. They induce a state of peace and relaxation in a person.
Another simple and effective technique is grounding through breath. Take a deep breath in and exhale into the earth several times.
5. Act in a New Way
Train yourself to react in a new way to familiar “negative” situations.
For example, you can try turning a brewing argument into a joke, and in doing so, defuse the situation.
See also The Observer State. How to avoid getting drawn into conflict
Simple practices for stepping out of an emotionally charged situation
If you can’t think of how to act differently, practice it in a playful way (for example, in workshops). You can also draw inspiration from books and movies.
6. Understand the Nature of Emotions
Read books and articles about emotions: why they arise, how they affect the body and mind.
I recommend watching the 2015 animated film “Inside Out.” The plot is about how our emotions influence us. Life goes off the rails until we learn to understand and manage our emotions!
Every person is given the opportunity to maintain a positive mood.
A conscious person knows how to control themselves, track, and manage their emotions.
Not to suppress emotions within yourself, but to understand the reasons for their emergence in both yourself and others.
And in doing so, take charge of your life, creating more happiness and inner harmony within it!