Tag Archive for: Emotions

I was thinking today about why we have emotions and what purpose they could possibly serve us.  Why would feeling angry, depressed, or fearful be helpful to us?  It seems that we are often taught not to experience these or at least supress them.  The reasons we have emotions are quite simple.  They act as a trigger to let us know we need to do something else.  As an example, if you are feeling fear about an upcoming speech you will be delivering,  fear serves a purpose for you to get yourself prepared.  But at some point, when you have prepared all that you can possibly prepare, fear serves another purpose to let you know that you need to change your perception about the event.  Now you can visualize an amazing speech with everyone giving you a standing ovation.  Soak it in.  Feels nice doesn’t it?  When you do this your state will automatically change which is one of the goals of the emotions anyway.

When faced with a negative emotion, use it as a trigger to do two things.  1) Change your belief about the situation and/or 2) Change your perception about it.  In the speech example above, it would work something like this.  My current state is fearful because I am afraid I will fail and be laughed off the stage.  I change my belief about it by preparing for the speech ahead of time and rehearse it over and over again until I feel confident.  By feeling confident, I changed my state from a negative emotion (fear) to a positive one (confident). 

Peace and gratitude,
Bill

This morning I was sitting in the sauna and was drinking from my water bottle.  After I finished all of the water inside, I set the bottle down next to me.  After a few minutes, the bottle tipped over due to the pressure building up inside.  img_0872That got me thinking that it is very similar to dealing with anger or things that upset you.  If you do not find a way to release the negative emotions, you will literally “blow” your top because of all the pent up emotions.

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Hold it up Mr Bill!

After I stepped out of the sauna and into the shower, I noticed the bottle did a 180.  It had compressed so much that it could not stand up.  This too got me thinking.  When you have negative things happen to you and you share too much with everyone else, you can easily topple over due to spreading too much negativity.  I am not saying you should not share with others.  No, not at all.  What I am saying is that you should find a balance.  Express yourself when you feel strong emotions (but do so in a positive way) and also express yourself to others when you are struggling with an issue.  Maybe they have an answer for you.  Just do not spend too much time talking about it and giving it more energy than it is worth.  Find a balance.  That is the key.

Peace and gratitude,

Bill