Many people want to know the secret of life. The answer lies in mastering your emotions. How you experience life, both in the workplace and at home, depends on this. Consciously deciding how you feel will determine the quality of your life. Whenever people talk about mastery or taking control of their lives, one aspect of that process is to control emotions. This does not mean ignoring or suppressing emotions, it means controlling how we feel about our life from moment to moment. Emotions are states of feeling caused by our mind to deal with events that are happening in our life. How we respond to daily events, whether they are catastrophic or mundane, determines whether we are happy masters of our lives or suffering victims.

Emotions are based upon our core beliefs, or how we view the world and ourselves on the most basic level. For example, if we believe we are defective in some way, we will probably react to stimuli with fear or anger. If we believe that we are unlovable, we will probably experience sadness and rejection. If we believe everything  happens for a reason, we will probably experience peace.

The most basic negative emotions, fear, anger, envy, shame and grief, are generated in the reptilian brain—the most primitive part, or the fight or flight center. Higher, more positive emotions such as love, joy, gratitude and peace are generated in the frontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for reasoning and creative thoughts, with hundreds of secondary and tertiary emotions that arise from these basic emotions.

Many people believe that we are victims of our emotions, unable to control how we feel.  Not true. We can control how we feel and what we feel in any given moment. We can determine how we feel by being better aware of our beliefs, thoughts and emotions, and how they are interconnected and interact. Researchers have discovered hundreds of identifiable emotions on a spectrum, determined by the vibration or frequency of the emotion, or “how they make us feel”. At the top is enlightenment and the bottom is shame. A sample of this spectrum is:

• Enlightenment (Ultimate consciousness)
• Peace
• Joy
• Love
• Reason
• Acceptance
• Willingness
• Neutrality
• Courage
• Pride
• Anger
• Desire
• Fear
• Grief
• Apathy
• Guilt
• Shame

          We can go up and down this spectrum consciously with our thoughts. What we think determines how we feel. This is because the mind determines how to react to the thoughts and beliefs running around in our conscious and subconscious minds. The mind has learned that by creating emotions, its chances of surviving perceived threat is much greater. Thus fear motivates us to fight or flee in the face of threat. When the mind is experiencing bliss, it becomes focused on other aspects of life and is not subject to false perception of danger. So if we use thoughts comparing ourselves to others, wishing things were different, blaming others, we will go down the spectrum. If we think thoughts of gratitude, love, acceptance and kindness, we go up, and feel a higher emotions’ correlating vibration.

          Remember that we are not our beliefs, thoughts or even emotions. They are all products of our mind, and can be controlled with discipline and practice. As long as we don’t attach to our beliefs, thoughts and emotions, these products of our mind can be quite entertaining. If we attach to them, life can become quite difficult.

          So when you’re working, relating to others, exercising or walking down the street, be aware of the thoughts going through your mind, because that will determine how you feel. We can change our thoughts much easier than we can change our emotions. By focusing on positive aspects of our circumstances, we will experience more positive emotions. When we concentrate on what we are grateful for, we will feel more grateful. If we concentrate on how we can help someone, rather than what we are getting out of a situation, we will feel more worthy and valuable. How will you choose to feel?

          Other techniques that have proved helpful in raising our vibration and thus, emotional state include:

o   Breathing techniques

o   EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)

o   EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitivation & Reprocessing)

o   The Havening Techniques

o   Meditation

o   Contemplation

o   Mantras

o   Compassion

o   Professional psychological therapy

o   Alternative healing (to heal wounded inner child)

o   Be empowered (stop disempowering yourself)

o   Be present (stop living in the past or future)

o   NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) – Pattern interrupts/anchors

o   Exercise

o   Yoga

o   Laughter

o   Help someone else/service

You can learn more about mastery, these techniques and much more with me on Get Real Radio.  Tune in live on Fridays at 11 am PST / 2pm EST / 6pm GMT. Visit the archives here.

Reprinted from The 3rdi Magazine