There is no true success without
emotional success. Yet of the more than three thousand emotions that we have
words to describe. The average person experience is only about a dozen
different ones in the course of an average week. We must remember that this
doesn't reflect our emotional capacity; but rather the limitations of our
present patterns of focus. There are 3,000 words in the English thesaurus
that describe various emotions. In that 1051 words describe positive emotions,
while 2086 almost twice as many describe negative emotions. But what this means is
that we've made so many words to describe an unpleasant emotion. And we
tend to focus more on what is unpleasant about life than looking at the bright
side. Life is an emotional experience.The
quality of emotion you experience every day ultimately determines the quality of
your life. And above all, your happiness depends on it. One key problem with most
people is that they're not able to understand what they feel or they find
it hard to name their emotions. This is a place where you need to become
emotionally intelligent and become emotionally aware of the feelings you're
experiencing. Emotional intelligence is your ability to identify what you're
feeling, why you're feeling it and how your feelings not only affect you but
all those around you.So when we learn to become more emotionally intelligent, we begin to master self - really know thyself, and understand what it is that
is keeping you stuck. What limits you, and what triggers you, what get you angry,
what gets you sad, and hurt, what causes you to
take things so personally. So when you are improving your emotional intelligence,
what that will allow you to do is become less reactive and more interactive with
conversations. When you're in control of your emotions, you're emotionally
intelligent. When emotions are controlling you,
you're acting irrational and emotionally enslaved. The only way to effectively use
your emotions is to understand how they all serve you.
You must learn from your emotions and use them to create the results you want.
Emotions are action signals. Very often their meanings are hidden. And we seldom
ignore these hidden messages. There's so much to learn from an emotion, even the
unpleasant emotions. All emotions are a call for action. Once you're familiar
with the hidden messages in emotion and it's action signal, your unpleasant
emotions can become your ally. Learning to use these signals frees you from the
fears and allows you to experience all the richness of which we humans are
capable. There are hidden messages in every emotion. We're aware of the
messages behind our pleasant emotions, but we're not well aware of the messages
behind our unpleasant emotions. When we do not understand our emotions, they
become unpleasant experiences to us. All negative emotions contain within them
positive messages or instructions that can help us grow as better human beings.
We experience emotions for several reasons. We experience them because
emotions are the language of the subconscious mind. We can master our
negative, unpleasant emotions when we learn how they serve us rather than
enslave us. Let's look at the emotion HURT for example. As we make our journey
through life none of us escapes being hurt. These painful feelings arise when
we experience loss. It could be a loss of trust or an expectation that is not
being met by us or by others who are dear to us. You're likely to feel hurt
when you're betrayed badly treated or ignored by people you care about. It
hurts when they're insensitive to your needs. Therefore we feel disappointed and we communicate the feeling of hurt through
various emotions like pain or anger. What is the hidden message in HURT. Benjamin
Franklin said "those things that hurt instruct". The message in hurt is that
your expectations have not been met. Many times this feeling arises when we've
expected somebody to keep their word and they didn't. In this case you feel a loss
of intimacy with this person. Maybe a loss of trust. This sense of loss is what
creates the feeling of hurt. The solution is to realize that, in reality you may
not have lost anything. Maybe what you need to lose is the false perception
that this person is trying to wound you or hurt you.
Maybe they don't realize the impact of their actions on your life. In reality,
most people are ignorant about the impact of their words and deeds in other
people's lives. Secondly, communicate with the individuals who's hurting you and
tell them how you feel. Communicate your expectations with other
people. People will not know your expectations until you tell them. Certain
things are valuable to you but they may not be valuable to other people. Our
values are different. Communicate your values to others especially your dear
ones. Let them know what's important to you and what your expectations of others
are. We feel angry when we're hurt. What does anger teach us? How can anger serve
us rather than aggravate more chaos? You feel angry when you take offense at
being hurt or experiencing loss. Angry feelings arise when you feel helpless,
threatened, deprived or unfairly treated. Anger is a physiological sensation due
to the biochemical reaction in your body. Adrenaline is created in the body as a
protective mechanism that prepares our body to fight against the attack. Bodily
tension and other disturbing emotions often accompany anger. You can experience
frustration, irritability, annoyance, resentment, hatred or even rage at
various levels. You may be choosing to react with anger in a dominating manner
rather than feel hurt. Because you perceive hurt as a sign of
vulnerability. Anger keeps people at a distance. And this enables you to conceal
your vulnerability. In fact anger is nothing but a shield that covers your
underlying fears and hurts. Inside a short-tempered person there is
unsettling hurt, frustration and a cry for help.
The hidden message in anger is that an important rule or standard that you hold
for your life has been violated by someone else, or maybe even by you. You
feel angry with certain standards on that. When some of the rules you have
about life are violated you feel angry and rage. Most anger isn't happening in
the actual context of what's going on. It's an old story coming up, an old hurt,
an old wound, an old concern. Am i respected enough? Am I cared for enough?
How dare they? All these things are the Child Mind, they're the Ego Mind, I just
call it the Drama Mind. The thing that wants to make something a bigger problem
than it really is!. Because you have no perspective on life.
About that as you've traveled or you've experienced more in life; you've realized
a lot of people have a very difficulty in life. You've realized, there's a
lot of poverty. Realize, there's a lot of struggles, you realize there's a lot of
hurt and pain. And hopefully that gives you some perspective to say "Geez
somebody cutting me off isn't such a big deal anymore".
Because here's the reality, especially if you keep getting angry about the same
thing over and over and over again; you are a victim of the "drama mind". And that
victim is you. You have the ability to turn that off. And the way you do is WAIT.
You enlarge the gap of time between stimulus and response. That's where all
self mastery comes from - enlarging the time between stimulus and response. So
now it's not the drama mind, it's not the impulsive mind,
it's the intentional mind. Anger is no way of telling other people that you're
right and others are wrong. Anger is not the display of superiority. Anger is
the loud cry of an unsettling hurt. See anger is a secondary emotion. The primary
emotion is frustration. Primary emotion is frustration. Frustration is wanting
something and not getting it. I want to have a certain thing happen. I want to
get this thing. I want to experience a certain opportunity or a thing happen in
my life.If you want to get past anger you have to stop it at frustration. It's
okay to want what you want, but you got to quit that negative thinking- that
negative self-talk pattern of "your bad, I'm going to punish you". See, the moment
you start to make that demand "I've got to have my way" and then blaming them
"you're the problem, you're what's wrong here". When you do that you automatically
get sucked into the drama. You experience the emotion of frustration due to your
rigid beliefs and thinking. When frustrations hit you and surely they
will on many occasions, remember to become more flexible and
adaptive to change your viewpoints on something that are currently producing
negative results. The message in frustration and disappointment is that
your brain believes you could be doing better than you currently are.
Frustration is very different from disappointment; which is the feeling that
there's something you want in your life which you'll never get it. Constant
frustration means that the solution to your problem is within range, but what
you are currently doing isn't working. And you need to change your approach in
order to achieve your goal. Take care of your frustrations in life. It's a way
life is teaching you that your life is 'off the track' and 'off the course'. When
you're not using your talents gifts and resources to the full extent, you become
frustrated. When you don't get the results you want, you get frustrated.
Sometimes you can experience this emotion without any trigger. When you
focus too much on life's problems, you can get frustrated. Constant irritability,
feeling of annoyance, discomfort, and a state of unhappiness stems up as a
result of continuing frustrations. As frustration grows and when you begin
to accept helplessness as a result another major emotional state strikes
you. That's called the Big D - depression/ When you suffer pain and loss and do not
express and resolve your feelings of helplessness, hurt, anger, and grief you
will eventually experience depression. When you're depressed, you tend to focus
on your losses, your inner emptiness, unfulfilled dreams, and problems. You may
experience a feeling of helplessness and worthlessness. According to Martin
Seligman, the father of positive psychology in his book 'Learned Optimism'
he writes; "a pessimistic explanatory style is it the core of all depressed
thinking". A negative concept of the future, the self in the world stems from
seeing the causes of bad events as permanent, pervasive, and personal and
seeing the causes of good events in the opposite way. The state of depression is
sending a strong message. The hidden message in depression is to find a
purpose in life. The message is invoking the depressed to reevaluate what is
absolutely important to them. If anyone is paying more attention to minor things
in life ignoring the majors then that is the primary reason to make someone feel
depressed in the first place. Depression sends the message to
prioritize what is important to you. Instead of feeling burdened and helpless
those who lose sight of their priorities in life will always feel burdened and
they feel sick most of the time. People who are depressed are the most
ungrateful people on earth. They don't focus on their blessings. They look at
what's missing and they whine about what's lost and seldom think about what
can be gained. We tend to experience depression when another emotion is not
well handled by us. That emotion is grief. Grief occurs when we experience a major
loss. Grief happens when you feel like there's no empowering meaning for
something that has happened or that your life is being negatively impacted by
people, events or forces that are outside your control. The excruciating pain of
losing a loved one can be most severe suffering we ever endure. The
answer to grief is acceptance. Accept the things that can't be changed and change
the things that can't be accepted. When you feel that it's appropriate to start
letting go of grief ; start focusing on what you can control and realize that
there must be some empowering meaning to it all even though you can't comprehend
it yet. What stops us from expressing the emotion of grieving is the emotion of
fear. Fear is nature's way of protecting you from real and current danger. It
prepares you to escape from harm. Fearful emotions include everything from
low levels of concern and apprehension, to intense worry, anxiety, fright and even
terror.The message is: fear is simply the anticipation that's something that's
going to happen soon needs to be prepared for. Fear is telling you to be
prepared, to deal with something negative or uncomfortable from happening. It's
telling you to prepare for your plan B or the worst case scenario. Don't permit
fear to control your life. Absolutely refuse to it. Someone said "fear knock on the door, faith opened it and there was no one there". You see you
eliminate fear through intelligent action. Face the thing you fear and fear
will leave you. Fears caused by the unknown. If there's
something you're afraid of, go study it, understand it, talk to someone who's a
professional in that particular area. But for goodness sake don't let it control
your life anymore. Think of the people that are afraid to
go into their own business. They're afraid to move to the place they'd
really like to go. They're afraid to ask the girl or the
guy for a date. What are they doing?! Their life is drying up and shrinking. We're
only here for a short time. Make it a good time. Get rid of the fear. Face it.
A state of emotion that can disconnect us from the rest of the world is the emotion of
loneliness. We all suffer the misery of loneliness
at some time in our lives. You feel lonely when you experience
yourself as separate and disconnected from others. When the pain of isolation
is overwhelming, you feel heartbroken. Loneliness is an authentic sign of
unfulfilled social and intimacy needs. When you are emotionally unavailable to
people, you detach yourself from people, and as a result you'll experience
loneliness and boredom. You have the urge to connect with other people, but you
have fears that stop you from connecting with other people. As a result, you
withdraw into yourselves making yourself unreachable and unavailable to people
who love you. Many irrational ideas and assumptions lead to the feelings of
loneliness, including thoughts like 'no one likes me', 'there's no one available'
and 'everyone is busy and selfish with their lives' and 'they have no time for me'.
Loneliness can be temporary but emotional isolation and social phobia
can become clinical cases. The message of loneliness is that it's time to connect
with people. It means you really care about people and you love to be with
them. You need to find out what kind of connection you need with somebody right
now and then take action immediately to make that happen. It means you need to
start enjoying the pleasure of companionship. Loneliness is telling you
to overcome all your fears about trusting people. All negative emotions
ask you to change your perceptions. They tell you to change the meaning you
associate with things, events or people. Certain things if you continue to view
them as painful, they'll be painful to you all through your life. If you can
change the meaning attached to almost anything then you can change the
experience itself. One of the dangerous emotions that can take away your drive
to live a fuller life is the emotion of self inadequacy or unworthiness. The
feeling of unworthiness occurs anytime we feel we can't do something we should
be able to do. This emotion of self inadequacy is sending you a strong
message, pleading you to work on yourself. This is a personal development message
that if you work on certain areas; you'll become better at it. And you can achieve
your desired outcome. The message of unworthy feelings is that
you don't presently have a level of skill or aptitude necessary for the task
at hand. It's telling you that you need more information, understanding, knowledge,
strategies, tools, and confidence. It's an invitation to build skills to tackle
challenges that are overwhelming. One of the fastest ways to build
self-confidence is to think through clearly who you are and what you want. To
think about the skills that you will need to build a wonderful life and
career and then to work every day on becoming better and better at something
that is important to you. What happens is as as you feel better and better in
these skill areas, people will compliment you and say 'you know you're very good at
that' or 'you did a good job at that' or they'll stand back and be amazed. And as
they admire you for your improving skills, your self confidence in your
ability to do that thing goes up and up. When you stop focusing on your growth
and start getting bothered about other people's growth, a person will become
envious. Envy is a self destructive emotion. Envy results from feeling
deprived not necessarily because you don't have enough; but because someone
has more. Being around people who are happy, healthy or wealthy; when you are in
pain stricken with a debilitating illness or deprived of an income can
easily stir feelings of envy. When you feel envious, interrogate yourself. Unlock
the boons from this unpleasant emotion. Ask yourself, some self-improvement
questions. How can I make my life better than what it used to be? What are my new
goals and what course of action must I take to fulfill my goals?
What skills must I develop in order to succeed? What is it that I can do to
contribute to the world? The emotion of guilt, regret and remorse
are among the emotions human beings do most to avoid in life. And this is
valuable. Healthy guilt occurs when you hurt or wronged another person or
yourself. You regret your actions and feel undeserving, wrong, stupid, ashamed,
sorry or disappointed in yourself. It occurs when your anger is turned inward.
When you experience the emotion of guilt; it tells you to fix certain things in
life that are fixable and solvable. It invokes your commitment to rise above
your expectations. It tells you never again. It tells you no more of this or
enough is enough. You feel regretful when you didn't take the action you should
have or you took the wrong move violating your gut feelings. Guilt tells
you that you violated one of your own highest standards and that you must do
something immediately to ensure that you're not going to violate that
standard again in the future. When guilt is not handled properly it can turn into
resentment. Unforgiveness is a toxic emotion because it does more harm to the
person who is not willing to forgive. Forgiveness can be a very difficult step
but one that may be essential to your getting emotional closure. Forgiveness is
a liberating experience. Forgiveness sets you free. Remember to analyze these. You
haven't forgiven when: you still have regrets. When you're not on talking terms
with someone. When you still hold grudges towards someone. When you still hold
someone responsible for all your problems. When you still have not
accepted the reality. When you hold negative energy towards someone or
something. Or when you say 'I can't forget the things he or she has done to me'.
Forgiveness really means letting go. Well the reality is: If you go through life
you're going to be hurt. The reality is every single one of us as human being
has our weaknesses and we do the best that we can do based on where we are at
in our level of consciousness and there level of humanity. And so if someone has
hurt you and we've all been hurt. If someone has hurt you,
please first of all, just remember they were doing the best that they knew how
to do based on where they are at in their journey through life. So forgiving
them is something that not only do they deserve but forgiving them as a gift you
give yourself. I once heard someone say "when you're going through life-
I'm not having forgiven someone that has really hurt you; it's like you're
carrying that person through life on your back". Forgiveness is not a feeling
that you must passively wait to wash over you. It is a deliberate choice to
free yourself from the burden of bitterness, anger and hatred. When you
forgive someone, you're literally setting a prisoner free. The greatest human goal
is peace of mind and the greatest obstacle to peace of mind is anger and
blame aimed at other people. In order to eliminate anger and blame you have to
learn to forgive. And there are four people that you need to forgive if
you're really serious about changing your life and learning how to live in
the present. The first people you have to forgive are your parents living or dead.
You must absolutely forgive them for every mistake they ever made in bringing
you up. At the very least you should be grateful to them for giving you life.
They got you here. If you're happy to be alive you can forgive them for
everything else. Never complain about them again.
The second persons you must forgive are the people from your marriages or
relationships that didn't work out. These intimate relationships can be so intense
and so threatening to your feelings of self-esteem and self-worth that you can
become angry and unforgiving toward these people for years. But remember you
were at least partially responsible for the relationships in your life that
didn't work out. Have the personal strength and integrity to say those
magic words 'I am responsible' and then think of ways that you were
responsible for the relationship rather than thinking of reasons why the other
person is to blame. Forgive the other person and let him or her go. Say these
words 'I forgive him or her for everything and I wish him or her well'.
Each time you repeat this but negative emotion attached to the memory will be
diminished, almost like turning down the heat on a
pot. It gets cooler and cooler and soon it will be gone forever.
Now the third person you must forgive is everyone else in your life who has ever
hurt you in any way. Let them go. Forgive every boss, every
business partner, friend or crook or betrayer who has ever caused you grief
of any kind. Clean the slate and forgive and forget. Wipe away each of their names
and wipe the images off by just saying whenever you think of "I forgive him or
her for everything, I wish them well". I forgive them for everything and I wish
them well. The fourth and final person you have to forgive is yourself. You must
absolutely forgive yourself for every silly, senseless, wicked, brainless,
thoughtless, or cool thing that you've ever done or said. Stop carrying these
past mistakes around with you. That was then, and this is now. Think of it this
way. When you did those things in the past, that you still feel badly about, you
were not the person that you are today. At that time you're a different person.
You're younger and less experienced. You are not your true self- as you are today.
You were an immature version of the person that you have become, with
experience. So stop beating yourself up for something that occurred in the past-
something that a different person did. Not you and something that you cannot
change. Take control of your emotions. Name them, tame them and use them to
direct your life to greater advantage. When you feel an unpleasant emotion, talk
back to that emotion. When you feel angry: Ask yourself a question- what am i angry
about? When you feel low - ask yourself: What am I sad about? How can I be joyful
at this very moment? What are these feelings trying to teach me? What is the
hidden message in this emotion? You are the source of all your feelings and
always responsible for your emotional responses. So make your primary focus
internal. Blaming others for your feelings is a waste of your energy.
Remember people and situations can only trigger what is already inside you. When
you get angry people are triggering the existing anger inside you. When you feel
sad; people and situations are already triggering the sadness inside you you.
You laugh when your inner joy is turned on. Next time when you're triggered to
experience an unpleasant emotion, you can ask: What do I need and want above all
else here? What are my options here? What's the best way to deal with these
feelings right now? What's the best way to resolve these
recurring feelings? When you intelligently respond to your emotions,
you can find the hidden messages of what that emotion is trying to communicate to
you.
