If you can master your mind you can master your emotions
Emotions can be overwhelming if we don’t know how to process them and use them to grow or evolve in life. Emotions are triggered by our thoughts and our thoughts come from our minds. If we want to master our emotions we must learn to master our minds. It starts by becoming an observer, an observer of yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, your behavior. Meditating greatly helps with being an observer and calming the mind.
When you feel an emotion observe how it feels in your body (tension, sweat, fast heartbeat, stomachache, etc…), and ask yourself what thought triggered it. Let yourself feel the emotion and observe your thoughts, without judgment. Are your thoughts based on facts or fear? Do you want to feel differently? Change your thoughts. You are the source of your emotions, therefore, you can decide how you feel.
Your emotions may come from the way you carry yourself, your posture, or from the way you talk to yourself, your inner monologue, or from what you focus on, since where your focus goes energy flows. Focus on what you want in your life and not on what you don’t want or what you fear. Focus more on solutions and less on problems.
How to master your emotions
Let’s say you have an important exam coming up. You really want to pass it but you don’t feel ready. You might even have a dream where you show up late to the exam. Your heart beats faster when you think of it, you stop eating or eat more than usual, you might also sweat, your chest feels tight as you feel your future depends on passing this exam.
1 – Describe what you are feeling. (What emotion is it? Are there more emotions coming up? How does it feel in your body? Putting words on what you are feeling will reduce the intensity of the feeling a bit.)
2 – Welcome it. Don’t resist it. Let it be as it can guide you to what is going on with you deeper. (Say “it’s ok to feel what I am feeling, even if it might feel uncomfortable or hard”, let yourself feel it fully, without judging yourself.)
3 – Analyze it to understand what it is teaching you and how can you use it to improve yourself, your life. (Ask yourself what is causing you to feel this emotion, is it because you have not studied or prepared enough for the exam, is it because you are playing a story in your mind that you are not intelligent enough ? or that you often fail at exams?)
4 – Believe that you can handle the emotion and consciously choose how you would like to respond to it in order to move forward. (such as self-soothing, self-care, breathing deeply, studying and preparing better for the exam, changing the story in your mind about not being intelligent enough to a positive and empowering story.)
5 – Take action to improve your emotional state. You can choose how you feel. Use your emotions as input towards positive action. Transform what is going on within you in order to transform what happens externally. You are the artist of your life, write the story that you want for yourself.
In addition, I highly recommend meditation and spending time with nature.
