Do Your Emotions Rule Your Life?

We all go through times of emotional suffering. Some of us run from our emotions, while others cling to them for an unhealthy period of time. But for many of us the thought never occurs that we have the tools to overcome this suffering, or we simply don't know how to use those tools. Let's look at some ways in which we can take back control of our emotional state.

First, remember rule #1: You are not your emotion. You are not one with them, and although you experience that emotion, it does not mean you and that emotion are the same being.

With this understanding firmly in place, you can now observe your emotion when it occurs. Note its presence, step back from the situation and distance yourself from the instinct to lose yourself in that emotion. This step alone has already given you the power to take back control of your life.

Emotions themselves are not a bad thing, so running away from them isn't the answer. Instead, experience your emotion as a wave coming and going. Don't block or suppress it, and don't try to get rid of it. At the same time, don't hold onto it longer than necessary, amplify it, or act impulsively because of it. It's a delicate balancing act, but once you've learned how to use these tools it becomes easier each time after that.

Also practice loving your emotion, without judgment. Accept it for what it is and move on. Emotions are a natural part of life, and will always play a part of yours; looking at your emotions negatively will, in turn, cause you to take a negative view of your own life. By accepting them as part of a process to move beyond them, you empower yourself in a positive manner.

To understand your emotions more clearly, start recording your strongest emotions from day to day in a diary along with the event that was occurring when you felt it. This will allow you to be mindful of what emotions show up in your life and what triggers them. If the emotion is negative, you're attracting negativity to your life.

Next to your list of emotions and event triggers, write down what you think about your own reaction to your environment. After allowing yourself to feel the emotion thoroughly without judgment, you'll find you are better able to separate yourself from it and view it from a clearer, more controlled perspective.

Do you remember the Life Focus Wheel you filled out? Go back and read through your Emotion Diary to find the situations or circumstances you indicated are preventing you from realizing your own potential. Until now you've been focusing on the impossible in your life rather than what is possible. By deciding you don't have enough time or money, that you're the wrong gender or age, or whatever excuse you've come up with, you've been very successful in manifesting these intentions.

Every one of these obstacles in your life is an area where you have relinquished your own power. In a sense you're treating these obstacles like they're a source of fulfillment for you. You can now see this is only an illusion—the real source is within you, no matter what it looks like. Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing.

When you decide that you can do all of these things and that the so-called roadblocks are only imaginary, you will be just as successful at manifesting them as you were at manifesting their polar opposites.