You learn in the extremes - Deprivation or excess = Path to emotional mastery

[Foolish1]

Alright, I've mastered my emotions and it was through a process which was partially accidental and by choice and the title of this thread is exactly what you need to do to learn how to manage your emotions.

If you have problems with fear/anger/anxiety You need to face these emotions head on and put yourself in situations that make you flare up, it's a form of stregth training and acclimation, the way the mind works is very similar to how muscle strength grows after periods you haven't exercised in a long time.

At first when you go to exercise after living a sedentary lifestyle (even just walking 2-4 hours a day) can cause you to feel pain all over because your muscles have atrophied (shrunk) to save energy and resources since you're not using them! Your brain in terms of emotion works the same way, your ability to emotionally cope with situations is directly correlated to your willingness to face even more extremes.

Places I've been and how I achieved self mastery...

Sex: I went without sex for 4 years (again extreme deprivation) straight after years of sex (I'm a guy) and it was painful but after 4 years I now have FULL CONTROL over my sex drive, I can turn it off and on at will. I am no longer "starving" for sex. I can take sex or leave it at will, women can not manipulate me by sex, and because of this experience bad women have can no longer manipulate me. I can just say "no" to their looks and charm and this counter-intuitively makes some women more attracted to me because I am not phased by them having a pair of tits and a vagina between their legs.

Anger and emotional abuse: I was brought up by a fundamentalist Christian mother, and her brand of faith was very strict and sectarian, and caused me a lot of emotional problems growing up. I grew up a timid, shy boy during my primary and secondary school years, but I harbored a LOT of anger towards my mother in my 20's because of the emotional grafting and bonding that had occurred in me to Christianity, and having wasted so much mental and emotional effort on de-programming myself of it. I could have been so much more far ahead in life in general if not for my ****ed up childhood. But needless to say there were times where I just wanted to literally kill the stupid woman and put her back in the ground because I had felt so violated... being lied to as a child, and then her telling me at 21 years old "I never wanted to look at anything to closely", after all her preaching about morality and making me feel ashamed about masturbating, she was basically telling me she'd rather live in a world of lies and fantasies then reality... Ultimately though you simply have to let go, if you hold onto your negative feelings over something so powerful as the instinct to survive (this is why religions are so pervasive, their promise of eternal happiness and reward).

I could go on but this is a long post! So I'll leave it at this, if you want to hear more I'll post more.