easy to CHOOSE your emotions?

[introspective1]

I hate how people make it sound so easy to "Choose" not to let others comments or actions bother you. Maybe I am naive, but people make it sound like, for example, if someone dies in your family you can choose not to be sad about it...Thats how ridiculous the whole concept sounds to me. People have always beat me up over getting upset easily, which i cant stand about myself, or getting my feelings hurt easily. I know you have to choose your emotions, but how easy is it,really? If someone is sarcastic toward me, it hurts me for quite a while even though I tell myself not to take it personally. I guess I am not figuring out the correct way to choose to not get angry easily, take things personally, or get hurt the way I do.

[Bliss Sage]

Originally Posted by introspective1

I hate how people make it sound so easy to "Choose" not to let others comments or actions bother you. Maybe I am naive, but people make it sound like, for example, if someone dies in your family you can choose not to be sad about it...Thats how ridiculous the whole concept sounds to me.

I totally agree. I have thought about that too and I can only conclude that some people have a much easier time following logic and not feeling things, or "choosing" what they want to feel, whether for themselves or for others. Then there are people, like me and you, who just feel...and even if I may know things logically and know what might be wise to do, I can't do it, because of my emotions leading me somewhere else. The saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" applies to the former.

Originally Posted by introspective1

I guess I am not figuring out the correct way to choose to not get angry easily, take things personally, or get hurt the way I do.

Maybe people are predisposed to feeling or not feeling, predisposed to an ability to drown out any nagging, impractical feelings that might be lingering, or particularly lacking that ability.

At any rate, I think it's not at all right to judge someone in these matters, or to demand a person to change, because these are specifically matters of inner make-up and how individuals process different things. And, in this world, not feeling, not being emotional is considered superior to feeling.

[dancer]

I think it is more a matter of choosing to allow the emotion to run your life or choosing to feel the emotion without becoming attached to it. I am learning to choose the latter. This enables me to deal with the emotion instead of pushing it away or collasping into it.

When someone dies there are many emotions involved in the grieving process. Sadness is just one of them, shock, anger, denial are others, right at this moment I cannot remember all of them. It is easy to get stuck in one particular emotion and this delays the process. I've been there and got stuck in several.

It is not about not feeling, it is about how you choose to feel emotions. I hope my insight helps you.

[coLLege kid07]

Originally Posted by dancer

I think it is more a matter of choosing to allow the emotion to run your life or choosing to feel the emotion without becoming attached to it. I am learning to choose the latter. This enables me to deal with the emotion instead of pushing it away or collasping into it.

When someone dies there are many emotions involved in the grieving process. Sadness is just one of them, shock, anger, denial are others, right at this moment I cannot remember all of them. It is easy to get stuck in one particular emotion and this delays the process. I've been there and got stuck in several.

It is not about not feeling, it is about how you choose to feel emotions. I hope my insight helps you.

Yes I believe this is very much true. It's not that you "choose" to feel bad or angry or upset....it's that you "choose" how to deal with it. "Oh I'm feeling anger inside of me...oh well" (something to that degree).

Again it's how you deal with it...not that you can choose not to have that emotion. Here's a tip given to me by my uncle...Feelings pass just like gas

[Angela]

Originally Posted by coLLege kid07

It's not that you "choose" to feel bad or angry or upset....it's that you "choose" how to deal with it. "Oh I'm feeling anger inside of me...oh well" (something to that degree).

I would say it's not so much choosing your emotion as deliberately choosing thoughts that feel good when you think them. If you've been alive for awhile, you probably have a pretty good feel for what kind of thoughts create which emotions.

For instance, this being sensitive to remarks made by others thing. When someone makes a remark, you're not forced to feel any particular emotion; it's not like you are hardwired to feel x emotion when y event happens, not even the death of a family member. You are free to choose the thoughts that you think about the event, and you are free to let thoughts choose you, too, if you want. I think people who judge themselves or others to be overly sensitive and overly emotional are just allowing thoughts to think them, rather than thinking their thoughts deliberately. Nothing wrong with that, nothing to change. And if you choose to deliberately think thoughts that feel good when you think them, you generate feelings that feel good when you feel them.

When someone makes a sarcastic remark towards you and you would prefer not to feel hurt or offended, you can't change what the guy said -- that's already done. If you argue with the reality of what has happened, you'll probably end up frustrated and upset. You can change your habitual thoughts about the remark, however. In deliberate thought, you have the power to be free.

You are the only person with the power to set yourself free.

[Spirittap]

Choosing how you react is always up to you.

[PennyD]

Originally Posted by introspective1

People have always beat me up over getting upset easily, which i cant stand about myself, or getting my feelings hurt easily.

One of the things I learnt a couple of years ago and feel that it has fundamentally changed my life, and my manifesting, is to validate my own feelings.

Until I understood the concept of validating my own feelings I used to bottle them up and push them down and 'make them wrong'. This lead to some of my feelings being quite explosive and also lead to others telling me I was wrong for feeling this way or that way.. and hence very similar senario as above.

However when I started to explore the concept of validating my own feelings I suddenly understood that my feelings are my feelings and no one, not even myself can or should tell me they are wrong. With this knowledge all of a sudden I understood that my feelings were wonderful internal signposts to what was going on for me and that if I just listened and validated them as legitimate feelings I could learn so much from them.

Also the most amazing thing happened, once I validated my own feelings I got a great sense of self confidence, a sence of peace with myself (as hating and making your internal world wrong is very tiring), and I also got to articulate what was going on for me so much better and more powerfully to others, and the best thing yet was I became very aware that after I validated a feeling I could more easily than before choose to keep it or maybe look at changing it. Sometimes like when greaving a loved one I choose to keep it and sometimes I felt that I could have more power over my life and choose it release it.

This is not to say that I made the feeling wrong but that I acknowledged I was say angry with someone, it was validated, and then I could clearly see how maybe being angry wasn't going to solve the issue and that maybe I could release it and feel something else instead.

the other great thing I did was expand my emotional vocabulary. That is I paid attention to my feelings and got into the the habit of naming them better, if I looked a bit deeper I didn't just feel anger I felt disrespected, or I felt vulnerable at being in the situation.. also got to expand my positive emotional vocab, like feeling joyousness, feeling lust, feeling adored, each wonderful and unique feelings.

here is a great site.. Emotional Intelligence the feeling word list in particular is mind blowing.

then go to Validation for emotional validation.

like Dancer suggests, once you validate your own feelings you will become more aware of your own power to deal with the emotion rather than push it away or collapse in to it.

hope this helps a little.. once I started validating my own feelings my ability to manifest increased also as I got to validate how scary and yet exciting many of my 'desires' and manifestations were, this lead to a lot less resistance and a lot more allowing.

take care
Penny

[Angela]

Nice post, Penny!

Welcome to the forums!

[PennyD]

Thanks Angela, very interesting place.

hope to get to know you all better.

[Derik]

Penny, I totally agree with you. I realised a while back that the most important part is to recognise the emotion. It did wonders for me. I am still experiencing the emotion, but I don't BECOME the emotion. In other words, if I feel anger, I don't become the anger.

It took a lot of practice to recognise my emotions though. Initially I reflected twice a day on the emotions that I experienced the previous hour or so. Later on it happens more natural. I would say that being aware of my emotions is 70% of dealing with them effectively. Initially, I would get quite upset with myself when I recognise a negative emotion, but now I congratulate myself for recognising it and that in itself helps.

Keep well,
Derik

[Niki]

Yeah, its important to feel feelings, but not to let them take over you. Emotions can be there, without going nuts . If somebody dies I'm not very sad, because I know there is a next life waiting for that person, and what's left here is only an empty shell. But that's my opinion, I can understand that people are verry sad when somebody dies.

[nick pagan]

My mechanistic engineering take on emotions is that they are part of a guidance system that evolved to protect us and to direct us eons ago.

Whenever we set a desire and fulfill it we feel positive emotions. Whenever we set a desire and don't fulfill it we feel negative emotions. The mechanism is as simple as that. The nature and intensity of the emotion depends upon the size of the disparity between the desire and the result and the proximity of the event.

Unfortunately, we are not fully aware of our desires. Some are ingrained upon us by our families, culture and environment without even knowing. By knowing that whenever a negative emotion hits you it is because a personal desire has gone unfulfilled you can work backwards and determine the desire at the heart of things. Dealing with emotions then becomes a task of managing desires - which is actually pretty simple if you're willing to accept reality and adjust to it.

This article can give some more guidance: Fundamental Emotion

Hope this helps,
Nick

[PennyD]

Derilk I am happy to hear that you are having success since you started becoming more aware of your emotions. It is 70% of the battle as you have said.

I was once told that I should rejoice in all my negtative emotions, really wallow in them and allow them to be a part of me. I tired this 'acceptance' really getting into them like watching a sad movie and really feeling sad, or feeling a bit of a victim when I missed out on something... or frustrated at something someone said..

of course I did it quietly to myself, not verbalizing the feelings with others, but maybe being a little silent, and I really allowed myself these negative feelings and of course after I started allowing them, i mean really wallowing in them for hours sometimes I started to get bored with them and would often make a very easy conscious decision to let them go or get over it.

Sometimes I would end up laughing as during wallowing I would drop something and it would break or would attract more silly negative stuff like my milk would leak when carrying it home.. and then I would just crack up laughing at the situation which was very comical..

I guess what I want to say is that FEELING full stop is part of being human and that every now and then just allowing all feelings can be very validating and powerful too. I would always know I had a choice in allowing myself to play out the negative feeling so I actually felt more control over my feelings. Also I stopped being so scared of having negative feelings and loosing control of them as I had spent time enjoying them and allowing them under my watch. I also soon got familiar with how boring and unproductive they could be so was in many ways wiser about them than I have ever been.

I feel more human and authentic than I have ever felt because of this too.

Nick I think feelings are a wonderful guidance system and yes I can see how our feelings could all be related to desire fulfillment or nonfulfillment.

[dancer]

Originally Posted by PennyD

I was once told that I should rejoice in all my negtative emotions, really wallow in them and allow them to be a part of me. I tired this 'acceptance' really getting into them like watching a sad movie and really feeling sad, or feeling a bit of a victim when I missed out on something... or frustrated at something someone said..

of course I did it quietly to myself, not verbalizing the feelings with others, but maybe being a little silent, and I really allowed myself these negative feelings and of course after I started allowing them, i mean really wallowing in them for hours sometimes I started to get bored with them and would often make a very easy conscious decision to let them go or get over it.

I've also tried this, BUT I failed as I got hooked into the cause of the feeling and instead of it running its course and dissipating the feeling remained if not increased. I remained the victim. So, I suggest that if you try this, take responsibility for the feeling, then focus on the feeling without its story.

Tolle taught me when we attach stories to our feelings we have lost control over the feeling.

[introspective1]

Originally Posted by dancer

I've also tried this, BUT I failed as I got hooked into the cause of the feeling and instead of it running its course and dissipating the feeling remained if not increased. I remained the victim. So, I suggest that if you try this, take responsibility for the feeling, then focus on the feeling without its story.

Tolle taught me when we attach stories to our feelings we have lost control over the feeling.

what do you mean attach "stories" to our feelings? Not sure I am understanding you...

[dancer]

Originally Posted by introspective1

what do you mean attach "stories" to our feelings? Not sure I am understanding you...

The story is the external cause of what awakened the feeling. An emotional button is pressed and our mind gets hold of who pushed it, the injustice of it, the why of it etc. and plays it over and over, turns it inside out, enhances it, judges it, blows it out of proportion, meanwhile instead of just living out the original feeling, I've added fuel to the fire and can feel it for hours, days, weeks, even longer. Someone might have pushed the button, but in the end I am responsible for what I feel.

[jamesof75]

i'm a stern believer of the the gestalt discipline. that said, awareness is the first step to a healthier psychological health. if you have feelings that need to be expressed, express them - it doesn't have to be to an actual person, but it is in the expression itself where the healing starts. i'm sure you have seen examples of these expressions in movies like "scorchers". if you haven't seen the movie, try to see it and understand it. watching the movie itself is therapeutic.

[jawillie]

I know read somewhere (probably one of Steve's blogs) that feeling bad is not necessarily a bad thing. If you take that feeling and get to the root cause of it you can then get clues on how to help make yourself feel better.

Now, when it comes to death? Oh boy. I am not good at that one. Or, at least, I wasn't when my Dad died September 2006. But when he died I had no clue what I believed about life/death, etc. So, to me, he was just GONE. And, even now... Yeah, I do believe one "never dies" but I know this.. Dad doesn't call me up at 6 pm every night and it SUCKS. Plain and simple!

So I guess I can't understand how one could never feel sad when a close loved one dies. Maybe I am better prepared for the next one, but I doubt it.

But, on a day-to-day living thing? I am learning not to let my feelings control my life. I have been practicing "feeling good" and what I have noticed is that I spent most of my adult life quite CRABBY!! Now, it feels really good to let that crabby person go and embrace a new way to be.

I am not "perfect" at it, but I am a happier person today than I was yesterday!

I am also learning when I feel "miserable" to ask myself WHY? And then... "what are you going to do about it?"

Then I get my pad of paper out, make a list and get to work. : ) Of course, this is after a bit of "sulking" that I actually have to DO something!!! lol