What does emotional mastery mean to you?

[TheFlyingMan]

Emotional Mastery is one of my goals, and I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on it. What does Emotional Mastery mean to you, and what are you doing to achieve it?

I think it means that I am in a constant state of joy and peace - this means airing out my closet, getting rid of all hang ups - stemming back from childhood, and this will mean that I have a clean slate to feel good about.

Forgiving others and forgiving myself. Then I learn to love myself and others unconditionally. And also learning to integrate all aspects of myself - even so-called "negative" aspects such as sadness and anger and lust into myself.

Then it comes into controlling my thoughts, so that negative thoughts don't come in. Next up will be learning to control my reactions to events that are in the present or in the future - the past has affected me enough, I'm cleaning my slate, and now I want to maintain or upgrade my emotional status. Like the Buddha said "If you bring me a gift, and I don't accept it, who does it belong to?" - This referring to people bearing harm and insults.

Ultimately, I'm learning to love and forgive myself for the past, flaws and gifts I have, learning to love and forgive others for their flaws and gifts, and learning to love all experiences, good or bad, for the lessons that they teach us. I think that's the current goal in emotional mastery for me. Once I reach that level, I might find something beyond that, but I don't know yet.

To that end, I'm using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to stop my negative thoughts, I'm using Emotional Release Counselling and EFT (Thanks ReallyGoodIdeas!) to air out my past, hypnosis and affirmations / LOA to boost my own self esteem / love and forgiveness for myself, and I'm constantly reminding myself to love and forgive others no matter who they are or what they do. And also to be grateful daily for everything. This has gone a long way to helping me control my emotions and my thoughts.

I'll be curious to see what other people are doing and how they are doing it? Cheers!

[Jovvi]

I agree with what Steve said in this post.

It means understanding your emotions and learning to shift from negative, dispowering emotional states towards more positive, empowering ones:
• fear -> courage
• resentment -> acceptance
• worry -> peace
• apathy -> inspiration
• and so on...

For myself, I see the road to emotional mastery beginning with greater self-awareness, especially inner awareness. Meditation has been a great tool to increase this. I find that when you're more self-aware (not self-conscious) you can monitor the thoughts that lead to negative emotions and derail them before they get started. Sort of like throwing a monkey wrench in the process. Usually its not what's happening that triggers your emotions, but what you "think" about what's happening that triggers them. Basically your judgement and assessment of it.

The less aware I am the more my emotions can run havoc, because I'm not monitoring my though process. Having and making a choice about how I feel about things, circumstances and basically any input coming in has been a truly self-empowering change for the better. Inner control is a lot more fun, than out control. It lets me drop unnecessary worry, fear, and anger. Still working at it, but it's been an interesting change so far.

[Nicketas]

Getting so p.i.s.s.e.d. off that I can blow up planets and move sh!t with my mind.

I mean, duh.

[skydust]

to me it means no longer being a slave to my emotions. it means experiencing them as just sensations in the body, thereby disabling recation mechanisms that no longer serve my goals that are triggered by these emotions. it also means being at peace with what is.

i am working on this full time.

[The Probabilist]

To me it means the power of eliminating negative emotions appearing within me. I don't know what hate, jealousy, shame, grief, guilt, hopelessness or trepidation feel like because I don't see a point in experiencing them. Is it a question of nature or nurture? For me personally, the answer doesn't matter. But in the case of helping others, the answer is crucial.