Emotional Self Control

[Ang]

I am looking for honest and sincere advice relating to emotional well being. I have struggled most my life with insecurities, jealousy, trust issues, low self esteem and negativity. It comes and goes. Usually dependent on how others treat me. I have read self help books, sought counseling, took medication. Yet here I am, about to lose the person I want to spend my life with and I still cannot control myself.
I don't have many family or friends. I lost my father, whom I was very close with, tragically seven years ago. The man I was engaged to and dating for close to six years left me because I strayed (which goes against everything I am and everything I believe in, but was going through alot after my father died and didn't exactly make the best choices). He took my dog who meant the world to me. That was 4 years ago.
I have trust issues. I have been told I have abandonment issues by a counsler. I have trouble just generally thinking positive about my relationship on a daily basis. I can hear something and interpret it the complete opposite of what was meant when it was said. I feel a lot of the time that he doesn't really like me or care about me. I know that most of my thought processes are way out of whack. I know that if I cry and complain every day about all the small things I want from him, that it will only push him away. I am perfectly aware of it all. Problem is I have no control. None. Zilch. It seems like I am constantly on edge waiting for the worse to happen in every scenereo. My man is feeling like I am trying to control him, that I'm dictating his time and his life when I act this way. I am suspicious. I am ridiculous.
I need to learn to control my emotions, and also stop being so emotionally dependent. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

[ar81]

The medicine against negative emotions is humor.
There is no risk of overdose, unless you have a heart condition, in which case, laughing may kill you.

Negative emotions are the product of a biochemical imbalance in your brain that makes your world to look dark and sad. But your brain is cheating you. Brain, just like any other organ, may work fine, or may not.

When brain is not working properly, because we did not drive it through the path of happiness, then malfunction causes us to feel negative. But all those negative situations, except for some serious cases where people are really in danger, are not real.

Here some ideas about...

• Insecurities: So you fear to fail. Failure does not exist. If you are the coach of a team that could not win this championship, there will always be a next championship. Failure comes when we set deadlines and reduce the number of attempts to declare it failure. Light bulb took about 2000 attempts to be invented. One less attempt and it would have been a failure. How many attempts are you going to have to achieve your dreams?
• Jealousy: This pain you feel... when was the first time you felt it? Those who trigger those feelings in you are making it to surface, so you can clean them. So thank them for doing so. You need to heal unsolved past sadness. The good news is that that past event is not real anymore.
• Trust issues: Trust is earned, not given for free. Follow this simple formula and you will never have to suspect from people. Imagine trust is like a bank account and you are the bank. With their actions people will deposit trust money in your bank. They are not worthy of being called "trusty" until they reach a certain amount. Do not assign negative amounts to people (see negativity) at the very beginning.
• Low self esteem: What happens to the world is not your fault. Forgive yourself, hug yourself as you are a special being. Take control of your life, it is yours. So people do not understand you? Yes. That's because your mission in life is special, unique. Discover what it is, and go for it.
• Negativity: Master humor. Watch comedies, make satire of what happens in the world. Humor is the medicine you must take when feeling negative. If you have no humorous material at hand, find a way to create it yourself.

Do not try to supress emotions. Try to feel them, explore them, feel yourself overwhelmed by them, inside of you. Just try not to act in the outside, so you do not react in ways you may regret. Do not hurt other people, do not hurt yourself. Emotions are not designed to hurt anyone, they are not designed to control you. You are the one in command, in an inner quest to explore them, not to deny them, do not let youreslf be be dragged by them.

When you feel emotions, just remember that the colors of the world you will see, are not real. The only reality that is real, is the one you see when you are happy and feeling peace. Any other reality is an illusion created by your emotions. be the captain of your ship, and explore the thunderstorm inside of you, go through it, instead of running away to the coast and crash against the cliffs.

[FazK]

Dis-identify from your emotions. Realize that you emotions are chemicals reactions in your brain caused by your thoughts and by events in your life. They are not who you are and they do not have to control your life practice being the "observer" and you will soon learn to rise above your emotions and not take them all that seriously.

[ar81]

Originally Posted by FazK

Dis-identify from your emotions. Realize that you emotions are chemicals reactions in your brain caused by your thoughts and by events in your life. They are not who you are and they do not have to control your life practice being the "observer" and you will soon learn to rise above your emotions and not take them all that seriously.

When I have said in the past that "heart can lie" is exactly that.
Emotions are like thoughts. They can present us a false reality, one through reliativistic arguments and the other through emotions.

[The Cloud]

Maybe instead of becoming more positive, you need to embrace who you are. That might include embracing the negative. You say that you're whiny and manipulative. Maybe that's who you are. You don't have to be ashamed of it, and you don't have to change. You don't need to be happy about it. Screw happiness, what happiness has trying to be happy brought you so far? You're miserable trying to be happy, trying to be good, trying to not be everything you are.

But you are everything you are, so be that. If you're unhappy, then be unhappy. If you're annoying, then be annoying. If you're ridiculous, then be ridiculous. If you're afraid, then be afraid. You don't have to change who you are, and you don't have to change how you feel. You don't have to be happy if you don't want to.

All those things that you're "supposed" to be, like happy and nice and supportive and confident, are a bunch of crap that hasn't helped you. Stop trying to change in ways that don't work. Instead of trying to change, try being yourself. Even if you're scared. It's scary to be who you are. It's scary to admit that you're not a perfect being, that you're not all puppy dogs and sunshine. It's scary to admit that you could be broken, that you could have problems, that you could actually be mean and manipulative. But who you are is who you are, and instead of trying to change yourself you should first find out who that is. Even if who that is isn't who you are supposed to be.

[ar81]

Do you know when will you start controlling your emotions?
The day you feel bored of feeling bad.
This is what triggers control.

[ladee]

ar81
I was browsing and saw your post. It applies to me and my life right now. Thank you , just a simple heartfelt thank you.

[ar81]

Originally Posted by ladee

ar81
I was browsing and saw your post. It applies to me and my life right now. Thank you , just a simple heartfelt thank you.

Good to know it helps...

[Strangemagik]

Originally Posted by ladee

ar81
I was browsing and saw your post. It applies to me and my life right now. Thank you , just a simple heartfelt thank you.

Ditto from me too. I can sooo(just to emphasize how much) relate to the abandonment issues. My father left mother(and myself and 2 brothers) when I was about 4. I have memories of that day and they have never left. I know I have been guilty of the trust issues I would say jealousy but I suppose in another persons perspectives it could seem so. I start of being pretty trusting of everyone to a fault and usually it comes out of nowhere with the smallest thing. To make matters worse I keep having relationships that have this problem in them. Two I left because of the fear and trust being too much that I became distant and pretty much "grew apart" from the man, those trust issues just put a giant wedge in there.

These replies have helped but I think its a bout time I work on these issues. I'm sure they are attracting the same problem time and time again.

[rei]

Originally Posted by ar81

Do you know when will you start controlling your emotions?
The day you feel bored of feeling bad.
This is what triggers control.

i agree with this point even if it may feel a bit heavy-handed to me. your defenses are there for a reason. if you feel abandoned by your father (working on some of that myself, the last few days especially) then you may be trying to push your partner away... after all, if you push him into leaving them at least you decided to initiate the abandonment. and then it isn't really abandonment.

counseling can help, seems you may not have resolved your grief. but it won't help much if you don't really want it to. processing a loss is indescribably painful, so resistance is understandable. and if you've been pessimistic or cynical your whole life then you may not be able to switch to the polar opposite... it can be done, but not everyone will make that switch in a lasting way. if your negativity has only been going on since you lost your father then it is probably a side effect of your grief and once the grief has reached a resolution you have a good chance of returning to a lighter perspective.

you have the power to decide how you choose to see something. you don't have to see yourself as a victim of circumstances, if that's how you see yourself. you can accept how you see things, if you don't like it you can decide to change. it's all your choice, but you are better off - if you decide to change - not making that decision based on what someone else wants. make that decision because you realize being negative brings you down or makes you tense, but find something to make it for you, not for someone else. choose to see yourself as interdependent instead of dependent, and that is what you are/become.