All About Emotions
All the emotions you experience are BRAND NEW – it’s your choice how you feel!
In order to truly take control of your life and learn to thrive, there are a couple of concepts that – for some people – can be difficult to get your head around.
We’re going to talk about one of them today: the fact that we don’t store emotions.
We don’t store emotions! ?❌
This can be a hard fact to grasp because it flies in the face of: everything you’ve ever been told by a therapist, anything you’ve ever read in a self-help book, and what you probably believe to be true based on your life-experiences to date.
On top of all that, the English language is littered with expressions that suggest we do have bottled up emotions… the phrase ‘bottled up emotions’ being one of them! The belief that you are going through life with lots of stored, repressed, bottled up emotions, and that these emotions are holding you back in some way, stopping you from living life to the full, somehow trapping you in your past… well, it’s just not true.
Your emotions are a reaction TO something, some event, thought or experience.
You first have the event, then you have your reaction to the event (based on your Sense of Power and Control), then you have your emotion – your experience of the event.
It’s as simple as 1,2,3. First, the event. Second, your reaction. Third, your experience.
Let’s look at an example…
You’re walking around town and a dog appears in front of you and barks at you (1) Now, if you love dogs, your reaction (2) is likely to be surprise and pleasure, and therefore your emotion/experience (3) will be a nice, happy feeling. However, if don’t feel comfortable around dogs, number (1) will be exactly the same for you, however your (2) is likely to be surprise and fear, making your experience (3) to be very unpleasant, with your heart beating fast, and you feeling very anxious. You WEREN’T anxious because you came across a barking dog, but because when you came across a barking dog you processed the experience in a powerless way, and you CREATED fear and anxiety.
Imagine you are 80 years old, and you have had a phobia of dogs since you were bitten by a dog, at the age of ten. You’ve had this phobia for 70 years. Every time you’ve seen, heard, or even read about a dog – for the last 70 years – you’ve reacted to the event with fear, anxiety and panic.
What’s causing your phobia today? 70 years ago you created a powerful belief about dogs – they are scary, unpredictable and dangerous – and you have been thinking the same way ever since!
It is your belief that creates your experience – how powerful and confident you feel around dogs. Bearing in mind a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, stop thinking the same thoughts about dogs, and your phobia is no more.
In the same vein:
✴️ Sad movies don’t make us cry
✴️ Bad drivers (and politicians!) don’t make us angry
✴️ Our favourite band splitting up doesn’t make us depressed
✴️ Seeing a friend doesn’t make us happy
✴️ Remembering being bullied at school doesn’t make you sad
It’s the way in which we respond to these events that dictates how we are going to feel. If we react in a powerful way, believing we can cope with whatever life throws at us, we react entirely differently.
We create emotions in the moment – right now – they are not bubbling up, coming to the surface or being released: they are being created, brand new, right now, by the way in which you are responding to an event or situation in life, and you can change them!
So, take control, stop blaming your past – or your present – for how you feel about something.
Take responsibility for your emotions: change the way you think, and you’ll change the way you feel.
See you on Friday ?
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This is part of a series building up your mental health every week – so we do advise going back and reading our Thriving at Home series from the beginning.
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