People generally deal with emotions in 4 ways, they either…
Avoid and bury the emotion…
Endure and wallow in the emotion without changing the pattern…
Compete and get competitive with others about how bad they feel or…
Utilize and learn from the emotion…
Nobody can make us feel anything; we choose what emotions we feel by adopting a certain pattern of what we focus on, our body language and movement, our beliefs and the questions we ask ourselves…
When we create the feeling of love in ourselves that is the result of a series of events (strategy) that trigger our rule that says hey I can feel loved and then we let ourselves experience the positive emotion.
The same can be said of any emotion, however sometimes our rules, the meanings we give to things and the questions we ask ourselves lead us into a negative emotion and sometimes if we have created this pattern regularly it almost becomes an automatic process…
Nothing in life has meaning other than the meaning you give it…
So if you are experiencing negative emotion; change the meaning of what has happened…
For example…
An event happens and the meaning derived could be that means they don’t love me…
Change that to that means they love me they just don’t know how to communicate it and the results are much more positive…
The second meaning would then precipitate a conversation about the way we want to be communicated too, the first leads to a negative un-resourceful state.
This explains why some people have the same experience yet re-act differently to it; they place different meanings on events…
The Emotional Triad
So next time you experience a negative emotion, firstly notice your body language, posture and movement and change it.
Think of a happy time and notice how you moved or think of a joyful person and notice how they move and adopt that posture, the breathing pattern and movement…
Notice where you are looking and keep your vision up rather than down, breathe deeply from the stomach rather than shallow chesty breaths.
MIT in America have made massive breakthroughs with people suffering low mood simply by getting them to change their pattern of movement and by getting them to smile and keep their eyes focused up rather than down.
Secondly think what is it I am focusing on and change your focus. If something bad has happened rather than focusing on what has happened focus on what you want to happen in future to improve the situation. If you are thinking of a person change the focus and think about the outcome you want with that person…
Thirdly ask yourself what would I have to believe in order to feel that, often when people are down they are often believing that there is nothing I can do I am helpless etc etc. Think how does thinking that help me and think about the questions you are asking yourself…
Questions like, why does this always happen to me? Often lead to mischievous answers from our unconscious; like because you’re an idiot or worse!!
We need to learn to ask ourselves better questions for example…
Questions to use
How do i want to feel?
– Whichever positive emotion that you want
What do i have to believe to feel that way?
– Take on that belief
What am i willing to do now to achieve this?
– Take action whether it be speaking to someone/exercising etc…
A system for developing positive emotions…
Breathing and walking
What do you have to feel grateful about?
– Think about all of the things you have to feel grateful about
Visualise what you want as if already happened
– Give thanks for what you have achieved in your visualisation
Visualise what you want to happen that day
– Think about the positive outcome of what you want to happen
Our brain does not know the difference between what we visualise and what is real so by focusing on what we want the brain finds a way to achieve it.
Equally if we focus on what we don’t want the same applies so make sure your focus is on what you want to happen.
I hope you enjoyed the blog and I look forward to hearing from you;
Bevis Moynan, BSc, MABNLP, MTLT, MHYP
Director of Magenta Coaching Solutions
www.magentacs.co.uk
07764758460