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Archive for the ‘Emotion Practice’ Category

To master emotions and be happy is the ambition of every person. Emotions are the energized feelings. A person cannot avoid emotions since it the impulsive response to circumstances. Emotions include a wide variety of feeling such as fear, guilt, anger, and unworthiness. Any how, emotions will impair the happiness of a person, when the person gets affected in the flood of emotions. To maintain a happy outlook, it has become an essentiality to control the emotions.

Emotions become most dangerous, when it affects the peoples, interacting with you. It is common that in the events of uncontrolled emotion, it results outraged behavior and may hurt the others feeling. Thus emotions are a sequential action, which in effect, may badly affect the whole society. The history of mankind shows that many of the black marks happened because of any single emotional out break of the person. The mastery over emotions is essential, also because, it will help you to better mould as a good human beings.

As told, avoidance of emotions is not practical in the daily life; a person can only control the emotions. The first step to control the emotions has to begin from the realization of the emotions. You have to first make up your mind to control the emotions. Remember, emotions become dangerous, when you react to the impulse. The basic thing to be happy is to prevent your response. The repeated thought process and regular reminding will restrict your outspoken nature. However, be cautious and seek the advice of the experts while getting started since the suppression of the feelings may cause any other sort of mental disturbances. It is also advisable to a primary investigation about the behavior of the person since in many cases, the emotional out breaks are caused because of mental disorders.

The practice of mental relaxation techniques is an ideal way to control the emotions. The relaxation techniques such as meditation, Yoga, bio feed back and imaginative therapies will help to relax your mind and keep your mind, in your control. Religious faith is also major factor that can give you consciousness. Involvement in your favorite sports and arts is also a preferred method, which will relax both mind and body. Some recent studies show that diet plays a role in the emotional out breaks and hence, you hence you have to practice a balance diet. The step by step self control exercise is focused to remold the persons for a problem free and happy life.

Being happy is the intention of every one. For that, keep in mind an old saying, which means, if you want to be happy, keep others happy. Hence, stop for a moment, when you get in touch with any thing that raises your emotions. Take a deep breath and think about the details of the issue. It is sure that, if you can spare a moment to rethink, you can definitely progress to mastering your emotions and be a very happy person.

These moods or down time emotional slumps do come and go more for some than others but everyone does have the capacity to release these anchors of ‘negative’ emotions. On the emotional scale of self esteem, a feeling of joyful invincibility is the higher more productive emotion for effective results. This is where your complete self, your divine self as I like to refer to it and your invented identity self are closely harmonizing with one another. Conflict between the two is absent.

Any time you are not experiencing happiness and joy as an emotional state of being, there is simply a conflict being called forth between your divine self and your identity self. There is nothing to do to have your divine self improve its state as it remains perfectly whole and complete. It is you without flaw, unlimited and purely loving. It sees and knows you as just that and all others as well. Its vibration floats in the domain of freedom, joy and bliss.

Your invented self on the other hand has the freedom to choose to focus on all aspects of the emotional scale and sometimes it locks on to, so to speak, ‘negative’ thoughts and feelings. It focuses on the appearance of things and resists those which do not feel good. It pushes against that which it is giving attention to. All that attention focused on our less than happy and joyful self and all those limiting and restrictive feelings and emotions cause us to get lost in a mood which wears on us until we slowly inch our way back up the scale.

When you are down and desire a quick jump start back into happiness and joy you need to know two things. One, you must create the experience of ‘willingness’. There requires a willingness to move yourself to a higher state of being and to release the emotions you are experiencing. If you are not, see if you are willing to be willing to experience happiness and joy.

The second thing to know is that you are a grateful and appreciative being. Once ready you can list two items pertaining to your thought menu of the day. Your thought menu is what I call the 70 thousand thoughts psychologists say the average person has during a given day. Whatever the actual number is irrelevant, there is something more startling, knowing that the average person thinks about 90 to 95% of the same thoughts they did today that they thought yesterday!

Pick two items you consider the nucleus of a domain of thought where there is a low emotional state. Then pick two you have a much better feeling about. Perhaps you have been thinking negatively about the state of the economy or the leaky faucet you must tend to. The happier thoughts may be about your child’s baseball game or the plans your spouse has for your birthday this weekend. Or your thoughts may all be about you, or the people you do or do not feel good about.

Whatever these are, fully and completely state as many things as you can about what you have an appreciation for and are grateful for associated with each of these four items alternating back and forth. Don’t look for the significant; begin with whatever is there, however small it might be. It doesn’t matter in fact. Be wildly generous in your looking for as many things as you can. If you can not state or write down 10 -20 things for each you might want to ask yourself if you are willing to.

This process is a thought process that you can do as you go about the balance of your day. There is no set amount of time and if you take time out to do it that’s fine too. But be sure to really get in touch with those things you have an appreciation for and that you are grateful for associated with the items you identified. Sometimes you’ll find emotions that you just seem to not want to let go of, see if you are willing to experience yourself releasing them through an imaginary window in your chest. Be happy, be joyful, and seek your joyful invincibility.

I’ve always been interested in the interior life. In emotions, perception, the different ways that people see or process the same event or feeling, and the ways that cultures unevenly encourage some qualities and feelings and not others. I think it’s fair to say that one of our greatest challenges as humans is how to manage our feelings.

Emotions are such a mysterious force, so seemingly out of our control, overcoming us when we least expect it. It’s sometimes a conundrum to know what to do with them. And a surprise that when we do express them, people don’t understand “how we can feel that way,” or tell us we “shouldn’t feel that way”!

Some people don’t really know how they feel, or they mistake one feeling for another, like feeling anxiety instead of the sadness of loss. Or they jump right over one feeling into a more manageable one, like feeling angry instead of admitting fear or hurt. Or they intellectualize, downshifting anger to “frustration” or fear to “nervousness”. I hear very few people admit to simple confusion and be okay with that. It’s gotten so bad that some people feel their only “safety” is to go on national television to express their hurt or betrayal. Let’s not even go there.

I’m going to suggest that the way to successfully deal with feelings is to allow them to be just what they are. To trust them and yourself and the process of life enough to just feel what you feel (even if you can’t name it) long enough to find out where it leads you. And to tolerate the discomfort long enough to come out the other side. Because there is another side, there is an end, and you will come through it. Feeling what you feel until you hit bottom will always reveal something else. You know you’ve arrived when you are calm, at peace, and perhaps faced with a choice. The choice is to accept, to act and/or to speak your truth. The truth, by the way, is always about you, not about anyone else.

I used to think that people instinctively knew this, and chose not to choose. But more and more I’m coming to believe that we’ve had our emotions so sanitized and socialized out of us that we really don’t understand or value their place in our lives. We don’t tolerate discomfort (take a pill!) long enough to discover how our emotions serve us. We’ve created strict codes of right and wrong, and good and bad. Anger is bad, fear is weak, sympathy is good and sadness is unnecessary. We value control more than reality.

Media images would have us believe that there can be light without darkness (Las Vegas), and joy without pain (sitcoms). Strong, negatively charged emotions can be very disorienting. If you are still willing to touch these feelings, where’s the support, the mirror in your community that reflects back to you, or models for you, how to confront, grow, and even prosper through difficult times in a way that empowers you rather than denies who you are?

Have you ever noticed that when you really allow yourself to absolutely experience how you feel, that you can only experience it for so long? You bottom out. Anger changes to underlying hurt, sadness into acceptance, and fear into new resolve. Feelings are our guides. They protect our integrity and they point to what’s next, or to what really matters to us. To the degree that we are willing to be honest and courageous they can also guide us to powerful and deep connections with others who are as willing to be authentic. Feelings are only one part of us. They become problematical only when they acquire a greater significance than they actually have by our refusal to acknowledge them.

In my former life in the healing profession, and now as a coach, I am privileged to hear people share their feelings of fatigue and disillusionment as well as their hopes and passions. They are the courageous ones, refusing to be resigned, or to “play the game” of life without inspiration or enthusiasm. They are the ones willing to confront how they feel and are willing to take the risk to stretch themselves, to be beginners, to try new perspectives or behaviors. Can you tolerate this inner turmoil long enough to actually take the necessary steps to change your circumstances?

People often fear that if they allow themselves to feel what they feel, it will never stop and they won’t be able to function. Actually, my experience has taught me just the opposite. It’s shown me the perfect symmetry of emotion and life. I learned that to “be with” whatever emotion arises is the key to “moving on” with it. The bodymind rapidly signals – with a variety of symptoms – when emotions are stuck, unacknowledged, or unresolved. My clients learn to value each surfacing emotion, because, like the changing seasons, each has a purpose, and when it’s fulfilled, it moves on and people take action. Energy, and life, wants to move forward and grow beyond itself. Feelings are one stepping stone in service of that evolution.

What’s required to successfully move through difficult emotions? Patience. Courage. A tolerance for discomfort. A deep trust of life and of self. Being alert to the shift. Listening closely to your inner promptings, and being open to receive the messages or insights they bring. Making the choice to act on them. Most of all, managing our emotional lives takes self-love and self-acceptance. Learn to be with, rather than deny yourself, and you will strengthen and grow these qualities in yourself and make room for them in others.

Like a balloon with skin fully stretched out by hot air, people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder easily burst up with the slightest touch of a piercing object. They are vessels bobbing through a turbulent sea of emotions, periodically facing the chance of drowning.

Borderline personality disorder is a serious mental condition characterized by consistent mood instability, a distorted self-image and perception of others, as well as emotional deregulation. People with borderline personality disorder often find it difficult to trust others. They are oversensitive to the actions of those around them, and read too much into things. This leads them to forge chaotic, unstable platonic and romantic relationships, wherein they usually end up getting hurt. Their chronic fear of abandonment provokes them to seek out rescue through performance of self-destructive acts such as engagement in vices, promiscuity and overeating. Furthermore, they are confused with their life-goals and career paths, which is why they are unable to maintain employment and work performance. People with borderline personality disorder experience difficulty in controlling their feelings that’s why they exhibit sudden, inappropriate and uncontrollable fits of anger, and anxiety. Depression usually accompanies these deep-seated emotional discrepancies and trigger self-mutilation practices and suicide.

To protect their ego and achieve a sense of release from the state of panic, people with borderline personality disorders will accuse others with their own faulty characteristics (projection), or become what they think is pleasing to others (identification). They may also believe that their thoughts can cause things to happen or that the world is sabotaging their plans(magical thinking) and be convinced that they know everything and are always right, regardless of what is actually happening (omnipotence). These defense mechanisms often contribute to their instability and make them misunderstood individuals.

People with borderline personality disorders are not completely incompetent individuals, in contrast to their standardized depiction. Some of those afflicted with the condition are in fact, creative and intelligent people that have contributed more to the world, than the normally facilitated man. When engulfed in their self-made struggles and sufferings, and plagued by their unending questions about life, people with borderline personality disorders produce the most thought-provoking art forms. Their empathic personality and sensitivity to the needs of others make them great public servants. This also makes them keen observers, analysts, and critics; able to generate significant and empowering ideals for the improvement of life and government. Adolph Hitler, the Princess of Wales, Marilyn Monroe, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and Susanna Kayson are just some of those great personalities diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Those of us who are familiar with the public debate on spanking are aware of the need to stress a facet of spanking that seems to remain largely ignored by those in support of this practice… the high level of potential for negative short and long term emotional consequences.

Emotions are meant to carryout and protect our biological drives. But, it would seem apparent that many parents are unaware of the fact that emotions are an undeniable part of our biological make up. This might help explain why it is we don’t hear the term ‘emotional beatings’ being associated with the practice of spanking children nearly as often as we should. It’s a term that too often gets overlooked in discussions related to physical punishment. One reason for this could stem from the fact that a great number of people would rather avoid conversations concerning ‘emotional stuff’.

There are still a good number of people around who have developed a negative connotation with regard to the expression of emotions. It should seem clear that many of us still equate ‘emotions’ with ‘weakness’. This could be due in part to the remnants of outdated patriarchal notions that cast a number of emotions in a negative light. For example, it’s probably safe to say that no one likes a ‘cry baby’; many of us view ‘whiners’ with contempt; some of us still regard the open expression of emotional distress as a ‘lack of inner strength’, while others of us yet find such expressions as downright pathetic, repulsive, and worthy of disdain.

This is probably why when we adults are emotionally distressed or hurting, we’ll usually choose to blame our lack of desire to participate in work or play on a physical problem rather than admitting to an emotional difficulty. We don’t usually call the boss to say that we’re just ‘not up’ to coming into work that day because we are feeling stressed and need a day off, or that we’re feeling ‘down’ and just don’t feel like going in to work. Fact is, we’re much more likely to call in sick physically, rather than chance being viewed as ‘emotionally weak’, ‘unstable’, or ‘disturbed’.

This fear of appearing ‘weak’ or ‘unstable’ seems to leave many of us with a preference toward simply denying the negative emotional aspects of day-to-day living. There is no doubt that all of us can relate to emotional pain, yet we will often refuse to recognize it in others… especially in children.

Certainly, the commonly seen tendency toward a denial of emotional pain must play a role in the heavy emphasis that is placed upon the physical aspects of violence toward children. Most would define ‘abuse’ toward children as involving only physical injury.

As a society, we do not, as yet, recognize the emotional impact (or trauma) that can occur as a result of spanking, hitting, swatting, popping, tapping, or patting (or whatever other euphemism might be used to describe inflicting a degree of violence upon children).

We generally don’t conceive of the possibility that a perfectly ‘legal’ spanking can involve an emotionally abusive beating. We simply tend to deny this possibility, as evidenced by the fact that we all know children experiencing their first taste of violent behavior from a parent seldom begin to scream in agony as the result of the physical pain that’s being inflicted on them. We might even hear a parent exclaim, ‘Shut up, or I’ll really give you something to cry about!’

The screaming that many of us have heard coming from a young child being struck is not so much the result of physical trauma as it is emotional trauma. The overwhelming emotional pain of rejection, worthlessness, and the betrayal of trust is usually much more potentially damaging than the force of the blows.

Where we adults are concerned, being subjected to this kind of distress has been termed ‘Emotional Pain and Suffering’ and our legal system will often award us compensation for such a violation of our personal well-being and emotional stability. Yet, although the potential for long term emotional damage is much greater for children being treated in a violent manner than it is for us, we still choose to ignore, or deny, the emotional suffering of children related to legalized spankings (or other demeaning treatments).

Some parents try to convince themselves that if they offer hugs, and profess their love after engaging in the ultimate act of rejection toward their children, that this ritual will somehow negate the trauma, and potential emotional damage, they had just moments before inflicted upon their child. This thinking is similar to the wife-beater who, after victimizing his wife, tenderly professes his deep love for her in the belief that his offerings of love will compensate for the emotional damage he has caused her, as well as repairing any damage he may have caused to the quality of the relationship they share.

We’ve come to know full well that this hate-love ritual by violent husbands doesn’t work on wives, and I’d like to suggest that neither does it work on children. Not only is the ‘I hate you, now I love you’ routine of spanking ineffective, it’s a practice that can lead children to begin associating love with pain and violence.

Most people will be quick to recognize that bruises left on a child who has been spanked represents child abuse simply because that is the way the legal system currently defines ‘abuse’ as it relates to children under 18 years of age. What we, as a society, fail to consider is the possibility that while the bruises of abuse will soon heal, the emotional wounds of diminished self-esteem, anger, alienation, or depression, that are known to result from children being victimized by violent treatment, can remain open sores for a lifetime… regardless of whether or not physical injury occurred as a result of the violence.

If there are parents who are willing to claim that spanking their children has not, or will not, cause their children emotional harm, they must also be willing to make the claim that they themselves, would not be emotionally harmed by being treated in the same manner by their spouses or other loved ones. We simply can’t afford to turn a blind eye to the undeniable reality that children suffer the same fear, dread, and alienation through being physically punished, as us adults. If we experience an unhealthy fear toward the prospect of being victimized by force and violence, it is nothing more than an act of humanity to consider that children suffer the same fear, to the same degree, as would we ourselves.

Sadly, according to the attitudes of some, one would imagine that children represent some different form of life that is somehow immune to the same feelings and emotions experienced by actual ‘real’ people. Fact is, we are all members of the same species who all share in common the same basic emotions. And in the same light, we also all share together a remarkably similar response to being treated in a violent manner (or threatened with such)… and our response involves a powerful compunction to either fight or run; we might hide if able, or we might shut-down emotionally (dissociate) in the event we find ourselves unable to either fight or run as a normal response (the fight or flight autonomic response to threat). Children often dissociate as their only defensive option given their circumstances.

We should remain mindful that the emotional beatings we suffer, both adult and child alike, as the result of being treated in violent ways, can leave us feeling diminished, insecure, debilitated, fearful, and emotionally unstable… maybe we suffer for a day, a week, or perhaps a month. But, then again, we might find ourselves struggling through emotional difficulties for years beyond the time when any physical wounds would have long since healed and been put far behind us.

James C. Talbot

Yoga originated as a healing art, whose purpose was to dispel disharmonies of mind and body, which might impede an individual’s journey along the path to universal wholeness and understanding. Such disharmonies might express themselves in rigidities of the body or in physical illness, and in discontent or anxiety. Over the centuries, yoga sages discovered how to calm and overcome them by gentle stretching and exercise, by slow, rhythmic breathing, which gradually quietens the mind, and by techniques such as visualization and meditation which concentrate the mind.

Modern appeal

Today, just as in ancient times, people neglect their bodies, injure themselves, and develop illnesses. They become dissatisfied, agitated, and unhappy. Yoga continues to be relevant because it provides some answers to the difficulties of living in the modern world. The styles and schools of yoga that are popular today are those which, like lyengar yoga, focus on stretching and movement. We sit for most of the day when traveling, at work, when relaxing, yet if bones, joints, and muscles are not stretched and moved, the body deteriorate. Yoga restores natural flexibility to stiff backs, necks, and limbs. It helps the body heal after strain and trauma, and practiced regularly, it promotes health and prevents illness.

People everywhere react against the speed of contemporary living, against the unquestioning acceptance of competition in everyday life, and against the effects of overcrowding. Many people turn to yoga as a remedy for the effect of stress on mind and body. Experiments have shown that by a combination of breathing, visualization, and concentration, yogis can reduce their heart rate and blood pressure.

Yoga is a holistic practice, not just an exercise system. When you begin yoga, you harness the powers of the body and the mind to soothe the nerves and calm the body systems, reducing stress and allowing the body to restore normal function. Rhythmic breathing, called pranayama, and meditation techniques enhance this healing process. They are an important part of hatha yoga, and in lyengar yoga, pranayama and concentration techniques are taught to advanced students.

Emotion and Control

To practice yoga is to make some quite space in your life, a little time to let negative emotions subside, and allow the natural rhythms of mind and body to reassert themselves. Rather than give inner turmoil opportunities to express itself in sudden outbursts, yoga gives strong emotions gentle physical release through intense stretching, and deflects the mind away from them by directing the attention on precise movement and accurate positioning. The result is the diffusion of anger and resentment, the lifting of heavy spirits, and the calming and containing of hurt and mental discomfort. At the end of a concentrated yoga practice, feelings of ease and tranquility saturate body and mind.

Tranquility

The ability to restore tranquility is a major gift of yoga to an increasingly turbulent world. People have to deal with mounting stress in all aspects of their lives. In time, many succumb to the emotional turmoil this causes, and this can result in depression, stress, and breakdown of relationships. A tranquil person radiating inner harmony benefits others by transmitting calm and reassurance in tense situations.

Practising asanas is a way of learning to exercise self-control. Yoga begins this process by teaching control of the body, then control of the breath. Through this, you learn concentration – control of your thought patterns – and this helps bring about emotional control. In the long term, yoga has a leveling effect on your whole emotional life.

People who practice yoga do not cease to feel, but they become less negatively affected by life’s disappointments, less anxiety-ridden, and less dependent for happiness on outside factors such as wealth, success, and luck. The perpetual need for excitement, gratification, and thrills is replaced by inner peace and contentment.