How to Manage your Emotions
How to Manage Your Emotions
Your emotions are created by two things: your current thinking and your fundamental beliefs.
- Your current thinking is whatever you are thinking about right now. Your current thoughts are constantly changing, moment by moment.
- Your fundamental beliefs are your unchanging assumptions that you make about the way the world really works, and where you fit in. Your beliefs are resistant to change.
Your emotions are the product of both your conscious thoughts, combined with your subconscious beliefs.
If you want to manage your emotions, then you need to "take back control" of your conscious thoughts and your subconscious beliefs.
Let us discuss the effects of your changing thoughts and your unchanging beliefs.
Controlling your conscious thoughts.
On a moment by moment basis, your emotions are governed by the content of your conscious mind.
Remember this phrase: "You feel whatever you think about."
- If you think about food, you'll feel hungry.
- If you think about your problems, you'll feel stressed.
- If you think that you will win, you'll feel confident.
- If you think you won't win, you won't feel confident.
You don't feel what IS, you feel what you THINK is.
Therefore, if you want to change how you feel, then you need to become more conscious of the thoughts that occupy your mind.
Pay attention to the content of your conscious mind. Strive to fill your mind with thoughts about how you could make your future better than the past.
- Strive to NOT think about the past.
- Strive to NOT think about the future as a fearful place.
In relation to your subconscious mind.
We know that your feelings are affected by your conscious mind and your current thinking, but on a more fundamental level, your emotions are founded on the content of your subconscious mind.
Your emotional programming is your underlying belief system about yourself and how you fit in to the social setting.
Your belief systems are more fundamental than your momentary thoughts. Your belief systems are designed to help you make sense of the world. Your belief system answers fundamental questions such as:
- Who am I?
- Where do I fit in?
- What am I capable of?
- What am I not capable of?
- Who is in charge?
- Is the world essentially a good or a bad place?
- Are other people an asset or a liability?
- Is my life governed by my own choices, or is it governed by other people, or by fate?
These questions, and many others, form the basis of your levels of confidence, optimism, motivation and happiness.
In relation to your belief systems.
If you believe yourself to be an intelligent, capable and morally good person, then you will feel positive emotions.
If you believe yourself to be unintelligent, incapable or morally deficient, then you will feel negative emotions.
Therefore, if you want to be happy, check the subconscious assumptions that you hold about the kind of person you think you are.
You are not what you think you are, but rather, what you THINK, you are!
In relation to your beliefs about the way the world works, and where you fit in.
If you believe the world to be a dangerous place and that you have no power to influence the events that affect you, then you will tend to feel negative.
If you believe that the world is a place full of wonderful opportunities and that you have the power to determine your own destiny, then you will tend to feel positive.
Therefore, if you want to be happy, check your subconscious assumptions about the way the world works. Try to build beliefs, that amplify your power to influence the events that shape your destiny.
To paraphrase Ayn Rand: "You have no choice about the fact that you need to believe in something. Your only choice is whether you choose your beliefs by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought, or let your subconscious accumulate a heap of falsehoods, contradictions, wishes, doubts and fears, that are thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious mind to form a kind of mongrel mind-set which creates self-doubt, like a ball and chain, in the place where your mind's wings of confidence should have grown."
About the Author: Chris Farmer
Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has many years’ experience in training leaders and managers, in both the public and private sectors, to achieve their organisational goals, especially during tough economic times. He is also well aware of the disciplines and problems associated with running a business.
Over the years, Chris has designed and delivered thousands of training programmes and has coached and motivated many management teams, groups and individuals. His training programmes are both structured and clear, designed to help delegates organise their thinking and, wherever necessary, to improve their techniques and skills.
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