---Do You Own Your "Problems", or Do Your "Problems" Own You?---
Emotions have so much power over us: influencing our decisions, fueling our arguments, drawing us toward people, and even telling us which foods to eat! We sway as they sway. Being human our emotional states must vary for us feel the juice of life—from tremendous highs to quiet meditation, from passionate anger to deep sorrow, we all have our patterns of how we generally live our lives.
I have to admit, I have been guilty of not recognizing just how much my own emotions have directed my day to day life. I’d feel a sense of sadness and not know why. I’d get frustrated with similar kinds of people over and over again, even though I know at the end of the day, I’m not responsible for their lives any more than they are for mine. I’d even feel a complete since of apathy toward life sometimes, not knowing where passion and zest for life went.
What made it worse is that when I became aware of the low emotional state I was in, I would beat myself up for being there, and that would push me down even further! I would *judge* myself for not being happy, so I did what every good judge would do, punish the guilty with more pain (aka, more of that emotion I didn’t want).
Life is full of tricks to happiness, and here are a few ideas that absolutely changed my life:
1) Every, every, every emotion is valid! I believe that each emotion is here to teach us something—the trick is finding the empowering meaning. When we feel nervous, it means we care about what we’re doing. When we feel angry, that means someone is touching on an emotional wound that we have an opportunity to heal. When I started looking at my emotions as messages rather than just a fact of life, I claimed more of my life back.
2) Awareness + Time = Mastery: We have to realize that this journey of understanding ourselves and our emotions is a journey, not a destination, and this journey starts with just noticing. Pay attention to the flow of your emotions. Just decide to notice when they change. Allow yourself to notice what preempted the switch of emotional states. Was there a trigger when you were sad, and something set you off to yelling? Give yourself permission to ask, “If I believed this emotion is here to serve my good, what would it be showing me right now?”
3) Own it!! The last and impost important tip in this series of ideas is to own it! We can only change what we’re willing to. Our thoughts direct our emotions and direct our actions. If we tell ourselves, “no, this sadness is just how I was born”, we’re going to believe it! Take a look at an issue you’re facing right now in your life. Imagine it right in front of you and be playful! “Hey you! Yeah, you. I OWN you.” If you take ownership of the issue you’re facing, the energy starts to shift. Our problems can only take over our emotional states if we give them permission to. Take your power back. Remind yourself just who you are.
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To new beginnings for life J
Carlos