You Are Not What You Feel
- It takes just one acerbic comment to ruin your mood from cloud nine to cloud nein.
- It only takes one cold shoulder from the person you admire to make you feel like the biggest loser ever.
- You and your best friend are just one disagreement away from being mortal enemies.
You know it in your mind that it’s just not rational or healthy to feel this way.
Still, you can’t help feeling the way you do. Worse yet, you can’t help acting on the feeling you have.
It’s one thing to feel bad. It’s a completely different ball game to act on such feeling.
Now, I want to remind you that you are not what you feel. You don’t have to feel bad about that one sarcastic remark. You don’t have to feel dejected just because someone was unfriendly to you, no matter who that was! The truth is, it’s their loss! ;) On top of that, you don’t have to allow your feelings to dictate how you act either. You are not what you feel.
An emotionally healthy person knows the difference between himself and his feelings. You can experience all the feelings and emotions. You don’t have to suppress them. On the other hand, you don’t have to let those emotions rule over you either.
How do you find the balance? The first thing is knowing that you are not your emotions.
- Just because you have one particular emotion, you don’t have to act on it.
- Just because you feel angry, you don’t have to act on that emotion and express that anger in your action toward the person who made you angry.
- Just because you feel anxious, you don’t have to allow that emotion to influence your performance.
You are not what you feel.
How can you command your feelings and be emotionally healthy?
Be aware of your emotions on a regular basis.
Recognize different emotions you feel throughout the day. And acknowledge them and experience them fully. But know that the emotion you feel is different than you as the person who is experiencing that emotion.
You are in control of how you act. Your emotion will not prescribe your action.
As you discipline yourself regularly to be aware of the emotions you feel, you will eventually learn to command them.
Two of the best practices to manage your emotions are journaling and meditating.
Journaling
Simply writing down your feelings on a notebook can help you see that the emotion is not in control of your life. Journaling can help you realize you are not what you feel. Set aside 20–30 minutes a day for journaling. Ask yourself how you are feeling right now. And write whatever comes to your mind.
Meditation
Meditation is simply focusing on the present moment. As you meditate, you start distinguishing the difference between yourself and the emotion that you are feeling. Once you realize that you are not what you feel, you gain control over the feelings you have. You can catch yourself trying to act on the negative emotion you might have at the moment.
Here’s an article on how to meditate.
Controlling your emotions is one of the skills you need to acquire if you want to succeed in life. No matter how successful you are, you are not fully free unless you can master your emotion. Mastering the emotion doesn’t mean censoring it. In fact, you will be able to fully experience all your emotions in a healthy way once you learn to master them.
