Controlling your emotions

14 years ago

Ok, for the record, I am not a Zig Ziglar-type fan.

But, why on earth should one control something that is natural? So that we can all go around in a zombie-like state, pretending everything is fine?

That kind of mindset, "controlling the conscious mind" can be extremely dangerous. Why? Because by that example, we are teaching that it's NOT ok to feel normal, human emotions, that, regardless of what life dishes us out (or what we bring upon ourselves), we must react in a way that is positive. Who says? Zig Ziglar-ites?

I'm human. I'm going to cry. Someone is going to make me mad. I am going to react. Things are going to depress me. People are going to disappoint me. Life sucks, really, really bad sometimes. And to pretend that it doesn't and the above things don't happen is just crazy talk.

Can you continue a manifestation of negativity that leads you down a path that's not optimal for growth? Certainly you can. But, that's not the standard for most people. Most people wallow for awhile and get over it. Granted, one persons "awhile" might be different from another person's "awhile". And who am I to judge when it's time to truly be over something?

If operating separate from my feelings is what HE says differentiates me from someone who is "Born Rich", either he's a fraud or I was "Born Dirt Poor". Either way, it doesn't change a thing for me.

Be who you are. Not who someone thinks you should be.

Warmly,

Brandi

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don21stc

14 years ago

Originally Posted by digidoodles

But, why on earth should one control something that is natural? So that we can all go around in a zombie-like state, pretending everything is fine?

That kind of mindset, "controlling the conscious mind" can be extremely dangerous.

Brandi

I certainly go along with what 'digidoodles' says!

The people I've met who habitually control their emotions are very spooky.

Why are they so bottled up? What have they done that they don't want to betray by letting go of their emotions? Are they in fact Aliens who are still struggling to master their Earthly disguises?

I believe that every characteristic you've got can be used for your own good and the good of others.

Even if my Alien theory is wrong, how can you put to good use your emotional characteristics if you keep them firmly locked up?

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digidoodles

14 years ago

And, for the record, I do understand what you were saying "we can control how we react"... yay, rah- sis-boom-bah!

We can. But why should we?

Warmly,

Brandi

P.S. The discussion is controlling normal reactions to other people/things: becoming angry, getting depressed... we aren't talking about the extremes-- blowing up a building because we're mad.. YES, OF COURSE CONTROL THAT and get some help too!

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sandra.IMqueen

14 years ago

No one has the power to make us feel anything as you so rightly say.

How we choose to express the emotions we feel is simply a choice we make. We can blame others, explode, scream and shout or we can bottle it all up. The choice is ours and the way we express our emotions is an indicator of our level of emotional intelligence.

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jazbo

14 years ago

Emotions release tension etc. Learn how you react and try to take it into account or channel them into positive actions. Do not shut them down, that way leads to one repressed, angry life.

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CourtneyHow

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jazbo

Emotions release tension etc. Learn how you react and try to take it into account or channel them into positive actions. Do not shut them down, that way leads to one repressed, angry life.

I could't agree more. I think expressing emotions is essential to your well being, but you do need to take them into account, analyze them and ask yourself how you can control them.

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yst

14 years ago

I think you're trying to cause some controversy, which is good. Bob Sutton once said that indifference is as important as passion.
Quite interesting....may come in handy.

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Emily Meeks

14 years ago

There is a grain of truth to this post, so I will add to it.

Should you control your emotions? Well, yeah. There are times when someone is going to piss you off, but does that mean you should let them have it? No. It's okay to feel angry, and you SHOULD feel angry for a minute just to process the feeling. Mull over for a minute, then move on. Don't dwell on it, and don't lash out at others. That's the difference between people who say they "feel like they could throttle someone" and those who actually do it.

It's impossible to feel happy ALL the time, and when those instances happen, you need to process them properly. Otherwise, you end up bottled up and that will cause all kinds of damage later.

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Tina Golden 14 years ago

Getting ticked off is allowed, slashing the dude's tires is not.

Controlling your emotions is not the same as suppressing your emotions. Suppress or even eliminate emotional response and you get the creepy, robotic people some have mentioned.

Controlling your emotions is different. That is when we make a determined effort to not dwell on the negative things and learn to react differently to negative stimuli.

How many of you have said "man, this day just sucks and everything is going wrong" and lo and behold, the whole day does suck. What if you said "man, this morning went badly but now that it's over, the rest of the day will be great"? Do you think the outcome would be different? Many times it will be.

When you let negative emotions take over, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tina
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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Excellent clarification, Tina. I would add that I think some of you jumped to the wrong conclusions about the intent of the message.

To me the post isn't about denying your emotions, it's about not letting others dictate your emotions. It's taking responsibility for your own life and not blaming others for how you feel. It's about not seeing yourself as a victim. It's not about being an emotionless robot, but about who you give your power to, because if you give the power of your emotions away you also give control over your own happiness away.

That's how I interpret it anyway. Now consider this...

Your thoughts influence your emotions, and this triggers a cascade of biochemical events in your body to which your immune system and organs respond. Different emotions trigger alternate biochemical pathways.
- Abby Caplin, MD

If you don't control negative thoughts and emotions, what biochemical changes are you allowing? Most of the comments against the original post are based on opinion. Aren't you curious how your opinion stacks up against science? Or would you rather "feel right" and suffer any consequences being wrong might mean?

Something to think about, eh?

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richporr

14 years ago

Great posts. I think what most are writing about is "managing" emotions. To me, controlling has a negative connotation to it while managing my emotions means I take responsibility and make decisions about how much and when.

I'm in the middle of managing my emotions on almost a daily basis now or I would tell my boss where to shove it. Hence my slowly growing income from IM.

-Rich

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DougBarger

14 years ago

Your emotions and for that matter your mind

are tools to work for you.

If you don't control your mind and emotions, it can get dangerous.

Your mind and your emotions are your servants. Put them to work for you!

(Or someone else will!)

It's like this:

1. your thought influences your emotions.

2. your emotion influences your decisions

3. your decision influences your actions

4. your action influences your life

See why it's important to harness your emotions at the thought level before they become actions and overtake your entire life?

If you're interested in a way to rule over your thoughts send me a pm and we can discuss it.

What if people just killed other people because they "felt like it"?

No, it's important to get these under check now.

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Bonolio

14 years ago

Learning HOW to control your emotions is an extremely important tool in life.

Learning WHEN to control your emotions is an essential part of this skill.

There are many ways to control or guide emotion and the big problem is that many people limit their emotional control toolset to "repression" and "avoidance".

If you are going to learn to control your emotions you should focus on doing it in a way that increases your experience of life rather than in a way that limits it.

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VeitSchenk

14 years ago

that's the key! there are scientific studies that show that those who "ignore", "suppress" etc the negative stuff in life (and a way to do this could btw be to do constant positive thinking/visualizations), tend to be unhappier, less focused and less successful than those who accept things as they are and then deal with it.

life isn't always good, neither is it always bad.

as usual, it's all about balance.

Veit

Originally Posted by Bonolio

There are many ways to control or guide emotion and the big problem is that many people limit their emotional control toolset to "repression" and "avoidance".

If you are going to learn to control your emotions you should focus on doing it in a way that increases your experience of life rather than in a way that limits it.

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Originally Posted by DougBarger

It's like this:

1. your thought influences your emotions.

2. your emotion influences your decisions

3. your decision influences your actions

4. your action influences your life

You are missing the first step, my friend. What influences your thought?

Your programming! Everything you've taken in mentally influences your thought. That's why it's so important to feed your mind the right things and to avoid feeding your mind a bunch of crap.

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RyanLima 14 years ago

Lol nice post Dennis! I totally agree!
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DougBarger

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill

You are missing the first step, my friend. What influences your thought?

Your programming! Everything you've taken in mentally influences your thought. That's why it's so important to feed your mind the right things and to avoid feeding your mind a bunch of crap.

No Dennis. I am the programmer of my mind and the thoughts I feed it is the program.

Being complete, I'm not missing anything. As I had already said, it's important to be the guardian of your mind and gate keeper of your mind in regards to your thoughts.

I only feed on the best thoughts, therefore the rest is only the best as the results.

Thank you for your concern though, my friend. ;-)

Will be interesting to see how many thanks this post doesn't get. ;-)

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Originally Posted by DougBarger

No Dennis. I am the programmer of my mind and the thoughts I feed it is the program.

Being complete, I'm not missing anything. As I had already said, it's important to be the guardian of your mind and gate keeper of your mind in regards to your thoughts.

I only feed on the best thoughts, therefore the rest is only the best as the results.

Thank you for your concern though, my friend. ;-)

Doug, thank you for giving me a chance to explain this further.

You had years worth of programming long before you were old enough to think for yourself. You may be feeding your mind the right things now, but don't forget that not all your thoughts arise from the programming you feed your mind, and not all thoughts arise from recent programming.

Some of our most dominant and persistent programming was ingrained in us before we were old enough to truly think for ourselves. This programming can serve us well or work against us, and it can last a lifetime if it goes undiscovered or new programming never overrides it. Our internal financial blueprint is a good example.

You wrote your post as an instructional to others so they would understand how that particular process works. The very people you were trying to help can benefit from knowing it's their subconscious programming that sometimes causes thoughts and beliefs that seem incompatible with what they consciously want or try to believe. If knowing the chain of cause and effect you outlined is important, then knowing the complete psychometry is also important.

If you have conquered all the programming you received before you reached the age of reason, as you suggest, then I'm happy for you, truly. Count yourself among the very few...in history, most likely.

If that is case though, I find it surprising you didn't recognize that my comment was not so much about you personally as it was about revealing the full process, and you should have understood my inclusion of the underlying impetus of thought could be helpful to the very same people you were addressing.

Calling yourself the gatekeeper is fine. I like that way of looking at it, and I'm glad you're smart enough to realize the importance of that. But honestly, all your thoughts still come from your programming, just like I said, regardless of who does the programming, when the programming occurred, or who's watching the gate.

When you feed your mind, you're programming it. Others contribute to you programming as well, you don't live in isolation. Your thoughts come from all that past and present programming, and hence, as I said, your programming determines your thoughts. Where else could your thoughts possibly come from?

Also, while I agree you are complete, you are not yet finished.

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DougBarger

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill

Doug, thank you for giving me a chance to explain this further.

You had years worth of programming long before you were old enough to think for yourself. You may be feeding your mind the right things now, but don't forget that not all your thoughts arise from the programming you feed your mind, and not all thoughts arise from recent programming.

Some of our most dominant and persistent programming was ingrained in us before we were old enough to truly think for ourselves. This programming can serve us well or work against us, and it can last a lifetime if it goes undiscovered or new programming never overrides it. Our internal financial blueprint is a good example.

You wrote your post as an instructional to others so they would understand how that particular process works. The very people you were trying to help can benefit from knowing it's their subconscious programming that sometimes causes thoughts and beliefs that seem incompatible with what they consciously want or try to believe. If knowing the chain of cause and effect you outlined is important, then knowing the complete psychometry is also important.

If you have conquered all the programming you received before you reached the age of reason, as you suggest, then I'm happy for you, truly. Count yourself among the very few...in history, most likely.

If that is case though, I find it surprising you didn't recognize that my comment was not so much about you personally as it was about revealing the full process, and you should have understood my inclusion of the underlying impetus of thought could be helpful to the very same people you were addressing.

Calling yourself the gatekeeper is fine. I like that way of looking at it, and I'm glad you're smart enough to realize the importance of that. But honestly, all your thoughts still come from your programming, just like I said, regardless of who does the programming, when the programming occurred, or who's watching the gate.

When you feed your mind, you're programming it. Others contribute to you programming as well, you don't live in isolation. Your thoughts come from all that past and present programming, and hence, as I said, your programming determines your thoughts.

Where else could your thoughts possibly come from?

Also, while I agree you are complete, you are not yet finished.

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for the time you took to post such a well thought out reply.

There is actually a way to have the previous programming deleted.

As to the source of where the thoughts come from, it's part of the transformation.

If you are truly interested in how this process takes place in its entirety,
from before the beginning to after the end,
then feel free to contact me via pm and I'll be glad to (answer your question) discuss this process with you in further detail.

Thanks to you and the others for this engaging and thought-provoking

discussion.

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stevefall

14 years ago

yes! the power of positive thinking is the most important thing!

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3nikki 14 years ago

As someone who got burnt for not controlling my emotions ( No I did not go slash someone, far more benign behavior than that) I believe in the need for controlling your emotions.

It does not matter even if Zen masters can't control their emotions. The idea is to start the habit of controlling our emotions.

If we just let our emotions be without exercising any conscious control how different are we from animals.

We are urged to be ourselves but our true self is not something that is set in stone. It changes. When we are 4 it is OK to roll over on the floor screaming for whatever it is that you want.

When you are 40 would you do that?

So has your 'self' not changed.

More important than being true to yourself is being true to growing your true 'self'.

My 2 cents

Naveen
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FortressDewey

14 years ago

let me throw this into the mix, having emotions is normal, how we choose to react to them, that is what sets us apart. years ago, I could/would be a raving lunatic over something, these days, that same thing that would make me crazy, while still might annoy me, won't make me into a raving lunatic.

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Super_Vendor

14 years ago

Great thread. This is something that I have always realized that I wished other people realize. You need to understand that only you are responsible for your own happiness.

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AwesomePossum

14 years ago

Na...I think it may not be possible to control your emotions 100% but where your mind converts from static energy to dynamic(thoughts) is where we can control our reactions to the outside world...however, we will always consciously let emotion into our unconscious which more likely than create an effect inside of us through that connection. If you fall in love with someone what happens if there's a fall out? Dunno...just my thoughts on the matter. I haven't mastered this process so I guess it's all theory anyways.

And never try to "control" emotions. That causes suppression which is And never try to "control" emotions. That causes suppression which is poison. If you're feeling sad..experience it fully then let it go.

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AwesomePossum

14 years ago

You can hands down control your overall level of happiness and your belief systems through this process though...that in itself is worth the effort.

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bigdaddy99

14 years ago

Interesting metaphysical discussion. Jack Flanders in the Fourth Tower of Inverness came to the conclusion that, "Your dreams create your reality".

While that is a bit esoteric for me, I think that the essence is true in that people have things happen to them all the time. What we have control over is how we react to situations and not necessarily the situations themselves.

A number of responses have indicated that a potential solution is to feed yourself positive thoughts so that you have positive outcomes. Others have put forth that you should react positively no matter what the situation, and still others have postulated that your happiness is a matter of environment and upbringing.

I happen to think that the original post is pretty darn close in that we all create our own happiness, we have the ability to react to situations with thought rather than emotion, and at the same time, we feel emotions that are not productive or helpful in many situations.

The trick in my mind is to be smart with your emotions when they have the potential to affect you in ways that aren't emotional. It's fine, it's ok, it's normal to feel angry, sad, betrayed, happy, etc, but to let those emotions dictate your actions is almost always a bad thing in that your actions will not be leading to your achieving your desired outcome.

I think that Dr. Phil (and Click and Clack) describe the situation as "would you rather be happy or would you rather be right"

In any case, you have the ability to respond and therefore create your own outcomes. You can react angrily when your son fails a math test, or you can help him get better at math (though the two aren't mutually exclusive). My point is that making him feel bad about math is not helping him to get better at math, though that would be the result of getting angry about it.

In any case, safe journeys and positive thoughts to all

bd99

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veeronica

14 years ago

Hi Ryan,

I agree with you, controlling the mind is key to controlling emotions.

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Barry Unruh

14 years ago

I love the sentiment of this, but control is really the wrong word. See how this feels instead:

You will choose your own feelings when you
have developed the power of choice in your own Thinking or Conscious Mind.

While this conscious choosing is being developed.......

When someone does something which does not please me, I have two choices. I can sit around and blame them, or I can choose a positive feeling and action to take which moves me in the direction I want to go.

I can choose to funnel the power of the emotion into a more positive feeling, and then use the energy to get more work done, to express my feelings more clearly, to change my life.

I cannot choose to change them.

Originally Posted by RyanLima

"How often have you heard yourself or others say:

She really made me angry
He really upset me'.
I felt sick when I heard about it.
They really depress me',

In truth, no one else can cause you to feel bad. You actually cause these feelings yourself.

You will control your own feelings when you
have developed complete control of your own Thinking or Conscious Mind.

While this conscious control is being developed, it is very important
for you to be in a very 'Positive Environment."

Bob Proctor "Born Rich"

Thanks for reading

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leri

14 years ago

Sometimes it's not so easy control emotions.

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DrGUID

14 years ago

I know you can control your emotions. But if you exert too much control over your subconsious there will eventually be a big price to pay.

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shmeeko69 14 years ago

If you can control your emotions in business or in general life,
It will serve you better & you will reap the long term rewards.

Just ask any top trader or business guru about emotional control
& not following the crowd. You have to apply everything with
military precision & except bad days or losses as part of the business.

Three key elements according to most top business people are -

1. Have a plan in place & stick to it know matter what.

2. Having strict money management in place & be in total control
of your financial discipline.

3. Compounding your profit meaning you will be withdrawing instead
of deposting money & will allow you to either spend more or to
reinvest in your business.

Always follow proven people in their field & buy books on top
business people, as it will help you immensely.

Mark
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RobertAxelsen

14 years ago

This is indeed a topic which can evoke radically different responses and views.

Let me just participate with a quote that I hope some of you will find rewarding

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results." Willie Nelson

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RyanLima 14 years ago

Nice post Robert I completely agree!
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Steven Miranda

14 years ago

I agree with your post mostly but I don't think you can have 100% control over your emotions are you will still be a human after all...

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Controlling your emotions

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