Lynn Rousseau

Mastering Emotions: A Key to Fulfillment

Today I’m focusing on the negative emotions that can grip us and how we can shift out of that place more quickly.  The most common negative emotions are typically in the areas of: anger, guilt, fear, and depression.

**  A Deeper Way of Understanding Emotions**

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Today I’m focusing on the negative emotions that can grip us and how we can shift out of that place more quickly.  The most common negative emotions are typically in the areas of: anger, guilt, fear, and depression. Emotion is a thought linked to a sensation in the body.  When we bring our attention to the sensation, we have the opportunity to break the link between the thought and the sensation.  Then, we can disempower the negative emotion.

A thought coupled with an emotion produces a response that sets in motion a new or old belief.  Beliefs then become habits.  The next similar event that comes along evokes an automatic response from our habits.

The key is to become aware of this sequencing and with conscious awareness and interrupt it to create a new and different response that is feeling good – joy, happiness, love, etc.  When we are able to be in this kind of positive emotional state with an open heart, we have greater access to a different part of our innate intelligence and we have more possibilities and positive choices.

**  How To Work With This? **

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It’s a 6-step process. But, these steps can happen very quickly the more you work with it.  I can sometimes isolate it in about 10 minutes.  I’ve been working with this intently for the past three months and the results are astonishing for me.  Here are the steps I follow.

1. Notice When You’re Not Feeling Good.  At the beginning of my day, I set my intention to pay attention to the moments when I feel out of sorts.  I notice in the moment when I do not feel good.  I know that the faster I shift this, the more I stay in a flow of being in alignment with my true self and the more effective I am in my work. 
2. Stop & Tune In. I stop what I’m doing to tune into to my body to identify where I am feeling the sensation.  Oftentimes, it is either in my heart or chest area, my solar plexus (right above the navel) or my stomach.  Sometimes it may be in my throat, particularly if there was a situation where I needed to be more forthright. 
3. Go Into the Sensation. Allow myself to feel into the sensation to notice it.  Sometimes just this act can cause it to diminish.  There’s a saying: “Whatever we resist will persist”.   I notice what the sensation feels like – is there tightness, does it feel like a lead weight, does it feel jumbled or swirling?  I’m just being present to the sensation and noticing its characteristics – not trying to figure anything out at this point – just observing. 
4. Identify the Trigger Event.  I ask myself: “What has happened in my day that may be linked to this?” 
5. Identify the Thoughts.  I ask: “What thoughts do I have about this situation?”  “Where was I not true to myself and I needed to be?”  Recognizing that events happen.  We human beings are the ones who add meaning.  So, it’s important for us to be more aware of the meaning we are adding and how that is affecting us.  Not everyone would react the same way to the same event. 
6. Choose the Best Action: Then I choose the best action for me to take.  It may be following up with someone to be more complete in my communication or clarifying a need I have.  It may be honoring myself in the form of extreme self care and identifying what would be the best thing for this.  The importance about this step is making a choice from a conscious place, rather than a patterned, habitual response.

** Where Can You Apply This? **

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Try this at least three times during the next week.  For more challenging situations, you may want to ask a friend to talk it through with you using this process.  The more you use this, the faster you can do it in a given situation and create the possibility to turn things around for the better (for both you and others involved).

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