On the road to personal overtaking, we sometimes end up with a false goal: we want to fully control our emotions. We read that someone recommends that we always be happy, so we try to feel good at all times. We also believe that we need to control our moodiness at all times and that eliminating anger or negative states is the right way to proceed.
But that’s not true. Emotions work for certain periods of time, always being happy is not as natural as sleeping all day or sneezing indefinitely, there are people who try to overshadow their unpleasant feelings with junk food, drugs, television, cigarettes and a lot of work. It only works temporarily, the negative emotions are still there, but they are hidden.
- There is a very important detail about this whole issue: our genes always ask us to have things to solve.
- The survival task of our ancestors was so paramount that today we have the same needs.
- We feed on the urgency of controlling everything and it also tries to control our feelings.
Try to move an object with your mind, is it possible? Even if you apply all your concentration, you won’t be able to move an object simply with the idea of doing so. What good is this example? Understand that your thoughts only affect reality when you perform an action, not a feeling. Even if you really want a person, the relationship won’t pay off unless you do something and prove it.
A useful practice is to think that emotions are imaginary beings that constantly afflict us in life, but that, nevertheless, they cannot hurt us, it is good to understand and be convinced that even if emotions are there, they cannot really destroy us. To suppress emotions or not to want to see them is not to accept with all their facets, is to deny one part of oneself, it is healthier to feel, recognize and observe them, trying to prevent them from presenting themselves. It affects us physically. Once we understand this, we can spread any emotion in our favor and not against us.
For example, sadness or anger are not necessarily negative if they can help us improve our creativity and sports performance. So let’s make these “invisible beings”? What are the emotions that inspire us in an activity. Fear, for example, can lead our mind to predict future events and thus take more precautions in an activity that we consider dangerous.
Great works of art were created by situations of catharsis, music, for example, requires feelings to develop, novels also require the writer to enter an emotional state to understand his characters, this means that artists know their emotions and focus on something positive, achieving the fruit of their creation.
In short, excessive control of emotions or suppressing them is a big mistake in the path of personal development, we must avoid suffocating them and understand that they are ephemeral, what we can do is let them sink and live positively with them.
We must allow ourselves to feel our humanity with the feelings included, as the Greeks did, who understood the complexity of man in all its aspects and did not attempt to fully control emotions.
Self-awareness is also part of the key to this process, if we know how we react to certain situations, we can anticipate and live with it for the duration, some emotions such as joy, joy and enthusiasm are allowed because they make us feel pleasant, but those that are not so pleasant are also part of life and it is not healthy to cover them or reject them.
Satisfaction, for example, cannot be achieved so easily, because it requires a constant effort that will surely make us overcome frustration, anger or sadness in advance, but when we achieve our goal, satisfaction will be long-term and we will be grateful for others. negative emotions to achieve this.
Image courtesy of Gabriele Negri