The title suggests two alternative paths to responding to an emotion. In this blog we shall assume a painful and disempowering emotion. Let’s use the fact that our emotions are messengers, analogous to the warning lights on the dashboard of a car. You can go back in time to former posts of mine which will have a picture of a dashboard to know what I am talking about. Emotional Pain- is the result of !our focus and perception, simply put the way we look at things. Or it is the direct result of what we are doing – an action or approach we are taking. And this latter definition is likely a pattern or procedure we do over and over again every time the situation reoccurs. Anger, impatience and frustration are 3 red lights on the dashboard that come to mind. They happen in business, in the home, in public, whenever we feel that we are not going to get what we want or that we will lose what we have. Sound familiar yet? So let’s break a pattern of being reactive to the feeling and become proactive instead. With practice your new pattern will be extremely liberating.
1. Notice the painful emotion or yellow or red warning light on your “dashboard” of thoughts.
2. Identify that feeling, know what you are really feeling.
3. Realize that like the red gasoline pump on your dashboard that the emotional messenger is telling you it is time to take action. In a car it would be to find a gas station. In your mind you are called to make a positive and proactive change. A great question to ask would be “what would I have to believe to feel like I am feeling now?”
4. Determine whether it is focus/perception/belief that needs a change or if a change in actions/procedures is needed. A great question to ask yourself is “how would I rather feel right now?”
5. There is no one among us that has never successfully navigated this emotion at least once at sometime in our lives. Find that experience in your history and apply that response and action.
See the situation as a challenge, or yourself as being stretched prior to he launched to a higher level. Avoid the use of the word “stressed”, always.
Have an awesome day unless you made other plans… #DrBillABQ
