“In that power of self-control lies the seed of eternal freedom.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
One of the most important things to learn if you want to master and control your emotions so they don’t master and control you is to realize that you are not your emotions. There is an infinitely intelligent you that has emotions, just as you have a liver and a heart. They are physiological states or processes and reactions that happen in the body.
To be able to master your emotions, it helps to understand what they are and where they come from.
How emotions differ from feelings, thoughts and instincts
Our emotions are connected to the limbic system, which is a complex set of structures in the brain, and therefore the nervous system, that lies on both sides of the thalamus in the body. It includes the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and several other nearby areas. These structures work in tandem with the endocrine system to help maintain emotional equilibrium through a system of feedback loops.
This part of the brain is not only primarily responsible for our emotional lives, but also has to do with the formation of memories, which is significant in terms of being able to identify the real source of an emotion.
Feelings are the subjective experience of our emotional states. They are more experiential and provide a bridge to emotions as in, “I feel afraid.” They are not the fear, but the actual experience of the fear. Feelings and emotions are often used interchangeably, as they are very close.
When I help couples deal with conflict and I ask one person to tell their partner how they feel as a result of the current issue, I usually get something like this: “I feel that you were unfair, and that you didn’t consider me in what you were doing.” This does not describe a feeling at all, but rather, a judgment and a story—both mental processes.
When they learn to identify the feeling, the person may say, “I felt sad and afraid,” or “I felt mad and sad, and the story I made up is that you don’t care.” Their partner is better able to connect to and relate to the feelings, rather than to the judgment that is based on a story that may or may not be true.
Thoughts are the mental labels, categories, and concepts with which we organize our experiences. We automatically label an emotion or feeling experience and store it somewhere in our mind. The stronger your experience of emotions and feelings, the more vivid your thoughts will be and thus the more space the emotions will take up in your short- and long-term memory, which then leads to the creation of beliefs. For many people, this then becomes their identity, as in, “I am an anxious person,” or “I am an angry man.”
The most primitive part of the brain which also keeps our bodily systems functioning is called the reptilian or lizard brain. Because this part of us is mainly concerned with our survival, any perceived threat to our survival will trigger an instinctual response of rage or terror. These instincts are like and yet different from anger and fear, in that they arise involuntarily and with great intensity. In the case of trauma, the wiring of the entire limbic system can be affected so that rage and terror reactions continue to either be suppressed or expressed, causing dysfunction in a person’s relationships and in the way they interact with the world.
Limbic resonance and “carried emotions”
Limbic resonance is an amazing evolutionary tool mammals developed as social animals. It is the ability to attune to and share deep emotional states through the limbic system. We literally have a built-in system that allows us to pick up or resonate with emotions from others. The structure and chemicals of our brain change depending upon the energies we are picking up, and we affect others by what we are sending out.
When another mammal is in pain, it is entirely normal that the mammals in its proximity will “feel” the pain, which is the ability to resonate with and have empathy. This separates us from reptiles that do not have limbic systems and are therefore not capable of tenderness and care. In fact, many reptiles eat their young, so you can see how important the limbic system or mammalian brain is for the survival of the species.
From the groundbreaking book, A General Theory of Love:
“Within the effulgence of their new brain, mammals developed a capacity we call ‘limbic resonance’ — a symphony of mutual exchange and internal adaptation whereby two mammals become attuned to each other’s inner states.”
If you want to master and control your emotions, it is essential that you learn to discern the source of your emotions and know when you are picking up emotions from others, which happens easily in families and couples who live with one another. Often the boundaries get blurred and conflict and dysfunction arise.
Young children have not yet developed the ability to do this, and therefore have no emotional boundaries. Because we are so permeable to one’s another’s emotions, there often develops a situation in which a child picks up and carries the disowned emotions of a parent.
What are “carried emotions”?
When we experience intense emotions and feelings as a result of our parents’ (or any important authority figure) disowning their emotions and feelings, we end up with the dysfunctional loop of carried emotions. For example, a father experiences shame below the level of awareness when he sees his adolescent daughter dressing in a provocative manner, but he expresses it as anger. The daughter then experiences the shame, which is not her own. She may repress and deny it and lash out in anger or turn it toward herself.
In my work with an adolescent girl whose father shamed her for her developing breasts, the self-loathing she experienced was so intolerable that she began cutting her inner thighs to draw blood and thus to externalize her pain. As parents, doing the work of owning our own shame is one of the most important tasks we face.
The power of our emotional blind spots
Why do human beings repeat certain behaviors and reactions over and over again, and then attribute the reason to something or someone outside of themselves⎯the boss, the partner, the lousy living condition? Even when it is obvious to someone else that the person has more ability to change things than they seem to believe, if the person is in an emotional blind spot, they simply cannot see where they possess the power to make a difference. They do not claim the agency they always have to create change because they do not feel their uncomfortable emotions fully, and instead project the cause outside of themselves, when the source is inside from another time and place in their past.
These are moments when we say things like, “Why does this keep happening to me?” “Why do I always end up with unfair bosses?” “I have a way of attracting unstable women.” We seem to “go blind” to what is happening in the moment if it is so frightening or shaming or shattering to what we believe about ourselves. At these moments, our brains are triggered to feel emotions that we dissociated from, because we have been afraid of what would happen to us if we felt them fully. This avoidance leaves the unconscious emotions within us, waiting to be felt fully in the present moment.
Just as in driving, blind spots obstruct our clear vision. We project, disown, blame, and defend ourselves. We become victims of our own mis-perceptions and insist that someone or something else should change. We become triggered to drop into the reptilian brain, and we act out of the survival response: fight, flight, play dead, or submit.
The harsh words by your partner trigger the reaction of the child who was criticized by a parent. Losing a deal triggers the same feelings of being a failure you had as a child with ADD. The only evidence we have of a past is our memory, and yet memory arises from a stable network of neurons in the limbic system of your brain that still exist in the present moment.
One of the reasons it is so difficult to recognize that the chaos and pain of the present moment has its origin in the past, is because so much of what appears to be “time” has passed, and we fail to make the connection between how we are feeling in the moment and the past, because we don’t stay with the emotions long enough to know.
Because they can really complicate our relationships and steal our joy over and over, we must become masterful in knowing when we are in one of these emotional blind spots. If we can, it is wise to stay with the emotion long enough to make the connection, which most often has its roots in hurt we experienced prior to the age of seven.
Naturally, we can have here-and-now reactions to what is going on, if someone is harsh or unkind, which is quite different from when we are in our emotional blind spot. When it is here-and-now, we may feel hurt or angry, and we move on. But when we are in our blind spot, we have dissociated from our original pain, and the reaction to the pain of the moment is intense and at times debilitating, and all we want to do is make it go away. Our attention becomes transfixed by the person or event in the world around us, and we often feel the helplessness of the original pain.
Yet, identifying our blind spots is like chasing the wind. We cannot find the actual source, but we see the effects. To change the automatic reactions we experience from our blind spots is the work of a lifetime. It is the ability to create intentional positive change in our lives by witnessing and allowing our emotions to be felt, and unselecting reactions based on fear.
Emotions = energy in motion
Emotions need to move and flow, and if they do not, there is a failure to complete the loop of awareness from emotions to feelings to thought, which can lead to emotional reactivity. When emotions flow like a river, free from the misperception of the emotional blind spot, there is no need to react.
Emotions are vibrational and the body is physical. As long as the emotions flow, endless vitality is created in the body. One of my teachers Zoe Marae said, “Emotions are units of movement. When you experience an emotion, a movement of vibration is created which generates vitality and health. Denying or controlling an emotion stops the movement of vibration which generates exhaustion and physical decline.” Emotions are literally energy in motion.
Emotions arise when you are affected by the experiences that you are having. As soon as you make emotions psychological with your concepts from the mental body, there is confusion. They are simply sensations that rise up when you are touched by something, and you don’t need to take them personally. They are meant to flow through you with ease, opening you up to your connection to the vibrational body, which is connected to an unlimited source of energy.
Attempts to hold back your emotions causes you to lose power, because you don’t connect with⎯and take feedback from⎯the moment of your experience. The movement stops and the energy drops. In the case of disease, unfinished emotions from the past block emotions from flowing, and thus the connection to the vibrational body is lost. A part of the physical body is cut off from the vibrational source, and must generate energy on its own. The body reacts by creating inflammation around the part that is cut off from the source.
You need to pay attention to this unfinished emotional baggage. It is trying to get your attention by coming up over and over until you deal with it. You need to feel it to heal it. It doesn’t matter whether you feel positive or negative emotions, for they both give rise to inner vibrational energy. You will have more resistance when you judge something as negative, so keeping your judgment out of the equation is essential. You must make room for all emotion; all experience. You must cultivate an attitude of having no preference toward all emotion, which frees you from the tyranny of opinion.
Emotional intelligence and the ability to contain our emotions
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to connect our thinking and feeling in order to manage our own emotions and those we pick up from others. In order to do this, we need to be able to pause for several seconds, as the part of our brains that reacts and the part that decides how to respond need time to connect.
When I share with clients how important it is to feel all their emotions, I often see looks of consternation and fear. I have so often heard statements such as, “ I am afraid if I feel my sadness I will cry forever,” or “I am afraid I will go crazy if I feel all my feelings.” When it comes to feelings of anger, I once had a young man say, “I am afraid I would do damage to someone if I felt the full strength of my anger.” He had not yet learned how to feel and contain his powerful emotions.
This is understandable because we live in a culture where there are so many distractions to keep us from feeling, and where, in fact, we are urged at every turn to avoid feeling our depths and to choose the numbing effects of drugs, alcohol, shopping, or TV. Emotions are being repressed and expressed unconsciously, which can wreak havoc in our lives.
To contain our emotions means that we pause before we express or repress them. In order to do this, we must make a decision with the executive part of our brain to do so, and can strengthen that capacity through activities that increase our mindfulness. Mindfulness is the natural capacity of a human being to be fully present. We are made to be aware of where we are and what we are doing, but based on all the distractions in our lives, unless we practice this on a daily basis, we will be at the mercy of our reactive brain, and often triggered to repress or express our emotions without control.
Meditation is the best known practice to increase our capacity for mindfulness, and yet there is something even more immediate we can do if we want to become masterful. Since our emotions ride on the wave of our breath, the practice of conscious breathing at the moment an emotion arises is one of the best ways to linger in the pause needed to choose a healthy response. When you are triggered, take three conscious breaths into the center of your chest before your respond, and you will find your life to be far more harmonious than ever before.
The unbridled expression of our emotions toward others has become an almost acceptable practice in our world today, but it is never a good thing to do, and almost always causes great damage. Words and the emotional energy behind them hurt people, and there are times when that hurt can never be healed. Containing emotions long enough to connect them with our ability to reflect is essential if we are to master them.
The healing power of feeling our emotions
Candace Pert, one of the most respected researchers in the area of mind-body medicine, has proven in her groundbreaking work The Molecules of Emotion
that the very same chemicals that run our body and brain are the chemicals that are involved in emotion. If we want to take better care of our health, we cannot pretend that emotions are not a key player.
We would not have been created with the magnificent capacity to feel our emotions (energy in motion) if it was not part of a greater plan. Without them, we could not bond with the people we love, we could not feel inspired to create magnificent art and music, and we could not feel the joy that is our birthright. Even anger can be used as a powerful tool to become a far better and more powerful person when we align our capacity to feel with our sovereign will.
Each one of us is a unique multidimensional being on a cosmic mission. Our primary purpose, before all others, is to awaken from the trance of reactivity so that we can love fully and fulfill our purpose on earth.
It is imperative that we dissolve the past or at very least shift away from the pattern of rewind, where we keep going back in an endless loop at a superficial level. When we do this, we can use our emotions as the doorway to higher consciousness, to a larger gravitational field of influence than the pain of our past. We become truly mature human beings capable of transcending the effects of the past to create a new and more intentional future.
As fearful stuff comes up, we are faced with two choices: grab hold and argue for our limitations and recycle, or let it go, which may mean leaving the marriage, leaving the job, letting go of the anger, letting go of the blaming, and so on. To do this, we must radically shift our perceptions, which means radically shifting our emotions, since emotions are the vehicle of perception. In a very real sense, our higher emotions are like an upgraded organ of perception that we must hone in order to evolve.
Here are the five keys things to do if you want to master and control your emotions so they don’t master and control you:
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- Fully embrace the awareness that you have them. Look for the source of your emotions within yourself, rather than choosing the fool’s errand of pointing them out in others.
- Take the time to feel your emotions fully, connected with the breath. Set aside time when something “grabs” you and breathe into the center of your chest to fully feel that powerful emotional center. It may also be in your belly, arms, or legs. Feel the energy of the emotions in the body, and breathe, with your mouth slightly open on the outbreath, so you allow the energy of the emotions to move out of you. The breath carries the emotions through you and returns them transformed by your own awareness. You can name the emotions as well, but more importantly, feel them without judgment, and let them move through you.
- Drop the story you have about the external reason for feeling the way you do. The spiritual teacher Byron Katie says that without our stories we are pure love. Notice the story, the thoughts and beliefs and the reasons why and the tendency to blame others. That is natural, but try to be more curious. See this uncomfortable condition as an opportunity to grow up emotionally.
- Connect with the real source of the emotion. Ask yourself when you have felt this way before. See the pattern and that you are the common denominator in all the instances of feeling these emotions. It’s wise to see if you can go back to a time before the age of seven, but if not, find other moments you have felt the emotions you are feeling.
- Extend compassion to yourself. Whatever you are feeling, see it as healing. See it as a kind of psychic “medicine” and offer yourself compassion for what you are experiencing. In this way, you use the energy of your emotions to become a more awake human being.
When you learn to master and control your emotions, you become a clearer channel for whatever is happening in the moment. You become capable of responding with an unbiased mind and compassionate heart that grounds you and the people around you in a higher vibration than the original pain. You reclaim your role as co-creator with the free-flowing energy of the Universe.
