Emotional Spectrum

Emotional Spectrum

A whole spectrum of valid emotions courses through each of us. Contrary to popular connotation, no emotion is bad. Each serves a purpose. The bad part only happens when a person stays in an emotion too long, letting it take control, or making poor decisions about how to act on an emotion. It’s not the emotion itself that’s bad. It’s the consequences of unmitigated behavior. 

Your emotions are here to help. Ask how each one is serving you before trying to push it away. Some emotions have gotten a bad rep, but let’s change the stigma. Don’t just dismiss it; investigate where the emotion is coming from, and what it’s trying to tell you. Then you can address the issue and move past it. You can find power in your emotions. Ignoring them can make it worse, and lead to a life out of control. 

Running because of fearing our own power is a contributor to a life out of control, that’s contagious to those around us. We may be afraid of making decisions because then we’d be responsible for the consequences. Since we often don’t know what will result before it happens, we sometimes mistakenly seek safety by blindly appointing someone else to choose for us.

Take a minute to think about your favorite character from a book or a movie, or a real life role model. What do you admire about this person? How did they achieve the results you admire? What can you learn from that to apply to your own life? 

One element every good story has in common is that the lead characters are key decision makers. Do you want to advance your life like your role models’ stories, or do you want to become more satisfied with your current circumstances? Either answer is right because it’s your answer for your life.

In order to change either your life or your perspective the way you want it, and not necessarily what someone else is choosing or manipulating you to do, you’ll need to get comfortable with unintended consequences. Creating a situation different than the one you’re in now is an entirely new experience and will come with some unpredictable results. 

And it will take discomfort, as your body and mind will try to turn anything new into something that looks the same as the past, to help you feel safe and secure. It’s going to feel unsafe at first to change things, until that becomes more familiar and comfortable to you.

Small things come quickly. Bigger things take more time. Metaphorically speaking, it’s like building a muscle; start with a little weight. Gradually add more; include nutrition for building. 

Your new life is only as far away as conquering the emotions that stop you.

Accessing your new and improved life requires you to get in the driver’s seat of your emotions. If you feel out of control of your life, you’ve got to get in control of your emotions. In order to do that, you’ve got to acknowledge them, give them space, and then take action to process them. 

Logic follows emotion, not the other way around. Without realizing it consciously, we all come up with reasons to justify emotionally based actions. Your emotions can be one of your biggest assets or they can be used against you.

Marketers and manipulators understand your emotions and how to use them for their benefit. The best way to combat falling into these traps is to understand your emotions and how to use them as well as manipulators do.

If you’re unaware of how you operate emotionally, from the inside out, you can be tricked or pushed into doing something you wouldn’t have chosen to do yourself, but still believe you made the choice. You can say no, but someone using the power of persistence against a weak boundary can turn your no into a yes. Anyone aware of your triggers, principles, things that offend you, any area of sensitivity or heightened emotions, can use all of these to distract you. 

Emotional influences around your personal opinions can be used by someone else to get you off topic, convince you to change a decision; take your focus off a question you asked, so you never get an answer, drag you in a circling argument with no end; or generally to keep you from accessing what you really want. Your energy can be stolen on the regular to benefit someone else’s intentions over your own. 

While it’s wonderful to serve other people’s needs in addition to your own, the healthy way to achieve that is called interdependence; not usually dependence, and not manipulation. You can practice and gain an even greater ability to be aware of where your energy is going and what you’re choosing, for yourself and those for whom you are responsible. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, I still have moments that are out of control, but I’m learning all I can about what’s causing them, and how to manage them. The better I learn to manage my emotions–MY emotion; ie, not manage other people, but myself–the more of my day is under my conscious influence. Then the net result in my life is that I’m in charge; I decide which way I’m going. That also means I’m responsible for any fall out. No one takes the blame except myself, and at times, sharing that equally with who I’ve decided to co-create with.

Something super important to remember is to not make rash decisions when in low frequency emotions. That’s one of the patterns that gives those emotions a bad reputation. It’s not the emotion’s fault a person makes a poor decision with it. Anger doesn’t make someone punch a hole in the wall, nor yell at their employer, nor say something regrettable to a loved one. Mentally preparing before entering a low frequency state can help you to choose responses over reactions during tough situations.