“Manage your emotions”, “Control your emotions”, are the culturally acceptable way you’re supposed to be with, deal with, your emotions. These mantras aren’t, won’t, and can’t work. We are human beings. Human beings have emotions, we are not our emotions. Like we have a body. Like we live in language. Language, our body, and emotions, all contribute to our understanding of ourselves and our world. And they are how we navigate in our world. For hundreds of years now, we are living in a world that gives dominion to science. If it doesn’t exist in the world of technology – see, touch, measure, domain - it is “less than” or completely disregarded. Which makes perfect sense why we have crises on multiple levels in our world today and more dis-ease than ever in history.
Instead of stuffing, controlling, or trying to manage our emotions, we are much better served if we learn to navigate our emotions. Let’s take emotions apart for a fundamental understanding of them and you can begin to understand how to navigate emotions and bring this understanding to having harmony, peace, and joy in our lives. Every emotion has a root. In essence the meaning of the word. Let me use the emotion of anger as an example. Anger comes from the Latin angere “to throttle, torment, irritate, annoy or provoke”. The story, the second element in emotions, is if you become angry you assess an injustice and someone or something is to blame and should be punished. Every emotion comes with a predisposition to action and knowing this is your key to unlocking the keys to your Kingdom! The predisposition of anger is to punish the perceived source of the injustice. The fourth element is human concern. Anger wants to create and maintain justice in the world. And finally, often an emotion has other emotions associated with it. Anger is often confused with indignance due to similar energy and feelings in the body.
The understanding of emotions as E-Motions – energy in motion, or that which puts us in motion is fundamental. But in this context, do not confuse motion with action. Action is performing or doing. While motion, to move, means to guide or direct. We can be moved without taking action. Remember, I stated, every emotion has a predisposition to action. Being with an emotion then does not mean you act it out. Rather you are moved toward the predisposition associated with the emotion. This awareness now is the very foundation of responding vs. reacting to an emotion.
Having a fundamental and foundational understanding of emotions, let’s take emotions to your life. Humanity is caught in the web of doing. Do more, do less, do different things, find different people, software, systems, to do it with, all to achieve some result. So we plan, we strategize, and then we prioritize what we need to do - putting our priorities in time for their accomplishment. All of this is true but, like Swiss cheese, with holes in the strategy. What is ignored is the essence of what is needed for us to prioritize. Assuming to prioritize means to put in the order of importance, the question is how do we know what is the most important? That determination is a function of emotions.
In essence, we see through our filters of the emotion we are in. Planning for your life - a life of harmony, happiness, prosperity, peace – is a joint effort of reason and emotions. The left brain collects the data and information for our planning, and we then filter the data and information through our emotions to create and design our plan. As an example, someone in the emotion of ambition will see the world as possibilities. Conversely, if you are in the emotion of resignation, how could you possibly see a world of possibilities to create and design your plan?
Ambition is one of our highest emotions. Creating, designing, and learning / owning your ambitions to the point you embody them - life, career, and financial ambitions, is the pinnacle emotion to “operate” in life from. This is the domain where you will transform your human experience.
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