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by Charles Burke Are you sometimes a little intimidated by your own emotions? Many people are - especially when it comes to their negative or "undesirable" feelings. But there are also times when even our positive emotions can cause confusion for us. So it's refreshing when I hear from someone who's actively exploring their emotions, trying to learn more about themselves through that exploration. A couple of days ago I received an email from a reader who, at the suggestion of an excellent coach, has been exploring the range of energies they experience in response to different situations. To protect that reader's privacy, I have paraphrased the question they raised. In substance, it went like this: > In the lessons we are taking, we were directed to > think about bad times and about good times and to feel > the sensations connected with the respective > experiences. This is to make us more aware of the > differences between the positive and negative energies. > Recreating the negative and positive experiences, I > became aware of the energies associated with each. > The negative energies felt like tension in the belly, > tightness and even burning from throat to stomach, and > some throbbing in my temples. > For the positive energies, I experienced two types. > One was connected with the excitement of something > wonderful happening. It felt like tingling of the skin, > a sensation of lightness, and a warmth in the chest > area. > The second was connected with events in nature and > secluded places. There was calmness and serenity > without any hunger for "something more." > Why this difference between the two positive energies? This is a top-notch question - the kind you come up with when you're finally thinking about the things you've been doing for ages but never consciously analyzed before. First, I'd like to commend this reader (and the teacher) for pursuing this approach. Most of us hear "Defeat negative experiences," and we think that means to repress or deny them. I'll get back to this point in a moment, but first let's take a closer look at the specific question. To understand the difference in positive energies, it's important to remember that there are different kinds of positive experiences. Just think of the difference in feeling between watching puppies play (or kittens, or small children) and viewing a breathtaking sunset. Both positive, both uplifting, but quite different in feeling. Or different phases of the same experience. Take the excitement before going to see a musical group or famous inspirational speaker. Then compare that with the feeling AFTER seeing and hearing them. Both positive, but quite different. We could also mention the before and after feelings involved in a tender romantic encounter. There are many ways to feel good and positive. All are valid. This exercise has two purposes. The first is to become more aware of exactly which emotions we are feeling as we are experiencing them. The second purpose is to build up our repertoire of repeatable emotions. You can use these emotions by mentally previewing new actions and goals you're planning, and then linking the desired feelings to the actions by deliberate repetition. This synthesizes a "history" of feeling good about doing certain actions. And you're taking charge of how you feel by doing them in advance, rather than leaving them to chance. Are you afraid of speaking in public? Mentally project a scene of making a speech and deliberately anchor positive feelings of joy and happiness to it. Maybe you don't like doing bookkeeping. Do you always have an emotional response of reluctance, boredom and resentment every time you sit down to enter records? Using this technique, you can dilute those negative feelings by consciously introducing happiness, eagerness and satisfaction every time you think about working on the books. Same with people you irrationally (or rationally) dislike. Or big new business steps you're reluctant to take. This is a powerful tool that can change the way you habitually deal with new (and potentially distasteful) chores. The training you use for implementing this technique is to go exploring among your own treasury of past experiences. There's gold to be found there. You simply pick things you have felt in the past, and re-run the experiences that elicited those emotions. Do this repeatedly, and will be able to call up past emotions quickly and efficiently. You'll build some real skill at this. (By the way, most of us are already highly skilled at running the negatives but have less experience with deliberately running the positives, so you probably already have some skill at this - it has just been misdirected.) So anytime you find yourself facing a new task, you can bring up the emotion you want to associate with it. You're creating a baseline of expectations for that new, planned experience. Just pick the appropriate positive experiences from your repertoire and anchor them to your plan through repetition. Remember that relevance of feeling is as important as the positive energy itself. You would anchor the "puppies-playing" feelings to similar experiences, while you would use the joy of your biggest business success by anchoring it to an upcoming business challenge. Now, it's miles easier to do this if you have prepared yourself in advance by getting intimately familiar with your own feelings. As with any skill, being good at this comes AFTER you build up the skill, not before, so it's better to put some time into the preparation work. If you try it a couple of times and it "doesn't work for you," that's a sign that you're normal. Most of us are not experts the first few times we try anything new. So persistence is just as important here as it is in any other new project. But getting back to the negatives, what about the suggestion to explore the negative experiences? Isn't that asking for trouble? Wouldn't you be reinforcing the negative? The answer to that is a qualified "no." It's "no" if you are actually exploring the feelings in order to recognize them sooner when they arise. It's "no" if you want to cultivate an early warning awareness in your mind that alerts you as soon as a negative emotion starts up. This would give you time to switch it off and insert a positive in its place. But it's "yes" if you're not exploring but wallowing in these feelings for the purpose of enjoying self-pity. Or fury. Or resentment. Intention is everything. As long as your intention is to use your emotions and feelings for constructive, growth-centered purposes, to be more skilled, more happy, more in control of your own life tomorrow, then you're on the right track. But if you find yourself concentrating more on the negatives than on the positives, getting a sneaky satisfaction from running the angry scenes or the rejection scenes over and over, then you need to refocus. It's time to gradually shift over and spend more time on the positives. The negatives, in and of themselves, won't actually cause you much harm. It's when you let them get out of balance, or start taking over, and you find them displacing the normal, healthy experience of positives, that's when some harm can be done. Fortunately, the exact same skill you use to run the negatives over and over is the one you can use to start concentrating more on the positives. As I said, intention is everything. Try This 1. Make a list of 5 or 10 different positive experiences. Anything happy or satisfying or exciting. Any time you were triumphant or successful or felt special. 2. Also list an equal number of negative experiences. Mentally note which list took longer to compile. This is a quick barometer of your overall positive-negative balance, but don't despair if it's not how you want it yet. This is just information we'll use. 3. Now for one week, sit for about 10 or 15 minutes a day (morning is better than bedtime), and recall one or two of those positive experiences. Pay special attention to the kind of emotions the memory elicits. Repeat each one until you can not only remember the event, you can also quickly recall the emotion attached. Note which experiences elicit the strongest emotions. 4. Do exactly the same thing for the negative experiences. As you replay the negatives, be keenly aware of your ability not only to bring them up but also to stop them at will. You are learning two things here. First is the ability to turn your emotions on. Second is turning them off, consciously and deliberately. Play with turning them on and off. What you're doing here is taking conscious control of your assets. As you go through this exercise, you'll have a chance to look carefully at your emotions - all of them - and select the ones you want to predominate in your life. Those emotions that sometimes seem to be running rampant through your mind and body - they're just tools, once you tame them. And when you master this, you'll know once and for all that your emotions belong to you, not the other way around. They're your feelings. You create them. And you can use them any way you wish. © Charles Burke About the Author Charles Burke is the author of Command More Luck, a book offering powerful suggestions for getting more cooperation from life, luck, and your own mind. Whether you call it synchronicity, serendipity, or just plain old luck, you CAN become more "naturally lucky." http://www.moreluck.com |