Mastery of Ourselves Part Two
In my last blog, I discussed how the first step towards self-mastery is about observing the cues of your body and making the necessary corrections and adjustments in your life. The moment you don’t have to consciously remind yourself to assess how your body is feeling, is the moment you have accomplished this strategy. By becoming “in tune” with your body’s rhythms you are now able to free your mind to focus on other elements that are happening in your life.
The Next Step – Mastering our Emotions
The next vital step towards self-mastery is to take the step towards mastery of one’s emotions and how to react and respond to certain events – both positive and negative. Do you find yourself addicted to being happy or only desiring to experience pleasurable moments? Or do you find yourself worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop or when you are going to experience unfortunate perceived challenges? Either way, if we are controlled by emotion, instead of making a rational choice we are guided by our base feelings that usually lean towards a fear-based choice. Anytime we make a choice based on fear, the end result always results in increased stress and chaos.
So how do we master our emotions?
The main challenge we face in mastering our emotions, is being able to have the ability and presence of mind to step back and reassess the situation before making a decision. We tend to act on impulse. What you are likely thinking is, “Yeah right, how can we step back and reassess?” If someone is threatening us or making us feel less than, how is it even possible to have the ability to not just react, but to stay present mentally and make a conscious choice. Although it is easier said than done, practice makes perfect.
Fully Experiencing Our Emotions
The first step is to take time to fully experience your emotions. If we never allow ourselves to experience the full spectrum of emotions from happiness to sadness, than we will always be fearful and judgmental when we become emotional. We have been conditioned by society to always be happy or to put up a façade that everything is “just peachy” when in fact, we are feeling the exact opposite. Why is it that when we are angry or sad, we do not feel the freedom to express these supposed negative emotions?
A lot of our perceptions of what good and bad emotions are have been conditioned from our childhood and what society has deemed to be good or bad. We have learned that If we cry, we are showing that we are weak and we must show that we are strong, otherwise others will dominate and walk all over us. However, until we can allow ourselves to feel and fully process our emotions, then life will keep bringing us experiences to deal with the emotions that are uncomfortable. We will also have to deal with those that we do not own or allow ourselves to feel safe to feel.
Different strategies to gain mastery of our emotions
One way to gain mastery of our emotions is to know when we perceive someone is blaming us or “aggressing” us, is to check in with our own bodies to see if it is our deal or theirs. By knowing our own body’s signs, we can get the necessary feedback to confirm if we are being true to ourselves.
Another way to master our emotions is to see where we do the exact same thing as that person who we perceive is attacking us. By seeing that we do the exact same thing to others that they are doing to us (although it may be in a different form), it helps to diffuse this charge.
You can also spend time when you are alone, allowing yourself to feel the emotion that you are experiencing. As your mind attempts to recall memories to justify feeling this emotion, just observe the memories and you will discover that they are all in the past and have nothing to do with your current situation.
There are other strategies one can use to manage your emotions, however the key is to allow yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions, in order to provide yourself with a greater range to experience. The next life letter will be addressing the mastery of one’s mind or mental awareness that will allow you to point yourself towards self-mastery.
