Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Do You Control Your Emotions?

Do you control your emotions or let your emotions control you?

The American Heritage Science Dictionary defines emotions as follows: A psychological state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is sometimes accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling.

I had occasion yesterday to observe what happens when we react to our emotions rather than choose how to respond to our feelings. The result was a heated exchange of emails that may have damaged or even ended a friendship.

And so it reminded me of the power of thought. Thoughts of course lead to feelings. Feelings create emotions and lead to actions. But when we react to our emotions, our thinking becomes muddled and our judgement clouded. We often say or do things we regret which begins a cycle of more unwanted thoughts and feelings. Law of attraction at work.

Becoming a victim of our emotions can quickly turn into a habit. And the path to inspired abundance is through the habit of choosing a response rather than the habit of reacting to an emotion.

That led me to find this quaint, dare I say "fun" video on controlling your emotions. It was produced by Coronet Instructional Films in 1950. I found it entertaining, yet at the same time there are still some very relevant points. What do you think? Any ideas about controlling your emotions that still hold water?






Part 2



1 comment:

Ron de Weijze said...

I do not believe that thoughts lead to feelings. Thoughts *are* feelings, or rather the leftovers of feelings, recollectable by their contexts, rationalized into concepts. Feelings do not create emotions, for they *are* emotions. As you quote The American Heritage Science Dictionary: emotion (...) a feeling. We do not react to our emotions, but our emotions to stimuli generate our reactions/responses to stimuli (the other way around).