Emotions

It has become incredibly easy to be engulfed in your anxieties, concerns, and insecurities when a great deal of today’s culture and social norms seems to be based around the perception that everyone deserves something, whatever that may be. Sure it is alright and perfectly fine and reasonable to have big ambitions or goals in life. Where many of us struggle resides in balancing our hopes & dreams with the world in which we live. Aspects of depression, stress and anxiety can creep into your life and overwhelm your thoughts and emotions; result in being bogged in a quagmire of decreased pride or self-worth, as you become stuck in a self-defeating cycle of measuring your life to someone else’s.

If you find yourself in such a state of mind, then one simple little phrase of “I am enough” can be used to transform your thoughts. Repeating this thought on a regular basis can help give you a sense that everything is okay. This allows you to instil a new found sense of happiness or inner contentment, transforming the direction of your life for the better.

Throughout the day your conscious and unconscious minds take in all forms of information and sensory perception. Your minds not only process all of this information but also reacts to this stimuli, whether it is right, wrong, sometimes inappropriate or at other times seemingly indifferent.

The simple mantra of IOEA (Inhale, Observe your breath, Exhale, Awareness of your thoughts) applied as you breathe can help you moderate your reactions and allow you to choose how you will respond in life. As you Inhale, simply take the moment to Observe your breath. Do not try to overcomplicate things, as this simple act of Inhaling and Observing will allow you to pause any seemingly unconscious reaction. Then as you Exhale, take the moment to apply some Awareness to your thoughts and thinking. You may find for more difficult situations that you will need to repeat the cycle of IOEA a few times so that your unconscious thoughts or reactions do not see the light of day. Instead, with awareness, you may choose to respond differently rather than reacting.

Extremely few people are aware of, or comprehend, just how much we come to be totally connected with our intense thoughts and psychological responses in our lives. Being so engaged, we rarely consider that it is our mind, which generates a huge portion of the unhappiness, worry, anxiety, sorrow and even aspects of depression and ill health in our lives.

Every day and every instant in time, you can choose exactly how to react or respond to anything in your life. Via the astute application of active intelligence, you can opt to remain in control, rather than falling right into habits or sets of pre-programmed thought archetypes, which have been bolstered by the psychological reactions of your passive intellect and everyday excuses. Seize the moment to briefly stop and deliberate regarding just how your own thoughts and psychological reaction and responses are impacting your everyday thinking; after which you can choose to make an informed response through the application of your active intelligence.

Kindness is greater than merely an elementary word or a disposable expression. The real intent of kindness is manifest by means of your thoughts and actions every single day. Kindness is personified with the inner countenances of harmlessness, which can aid you to re-establish the balance in your life and redress the karma we all carry. Come to be that individual of true and unquestionable kindness to expand happiness and no hurt into the world around you.

Each of us have some form of stress which impacts on our lives. Appropriately recognising and dealing with it can lead to a more balanced and healthy life. There are many schools of thought as to the root cause of stress. However, a new way to look at stress, is that stress is purely a build-up of energy. As you experience life, your own thoughts and reactions can lead to an accumulation of energy within different areas of the mind and body. If this build-up of energy is not appropriately dissipated, the overload of emotional energy will cause issues for the human mechanism.

While we can still consider the traditional aspects of stress, this new slant on stress provides you with an opportunity. When you start to feel stressed, find a way to release the build-up of emotional energy so that it does not hurt you or others around you.

Some simple techniques can be utilised to help you destress by draining away these overloads of energy. One simple method can entail taking a few minutes out in meditation or mindfulness to seeing yourself near a lake or ocean, seeing the emotional energy draining away into the water. Another similar method is to stand on the earth, then think of the emotional energy being drawn away into the ground. Alternatively, if you are practised in breath works, then you can see these excess energies flowing out as dark clouds when you exhale.

You may believe we have more than five senses, however, one sense is routinely neglected. That is common sense, as it appears to be seldom acknowledged and frequently in short supply. Your sixth (common) sense is not a conventional sense of the physical body. You may identify that common sense is not intrinsic in everyone to a similar degree, rather it is derived from awareness and is an integral part of your thought processes.

Encountering your common sense is about becoming more aware, taking the bigger picture into view and taking into consideration the effects of any one of your thoughts or actions. As you become more mindful of your common sense, you may sometimes feel through the pit of your stomach. At other times, common sense or sound judgement can seem akin to the quiet whisper originating from the back of your head, informing you to be aware or do something another way.

Throughout your day, ask yourself if you have suitably considered your thoughts or actions. Being aware of the repercussions of any thoughts or actions can be the most significant step in learning how to tap into your sixth (common) sense.

As you continue your journey on the pathway of awakening, you will face many challenges. Not all of these challenges seem obvious or straightforward. Every day we all express different thoughts and emotions. However, certain emotions can cause more problems than others as they feed your lower ego.

These lower emotions are typically characterised by fear, arrogance, rage, despondency, jealousy and greed and can be analogous to many aspects of the seven deadly sins. You should strive to recognise any aspects of these lower emotions within you. Where you do find any thoughts, emotions or feelings of this nature, you should do your best to bring these aspects under control, then banish them from every facet of your life. If you allow these emotions to be retained within, they will feed your lower ego with energy, giving the mind the opportunity to then regain its power over you and your life.

Have you developed a pattern of tuning to the negative? There is a strong correlation between being optimistic and being physically well. Typically, people who express positive emotions are at a reduced risk of becoming ill. Feeling happy is linked with better general health and longer life.

Positive psychology encompasses a variety of techniques that focus on: developing positive thoughts, positive emotions, developing positive experiences. It also works at a deeper level on improving our positive character traits, such as loyalty, humility and integrity. Positive psychology does not discount that there are negatives that impact our lives. Instead, positive psychology aims to look at the situation to better understand human experiences and determine how to best foster positivity and good thinking.

How often do you scroll through Instagram or your Facebook feed, looking at the picturesque snippets of other peoples lives? You may flick through glossy magazines and view TV, wondering how the other people get to have the perfect body, fantastic homes or seemingly enviable lives. Increasingly it is becoming easy to be swamped in your insecurities, fears, wants or desires as you compare your life to the world of others.

Take the time to become your own life influencer as you expouse the thought that “I am enough”. Building this thought within you can give you a sense of calm and happiness allowing you to change the direction of your life for the better. Take the opportunity to make it into a mantra, which you repeat every morning or even throughout the day, until it sinks in and your mind accepts it. As you allow this positive aspect to build within your life, you will begin to discover that many things are your own source of happiness. With ongoing positive reinforcement as your own influencer, you can begin to experience that “I am enough, I have enough, I have always been enough and I always will be enough.”

As anyone who practices mindfulness, you must face the challenge of the aspects which you have pushed aside. While it is an admirable practice to improve your focus in life by pushing aside other thoughts, emotions or feelings, you need to take a deeper challenge. The challenge is to realise that pushing aside any thoughts, emotions or feelings, does not make them disappear. When pushing them aside, they continue to exist on the periphery of your consciousness.

 

You need to understand these aspects within your life so that you can then move beyond them. Moving beyond them, you can no longer react to the stimuli which they produce. However, if you leave them unattended within the recesses of your mind, they are like the proverbial Pandora’s box. As such, any emotional aspects not appropriately understood or banished completely from your mind, can lead to many unforeseen problems.

An essential aspect of wellbeing is the circulation of energy through the human form. The term meridians characterise the energy distribution system as denoted in Chinese medicine, and details how the basic substances of the body permeate the entire body. The individual meridians are typically described as paths or channels which echoes the idea of carrying, holding, or transporting blood, body fluids and chi around the body. Chi is the Taoist idea of the Life Force, which permeates all matter and infuses it with life.

 

The energy circuits or meridians supply energy to all parts of you. You should be mindful that an accumulation of emotions can lead to blockages or obstructions in your body. These disturbances to the circulation of chi within the human mechanism can bring about various forms of sickness or ill-health.

Realise that suppressing or subduing thoughts and emotions, specifically the unfavourable ones, can be perilous as you continue on your journey of awakening, meditation or attunement. Suppressing an emotion does not admonish an emotion. The emotion still exists within you, secreted in the background of your mind and subconscious.

 

As you progress and the energy of your Life Force enlivens your form, these energies will feed all aspects of your being, including emotions that have been hidden away under the proverbial rug or in a darkened corner of your mind. The emotional energy can build in the background and lead to a fiery outburst which can create harm and additional causality. You should acknowledge and expel the emotion to ensure that it does not smoulder and grow within, causing unimaginable problems.

It is important that you must learn to master your thoughts and emotions and not just try to suppress or bury them. In the process of mastering your thoughts and emotions, it is important to observe or be aware of that aspect within you. As soon as you acknowledge or observe their presence, then you should strive to remove those unwanted aspects from within or around you. Get rid of any detrimental thought or emotion – do not feed it by dwelling on the matter. This should be your motto to help you master your thoughts.

Many of you may have systematically made use of mindfulness techniques to stop, pause, to become aware of what is transpiring in the moment. Alternatively, you may have leveraged meditation as a respite from your emotions and from your thought and feelings.

However, what is it that makes you act, respond, think, believe and feel in the manner in which you do? Realise that absolutely nothing within the cosmos is by accident, all follows well-prescribed patterns and flows of energy which form the basis of all matter, thoughts and our reality. So consider for a moment how these unseen or unrecognised energies could influence you daily and trigger emotions or feelings hidden deep with your psyche.

When you find yourself in an unpleasant mood, consider that you cannot be open to new ideas, regardless of just how fantastic they are.  Without some joy in your heart, life can seem slow and often uninteresting. On the other hand, when you are happy, joyful or in a positive frame of mind, your heart, as well as your mind, are open to brand-new things.  Even thing which may have seemed normal holds a greater significance as you enjoy every moment that life had to offer.