Dealing with Emotion

Over the past several years I have been working on controlling my emotions instead of letting them control me. It started when I read that we are not our emotions, so I started viewing my emotions as separate from myself and I started to monitor them. I watched the effects they had on me and where they came from in the first place.

In doing so I am now more able to control my emotions. I don't let other people control me with emotions, I don't let emotion make my decisions. I consider myself better balanced than before.

But I don't know how to help other people deal with their emotions. My wife, her first reaction is anger, or frustration and jealousy. She says she can't help it and she hates it but she resorts to anger whenever possible, I try to help her by telling her that she needs to think about her emotions and her actions before she starts acting them out. She needs to slow down and just think before reacting. She says she has tried but doesn't seem to be making much progress. She also has an issue with constantly thinking out possible scenarios like a robbery, or fire, and she maps out ways to escape them. Says she does this all the time and sometimes can't sleep for her mind's thinking. I have a hard time understand why it is so hard for her to quiet the mind. I mean it was hard for me at first but it for pretty easy pretty quick for me after just trying...

Other people like my roommate or friends, they have emotional problems, like one always ends up going on these bad routes when something goes wrong. One problem comes up and he goes to hell, wants to quit everything he's working on, just gives up on life. The next day or couple of days he'll be back on his feet again. Another can't express emotions or talk about them properly, they keep them bottled up until there is an explosion, when talking about them in the beginning would have settled it.. Another friend has a very addictive personality. They think they need every drug in the world to help them because they couldn't possible be able to help themselves...

I just don't understand why some people do these things to themselves and I am here asking you how to help them deal with these issues. I know it's just a matter of not understand more about themselves but I just don't know how to make them see that or see what they need to in order to help themselves.

Any advice?

reply to post by SeeingBlue

Any advice?

Sure - this is NOT the place to be asking that question...you'll probably become more emotionally unstable after reading some of the replies.


You'll be in better company here - I think. www.carepages.com...


Good luck.

Get some psychological thearapy. You sound mentally unstable. If you want to be like the borg...go ahead. also......i wonder what your wife feels like being married to a emotional cinder block who does not feel emotions.

[edit on 13-7-2010 by Proudconservative]

reply to post by SeeingBlue


Wow, just wow!! I will be following this thread closely as the wife you are describing could be me...(except the jealousy part) I also am quick to react with anger, but I find it is because I HAVE thought the process through and react when the other person has not. (I think?) I stay awake at night and my mind just does the whirl and twirl thing...maybe it is something to do with how the male brain vs. the female brain work?? Interesting thread!!!! Can't wait to see the responses to this one...

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by SeeingBlue

 

Any advice?

Sure - this is NOT the place to be asking that question...you'll probably become more emotionally unstable after reading some of the replies.


You'll be in better company here - I think. www.carepages.com...


Good luck.

I don't have these problems and I strongly believe in solving them yourself, but the people around me don't know where to start. I need help assisting them in understand how to help themselves. Positive reinforcement isn't going to help anyone because there is a deep common misunderstanding about the self.

Emotions come from your thoughts. To end those negatives thoughts, try think positive thoughts. Replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. Negative thoughts create negative energy, positive thoughts create positive energy. Having negative thoughts is also hard on the body, that could potentially lead to health problems later down the road. If positive thinking doesn't help, then you might want to try eating a more balanced diet. Also consult with your doctor if you have any signs of depression.

[edit on 13-7-2010 by ambient moon]

Here you go:

www.jeshua.net...

Anyone who walks the path of inner growth knows the importance of emotions: that you should not repress them, that you have to come to terms with them in some way, that you must ultimately release them. But how it all really works is not always so clear.

I first want to make a distinction between emotions and feelings. I am not concerned here with specific terms or labels and you may call it by different names, but I want to make a distinction between emotions in the sense of energies that are essentially expressions of misunderstanding and feelings or energies that are a form of higher understanding.

Feelings are your teachers, while emotions are your children.

Emotions are energies that have a clear manifestation in the physical body. Emotions are reactions to things that you do not really understand. Consider what happens when you are overcome by a fit of rage. For instance someone hurts your feelings unexpectedly and you feel yourself becoming angry. You can feel this very clearly in your body; in certain places you feel the energy go tense. This physical tension or tightening that follows the energetic shock shows there is something you do not understand. There is an energy coming toward you that you feel is unjustified. The feeling of being treated unjustly, in short the not-understanding, is vented through the emotion. The emotion is the expression of the not-understanding, it is an energetic explosion and a release.

Great advice and information... on left side of the homepage, look for article titled, 'Dealing with Emotions'

reply to post by SeeingBlue


Good for you Seeingblue

I have done the same thing, basically monitoring what sparks of certain emotions in me and others, and taking charge of them before "they" control me.
Don't bother with the People who advice you this is a Mental Illness, obviously,for one, they can't read what you are implying and two, are more deserving of my nik then me.

As to advice you how to help them, you can not. All you can do is make them aware of how their emotions are "over loaded"
It's up to the individual to recognize their own state of Mind and class it as a problem to themselves.

Remember, if they don't see it as a problem, it don't need fixing, and we as a society have become better at being aware of others than we are of ourselves.

I discovered the power emotions can have through my study of dreams, lucid dreaming, and in particular dream control. Strong emotions are probably the best way of exerting control over dream characters, and this seems to apply to real life just as much as it does to dreams. People respond to strong emotions without even knowing it, and one person's emotions can completely alter the behavior of other people.

The people the OP mentioned who have problems controlling their emotions, who always fall back on the same emotional response, do so because it elicits a predictable response from those around them. They've used it so much, they know what kind of effect it will have, and that's comforting in a stressful situation or one where the person feels they have no control. I'm not perfect, and my go to emotion is anger. I know it shuts people up and gets them to leave me alone.

Those repetitive emotional outbursts are conditioned responses, and if one wishes to learn to free themselves from that cycle, they need to stop operating on autopilot. This is in essence the waking equivalent to lucid dreaming. A lucid dream and the freedom it brings stops the moment you get sucked back into the dream plot, believing it to be real, and you revert back to preconditioned responses to whatever situation you find yourself in.

You need to take a step back and distance yourself from reacting to situations on autopilot. This is accomplished through what Castaneda called "Not Doing" or what buddhists call "Mindfullness". You need to practice breaking those auto pilot responses, through simple things like brushing your teeth with your left hand instead of your right hand. This is what so called "reality checks" are, moments in your day that break up your autopilot response.

Good luck getting other people to try and begin practicing this, as it really is a monumental task.

reply to post by SeeingBlue

I just don't understand why some people do these things to themselves and I am here asking you how to help them deal with these issues.

Strong negative emotions result from not getting what one wants, or things not being the way we want them to be.

The trick is to eliminate the desire, especially for things we cannot control.

This is the basic concept of Buddhism. Good luck.

Originally posted by Proudconservative
Get some psychological thearapy. You sound mentally unstable. If you want to be like the borg...go ahead. also......i wonder what your wife feels like being married to a emotional cinder block who does not feel emotions.

[edit on 13-7-2010 by Proudconservative]

I'll read and reply to the rest after I get home from work, but just to make it clear, I am not emotionless, I am just able to stand up against my emotions when they want to take over and control me and I am able to silence my mind when I need. This is very different than being emotionless..

there is nothing you can do for another person. but i call dishonesty in your portrayal of others. the way i see it you are projecting multiple personalities on other people as a means of communication with your self as one person.this is as unhealthy as having expressive emotions; either as seen if natural and not or induced by stimuli are natural states of being if they are observed.if you are the person you say you are then you will be content in the wisdom you have gained by "quieting your mind" and the greater knowledge you gain by observing your "friends follies".but the fool card can only be played once per hand, and you have already outed yourself as a voyeur of this card and interactor of other hands that are played.if you are licensed you should seek the proper channels for discussion of psychological methodologies.

[edit on 13-7-2010 by Ausar]

reply to post by rockhndr


I noticed in the site that Blujay linked me, there is talk about the difference between male and female energies. I haven't had time to look into it yet but something tells me we both might find this interesting.


reply to post by ambient moon


That is a good rule of thumb to remember in any case and I'm sure holds very true for this situation. Thank you for reminding me of this little fact.

reply to post by The Cusp


And to the rest of you, thanks for reminding me of some of the teachings that I had forgot. I realize I may not be able to help these other people that suffer at the whelm of their emotions, but I try to be an example so that they can see how I am different, calm, collected and maybe it will spark an interest in them to ask me or themselves, why, how, what are they doing different and how can they better control themselves..

Thought I think one of the biggest problems is realizing how stuck on auto-pilot you really are.

Keep the information coming