Lesson 5 – The Power Of Emotions

LESSON 5
THE POWER OF EMOTIONS

WHAT FEELINGS ARE

Simply put, a feeling is a vibration in your body. Nothing more.

An emotion is a brain chemical; a neuro-peptide (or ‘neurotransmitter’ because they transmit information from the brain).

The chemical emotion floods the body from the brain and attaches to the cells of the body at receptor sites that are unique for each chemical emotion. Depending on the chemical and the receptor site that it attaches to, it enters the cell and vibrates it in a different way. This cellular vibration is what we feel – we call it a feeling.

Emotions vary by kind; happy, sad, shame, fear, and anger. All languages everywhere have words for these emotions – they are Universal Emotions.

Feeling vary by degree; sadness can ‘feel’ mild bluesy or intense grief. Feeling range according to the ability to describe them in the known language. In the English language, there are over 700 describable feelings and that number in growing as we develop greater emotional awareness, intelligence, and the language to support the development.

A feeling is different from a physical sensation like hunger. Physical sensations start in the body and travel to the brain. Physical sensations are involuntary bodily reactions like, hot, cold, hungry, and physical pain.

WHERE FEELINGS COME FROM

Without exception, feelings come from our thoughts. They do not happen to us. They are not forced upon us. Other people do not ‘give them’ to us or ‘make us feel them’. We create them with our thoughts. Always. Even if we aren’t aware of the thought causing them, feelings always follow thoughts and never the other way around.

The thought that creates the feeling is the thought that the brain thinks is true – the one that the brain believes (remember Lesson 2).

You will always know what you believe about a circumstance based on how you feel about it.

WHY FEELINGS MATTER

Feelings are why people do or do not do things. Every single thing human’s do in their lives is because of how they think it will make them feel. Every single thing they don’t do in their lives is also because of how they think it will make them feel. Every decision you make, every dream you achieve or let die, and every relationship you nurture or ruin is based on how you want to feel.

Feelings are directive. People naturally avoid any negative emotion because of how it feels. They move toward any positive emotion because of how it feels. This is why we are a species of overpleasure. We overindulge in food, alcohol, drugs, sex, technology, and even work. We become pleasure and dopamine junkies, chasing our next emotional high.

This is important for you to know because people often end up limiting their potential based on their desire to avoid feeling discomfort.

EMOTIONAL BALANCE

Part of the reason people are unhappy is because they believe they shouldn’t be unhappy.

No one teaches us that unhappiness is a necessary and even valuable part of the human experience. Without unhappiness, we would have no frame of reference for happiness. Negative emotions make positive emotions possible. Life is designed to be half negative emotion and half positive emotion. Most people experience more than half of life as negative because they spend so much of their time being unhappy about being unhappy instead of just accepting the unhappiness as a natural part of life.

Reaching a goal, doing things you’ve never done before, and growing into more of who you are is not supposed to be easy. It’s not supposed to be a happy process all the time. The more you allow negative emotions to come up as you work on your goals, the faster you will go.

WHY WE WANT TO ALLOW FEELINGS

It is important to allow feelings instead of resisting, reacting, or avoiding them.

Resisting an emotion is like trying to hold a beach ball under water. It can be done for a while, but it’s exhausting. Eventually that beach ball is going to come popping up from under the water with a good deal of force.

Reacting to a feeling is what children do. It’s letting the emotion control our behavior by yelling, slamming doors, or throwing tantrums. Reacting is when we push against the emotion, dramatize things, or freak out.

Avoiding is when we sense the emotion but look to escape or dull it, typically with a buffering behavior like overeating, overdrinking, overworking, shopping, Netflix, social media, porn, and so on. Most often these buffering behaviors have a net negative consequence and ultimately don’t serve our goals.

When you can allow negative emotions from a place of compassion, you gain authority over them. When you resist negative emotions, react to them, or attempt to avoid them, you suffer.

HOW TO ALLOW AND PROCESS FEELINGS

There is no way around a negative emotion. “The only way around is through,” which means we need to learn to process them.

When you become curious and are willing to experience these cellular vibrations, you will typically find that feeling emotions aren’t such a big deal after all. Most people hesitate to open themselves up to negative emotions because they imagine the experience will be intolerable, or worse yet, that they will fall into some sort of a black hole and won’t be able to climb out.

THERE ARE SEVERAL PRACTICAL THINGS YOU CAN DO TO ALLOW AND PROCESS A FEELING:

? Pretend that you are describing the experience to a Martian (non-human being) who has never experienced the feeling. Write down the objective experience instead of being in the subjectivity of it. What does it feel like? Where in your body do you feel it? For example, “to me, anger feels like a fast, quivering buzz in my solar plexus and abdomen. My chest feels tight and cold and shivery.”
? Become the Watcher—witness yourself experiencing the emotion, seeing yourself having the feeling as though you are sitting across the room. This will create distance between the experience, including the thought you are choosing and the feeling that it’s creating.
? Hold the feeling in a place of peace. Accept the emotion and be present with it. Allow it to be there. Pretend to hold it in your hand and approach it with child like curiosity.
? Open up to the emotion. Allow it in. Move toward it. This is a skill I want you to develop. Once you are good at allowing an emotion, it will be transformative.

ASK YOURSELF:
? Can you recall a time you were trying to avoid an emotion with one of the buffering behaviors we discussed earlier?
? Did you know at the time that you were buffering?
? What are your thoughts on just sitting with an emotion and allowing it? Have you done it before? What was it like?
? What does that emotion feel like in your body?
? What is the worst emotion you can imagine feeling? Why?

CREATING FEELINGS TO FUEL ACTIONS

All actions are driven by feelings, so I want you to get well versed at creating the feelings you need to fuel your desired actions. Most people wait for feelings to come along. They believe something like inspiration or motivation or enthusiasm will happen to them. What they don’t realize is that they create inspiration with the thoughts they choose.

Once you understand this, you can begin to take responsibility for the emotional fuel you use for your life.

All feelings are available to us at all times. I want you to think of feelings as currency you can draw upon to take action in your life.

ASK YOURSELF:
Name an emotion that helps you most in your life.
? Why do you love this emotion?
? What is useful about it?
? What actions does this emotion fuel and how do those actions support one of your goals?
? What emotion would you like to feel more often?
? What thoughts would you need to think to create that emotion for yourself?
? What does the emotion feel like?
? What do you need to think to feel it?
? How can you commit to thinking that way today?
? How will you act when you feel this emotion?
? How can you get back on track if you notice you are not generating that emotion for yourself?

DISCOMFORT IS THE PRICE OF GROWTH

“Discomfort is the currency to your dreams.”

To accomplish your dreams, you need to grow. Growth stretches you and pushes you beyond their current capacity. When you grow, you become the next best version of yourself. And in order to grow, you need to get uncomfortable, to do the work that takes them from your current way of thinking to your desired way of thinking. I sometimes call this the “river of misery”. It’s miserable and it’s hard, but it doesn’t last forever. I assure you that you can do hard things.

THE 4 C’S:

Dan Sullivan teaches a concept called the “4 C’s” which stand for commitment, courage, capability, and confidence. He says people who accomplish their goals are willing to move through these 4 C’s. When we have a goal in mind, the first thing we must do is commit to that goal. After we commit no matter what, we’re willing to take whatever actions are necessary and feel whatever feelings are necessary. With this commitment comes the need for courage. People often glamorize courage, insisting it is noble and feels great. This isn’t true. Courage feels terrible. It’s uncomfortable. In order for you to be courageous, you have to be in a state of fear (fear is required for you to act with courage – we conjure courage to act when we are afraid). If a goal is worth accomplishing, if a goal stretches us and expands our potential, then we will feel uncomfortable as we work toward it. So when we look at it this way, discomfort is a sign that we are on the right track. It’s a sign that we are growing and expanding, becoming the next best version of ourselves.

Once we manifest courage, we can develop skills that increase our capability. And when we become capable, we become have evidence to support developing Indomitable Self-Confidence.

The takeaway for you is this: expect that courage will feel terrible, but this uncomfortable experience does not mean something is wrong. You are, in fact, heading toward your goal.

ASK YOURSELF:
? If you knew that discomfort would be a necessary part of getting to your goal, would you be willing to feel it?
? How do you think your experience would be different if you viewed discomfort as a sign that you were on the right track?
? What would it be like if you saw discomfort as a green light instead of as a red or yellow light?

INDULGENT EMOTIONS

Sometimes you choose emotions that don’t serve you without even realizing you are doing it. These are what I call indulgent emotions. The most common indulgent emotions are confusion, overwhelm, worry, boredom, and emotional exhaustion. These emotions have no upside that I can see. They simply prevent us from moving forward in our life and keep us stuck.

Imagine your body is a car that runs on the fuel of emotion. Indulgent emotion are like putting Cola in the gas tank of your car: you’ve filled it, but you haven’t filled it with anything useful. It’s helpful to eliminate these emotions from your life whenever possible. They keep your brain busy but not productive.

ASK YOURSELF:
? What are your most indulgent emotions?
? What thoughts are creating them for you?
? What is a result that you created in your life that you love?
? What emotions created it?