Controlling Your Emotions
Emotions are inclined to hijack our actions and reactions, even though we prefer to deny it. Society frequently sees emotions as a sign of mental weakness, so we became used to putting them to the side and try to stay focused on the logical aspects more and more. But no matter how strict and rational you choose to be, you will always be a human being, instead of a robot, and so you will always feel.
Positive emotions are a long term goal for several of us. What is more significant, in the end: how much cash you brought in during your lifetime or how many times you laughed? Nonetheless, people are inclined to put their positive emotions underneath the dark shadow of their negative feelings. This is one of the worst problems we come across during our lives. There is no foolproof method to ignore a negative experience and try to replace it with positive ones. It just doesn’t work this way.
As a child, if your goldfish dies, you would be extremely sad. Your parents will surely purchase you a new goldfish, but the sadness still takes a long time to go away. Things get even more serious with adults. A fight with your partner the night before will destroy your whole day. You will go to work angry, tired, with your thoughts wandering. Then you will go home with an even worse mood. On the way from work towards home you won’t be able to take notice of the sun shining and you won’t be tempted to stop at the supermarket and purchase your favorite ice cream. All that because that one negative thought is contaminating the way you perceive the reality around you.
At this moment you will feel that discovering a safe place to relax your mind would do wonders. And that place is relatively easy to locate. It might be an actual location or an imaginary place. The best idea is to totally submerge yourself in it. Let’s say you have a problem on your mind and it just won’t go away. Go bowling! You don’t know how to bowl, you say? No problem, go out and try it! Get caught up in the game, think about those ugly looking shoes, select a favorite ball, make up new ways to throw and so on. Your mind will suddenly move from the negative thoughts that plagued your last hours or days and start processing a whole new type of information.
A safe place can come in many shapes. It can be a song, a movie, even a person. The crucial thing is to allow yourself to get completely involved with this new activity. You might still get flashes of the problem every now and then – ignore them and get even more involved in what you are doing.
When the bowling game, the song, the movie or the conversation ends you will have a rather abrupt return to your problems. You will possibly feel sad and want to go back to the safe place. Don’t do that. The safe place is there only as a helping hand, not as a solution to your problems. It is there to help you relax your brain, for a few minutes or hours.
This is a crucial stage in your solution to what is hurting you. You will come back from your safe place with an increased energy level. You will feel better about yourself and have more confidence that any issue can be solved. This is how a small escape from a harsh reality can increase your fighting energy and allow you to solve even the most difficult problems.

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