Emotion is emotion, it is neutral in nature. Your thoughts, at the time, make it positive or negative. Emotion is an amazing thing, and very misunderstood. Everyone has it, you feel up and down from time to time, and yet at times cannot understand what is behind the emotion. Emotion is a strange thing that is undefinable other than by the word which is to say, ‘a feeling which effects my mood’.
Many times, you may feel an emotion at a particular moment which is not appropriate to the situation and that can be confusing. Perhaps emotions come up without any trigger that you are aware of. We shall explore the human and spiritual side of emotions in the quest for greater understanding of our life and our potential capacities.
Water is water, it has no taste. If you put flavor it can be coca cola, or it can be coffee, or tea, or sweet or sour, you can put minerals or sugar or salt, the taste depends entirely on what you put in the water, but the water itself is still without taste.
Your moods will change based on events which trigger thoughts through the process of identification. Emotion itself is neutral, your thoughts direct your emotion and then you call it a positive or negative emotion based on the thoughts you directed the energy of emotion with. In fact it is not emotion, but your thoughts which are positive or negative and they drive your emotion down that road. You then experience something and call it an emotion of that sort.
Change the Taste of Water
Water is plain, you add sugar or salt by choosing what to put in based on your thoughts of what you want the water to taste like, sweet or salty. But if you are not paying attention, if you are not awake and present, you may mistake salt for sugar. You want sweet but you are not paying attention to your thoughts and you end up with salty. Emotions are the same, you feel, then allow a particular thought to enter your mind, and your emotion is determined by that thought, even if it is not what you would or should feel at the time.
This is the key to being able to choose your emotions. Understand what emotion is, in its essence, its neutrality, and how it becomes flavored with positive or negative, or even neutralized and dissolved into not feeling emotion at all, based entirely on your thoughts.
You may have an emotional response triggered, and then intellectually reason it to mean nothing. The emotion is still within you, but you are not feeling it because your thoughts have determined that it is nothing at all and you should not be effected. When you do this, the emotion stays within you like a can of soda being shaken and ready to explode.
When another stronger emotional event happens, the can opens and you have a big explosion. If the event is a negative confrontation, which is often the most common trigger since we can lose our temper and explode for a negative event easier than we can for a positive one, the pent up emotion will come out in anger.
The pent up emotion does not necessarily have to be from a negative event. It could be a heartbreak, the death of a loved one, a business failure, unexpressed love or appreciation, anything at all that has been kept inside without the emotion being released, convincing yourself that it was nothing at all and you are dealing with it.
The reason it is more common to lose your temper for a negative event is that fear is a stronger motivator for instant reactions than love. This is very logical and clear. If you are faced with impending danger or death, your instincts need to get your body to move quickly to save yourself. This is done through the production of adrenaline which produces an emotional effect of exhilaration along with increased physical energy. If you are faced with love or pleasure, there is no need to jump and react, rather you will savour and enjoy it in a relaxed manner.
Emotions are triggered by instincts, they are so tightly connected that they are almost one and the same. Desire for pleasure, avoidance of pain, survival instinct, hunger, fear of being attacked, joy of receiving pleasure, sex, companionship, propagation of the species, etc, these are all instincts and they trigger feelings which we call emotions.
I am certain you have experienced either in yourself or, watched another person react to something in a negative way, only to find out that you were mistaken and that the event is actually positive. When the realization of the misunderstanding happens, the emotion switches from negative to positive.
This proves that emotions are neutral and that it is only our thoughts which determine if they are felt as positive or negative emotions. Emotion mixed with thought determines the experience and of course, the outcome, based on your reaction.
Perhaps there is much more to emotions than just feeling
Now let us explore a far more powerful and deeper reason for emotions, something more mystical. If emotion is an energy, like fire, and thoughts can determine how that energy will be used, to burn down the house or cook your food, then could there be a ‘higher’ reason for humans having emotions?
If emotions are an energy, perhaps an energy that can propel us to act either towards protection and self preservation, can also be used in a higher sense for our own desires and goals.
If emotions are directed and felt based on thoughts, and thoughts come from both our own mind and memories as well as outside influences, then perhaps there is a greater purpose for emotions than we are using.
Intuitions are thoughts which come from outside your own mind that you receive and then think are your own thoughts.
Thoughts direct emotions and determine what you will feel.
The best way to get someone to act is to reach them through their emotions.
With all these thoughts combined to a belief in a God or Greater Being or Spiritual realm with angels and spirit guides, it could be very possible that in the design of the human being, not just the body but the spiritual and emotional organs as well, that emotions have a much more powerful purpose in their invention.
As all tools can be misused or ignored, so too with our intellect and our psychic and spiritual organs. Let us assume that in the design and creation of the human being, the organ of emotion was created and inserted. This organ was meant to give a human being the energy to act and feel. It served to give positive energy such as compassion, love, and self preservation by feeling fear and thus avoiding danger.
Through time and for whatever reasons which would only serve to distract us at this time if we went on the track of finding out what they are, we have removed the direct feeling ability of intuition and replaced it with the intellectual thought process.
Thoughts draw from memory
Memory is distorted as you know by simple tests of comparing two people’s version of the same event.
Emotion is neutral in itself but meant to be used as a motivating energy force based on instructions and information received in moment to moment events.
Intuition is the receiving apparatus of messages from outside your own personal experience, basically a means of communicating with higher knowledge and wisdom if you prefer that to the all encompassing word of God or Spiritual realms.
Emotion as opposed to intellect can translate feelings into thought. Intellect can only take information that it has received and work with that rather than being able to apparently create out of nothing as emotion does. The work of the genius artist, musician, inventor, all come from their emotional centre acting upon intuition. A great sculptor would say he sees the finished product in the stone. Now let us be honest, how many of us could see ‘David’ in a block of stone.
Emotion was meant to translate intuition into action. The intellect took over as the main seat of our life. Intellect then also took over the direction of emotion. And it was down hill from there. From that point on, emotions are out of control, making us feel and do things that we know are harmful for ourselves and others, and have created all sorts of havoc and wars, globally and within the family alike.
If we could return to the understanding that emotions are neutral and that thoughts determine the feeling of the emotion, and that intuition is a guiding force which was behind the need for emotions being created, then you can begin to take control of your malfunctioning organs and feel emotion, then think of a positive thought, and eliminate negative emotions from your life forever.
This is the process of achieving any goal, if you perhaps would feel that this is too complicated for a way of living. When you have a goal, you most likely have a clear picture of your goal in your mind. The process is simply this, whenever you feel any emotion at all, you will notice that you will have some thoughts in your mind at that time, simply think of your goal. Fear not that your emotion is negative because when you think of your goal, your emotion will turn towards your thoughts, which will be your goal, and I would assume a positive thought.
It may take many attempts until you can do this quickly. You are fighting a muscle that has been worked in one direction for a very long time, and now you are trying to change is habitual ways. But it certainly can be done and done relatively quickly. Let us now provide you with some exercises to help you on your way.
Exercise 1
Get a bowl of sugar and another bowl of salt that both have the same texture, fine or course. Mix up the bowls, of have someone move them around like a shell game so you do not know which bowl has which. Close your eyes and try to choose one or the other by touch alone. Make your choice and then taste to see if you are right. Keep practicing as often as possible until you can choose the right bowl to answer your desired choice.
Exercise 2
When you feel emotion, preferably a negative one, notice how you are thinking of what you feel emotional about. This takes a little mental effort of course, but not that hard to do. When you come to realize that you are thinking of the thing you feel negatively emotional about, put in all your effort to think of a positive thing, your goal or someone you love.
Keep the emotion alive. This is not to stop the emotion or change it in any way, it is just to change the thoughts. You could think, or you could have a photograph, anything that triggers and allows your thoughts to focus on that which is positive.
If you can keep the emotion fired up and replace its focal point, you will be able to create a burning desire, an intense focus and energy towards your goal, and it will be positive. This emotional rocket fuel is what is required to achieve any goal and this method will also create a new habit that when you feel, you will feel positive.
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