Managing Your Emotions

What does it mean to manage our emotions?

To manage is to "direct or control the use of."

When we want to manage our money, we hire a financial planner.

Of course, we need a cosmetologist to manage our hair, and a gardener to manage our yard. "Time is money" we say, so we'd better get the most up-to-date Day-Runner or Franklin Planner available. Another must is a Feng Shui consultant to manage the energy or space in our homes. And for $50 an hour, six hours per day for five days minimum, a personal organizer will come to your home and manage your files, drawers, pantry, photos--in essence, your life. All for $1500. These are a few examples of what some people are willing to do in order to manage their lives and improve the flow.

So, how many folks do you know who are willing to hire someone to help them manage their emotions? We might hear responses like, "Oh, I can manage my own emotions, thank you," or "I don't need help with my feelings," or even "What a waste of time and money that would be!"

To be aware of our feelings is crucial to our well-being. It starts so early in life. Current research indicates that the fetus feels and is sensitive to its environment. We feel even before we verbalize. Feelings are rooted in us as human beings before we are even born! Our feelings are key in helping us know ourselves. They contribute to our wholeness, which is the balance of our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional aspects. That's how important our emotions are! When feelings are denied, resisted, or stuffed, they don't go away. If anything, they intensify and lodge in the cellular system of the body. They can turn into dis-ease, because, like any form of energy, unless allowed to flow, they get stuck. For example, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (which is thousands of years old), anger gets trapped in the liver, resentment in the gallbladder, guilt in the heart, grief in the lungs, and so on.

If there were even the slightest chance that the ancient Chinese just might have some wisdom on this topic, wouldn't it behoove us to become more aware of our feelings, and how we express and manage our emotions? Wouldn't it make sense, if we have all these other "managers" in our lives, to make the time for self-improvement or, at least, spend the money to have someone help us to manage these emotions?

After all, our emotions do create our reality. Of course, no one can do the work for us. Yes, a psychologist or a caring, wise, and true friend could set us on the right track, but in the end, managing our emotions is up to us. This is done by managing our thoughts, as well as feeling our feelings.

In case you should choose to follow my lead and do some personal exploration, here are a few tips that will be helpful in managing your emotions:

• 1. You can't even begin to manage your emotions until you become aware. Just as you are aware of being hungry, needing to go to the bathroom, or having an itch at the small of your back, you must become aware of what you are thinking and what you are feeling when you're feeling it. Be conscious. Be aware.
• 2. Develop a "feelings" words vocabulary. Contrary to childhood exposure, we do experience more than mad, bad, sad, and glad. I have researched and created a 650 feelings-words dictionary, which has dramatically affected many of my clients' lives. "What am I feeling?" Look it up in the dictionary.
• 3. Once discovered, explore what beliefs, or thought patterns, may be associated with what you are feeling. For example, your real estate agent informs you that a neighboring condo unit was chosen over yours to be sold and is now under contract. The beliefs associated with this might be "Why do others always get the lucky breaks?" or "Nothing works for me," or "My father was right; I'll never turn a profit in my real estate investments." What kind of person would believe that? The answer might be "someone who feels sorry for him/herself," or "someone who sees him/herself as a victim." Get it?
• 4. Now, take the same formula and apply it to your own situation. Close your eyes and do some deep breathing for a few minutes. Send the breath throughout your body. Be aware. Feel the feeling and the belief and what it feels like to be that kind of person (for example, "the victim"). Now allow images and sensations to surface. Feel them all – fully, while you keep breathing. "Fully" is the magic word. Don't hold back. Feel them completely. Allow them to dissipate.
• 5. Now that you have told the truth about that issue and felt that which had been resisted, no doubt you have dissolved the core energy surrounding it, which was most likely picked up in childhood. You now want to reprogram your cells to a belief that you prefer. In the above example, you would replace the old beliefs with, "I trust my unit will sell in the perfect Divine Timing of the Universe. I am a trusting person." Feel the new cellular programming. It's there. Your cells are like baby birds, waiting to be fed on your feelings. So FEEL you are a trusting person and live your life that way.

How do we manage our emotions? By feeling them, that's how. Feeling does not mean dramatizing, it simply means feeling. By doing so, you'll develop a more positive and inviting attitude, stay healthier and happier, and improve every one of your relationships, including the most important, the one with yourself.

By Alexandra Delis-Abrams