Those Pesky Things Called Feelings

Turn a Bad Day into A Good Day - It's Your Decision

When life or people become frustrating or unmanageable, it's natural to feel emotional, annoyed, and even succumb to acting out.  But after wards we may experience a morning-after, "emotional hangover", when faced with the consequences of our ill guided actions.  In a fury of frustration, eating an entire bag of chips in front of the TV or sending out a nasty email feels so good in the moment!  Yet, what's left 24 hours later is mostly self-recrimination and collective misery.  No one feels good.  Like a compound fracture, an annoying situation becomes broken in two places - packing on the pounds or damaging a relationship only piles on icky feelings of guilt and remorse making a bad situation worse.  "What was I thinking?!!" is hardly a good platform from which to assess what happened in going forward.  Having a stomach ache or losing a relationship isn't helpful either.

Loss of control is the result of being hypnotized by the powerful pull of negative emotions and distractions i.e., eating junk food, spouting off, spending money you don't have, etc. Then, like any trance state, the momentary "high" wears off.  Those feelings of annoyance and frustration will eventually ebb away no matter what.  What do you want to have to show for it after, something positive or something negative?   It's totally up to you.  True power comes from self-control and positive distractions.  Take a deep breath, take a walk around the block. You get a time-out with the added bonus of a positive payoff - burn off a few calories.

Imagine feeling good, staying peaceful in the midst of frustrating circumstances.  It is possible!  However, it does require some effort and conscious thought that can be difficult to muster when you are upset.  Negative emotions induce a trance-like state that hinders good judgment.  Cultivating inner peace takes practice, but is absolutely worth it!

The secret is having positive distractions planned ahead to fend off making a catastrophic situation out of a bad moment. Then, when a negative emotion or situation pops up, it won't take over and kill your impulse control by making you reach for that bag of chips or lashing out in anger.

Plan ahead to positively distract yourself!  Stock the fridge with healthy foods, i.e., grab a piece of watermelon.  Or dark chocolate.  Share your frustration with an impartial individual who can offer good judgment and objective feedback.  Or, help someone out.  Random acts of kindness for yourself and others are a quick and dirty way to feel better and rack up time well spent.

Annoyances and frustration are an inevitable part of life.  Getting angry and making yourself (and others) suffer by making things worse is NOT.  Just ask yourself: How do I want to distract myself here?  How do I want manage myself and my emotions?  Positively or negatively?  The good news is it's up to you. Like a well developed muscle, peace takes practice.  And, I'm loving that watermelon.

The Fear of Becoming - Transformation

Who Am I?  What Do I Believe In?

When you're in the middle of a transformation, it can all seem very confusing.  You are in a state of "becoming"; you don't know who you are anymore, your identity is under going reconstruction.  You only know that who you "were" doesn't work anymore, but who you are becoming or need to be is vastly unclear; especially if you are dealing with a lot of past trauma.  

The age old metaphysical questions of:  "Who am I?  What do I believe in?",  are central in your mind every day.  You are tempted to go back to the "old" you because it is familiar, safe, and something you know.  It is comfortable, even if it's destructive. It's your comfort zone, habitual and easy to slide back into.   But,  somewhere deep inside, you know you are just circling around the same old drain.  Getting the same unfulfilling results and living half a life, stagnating like a pond overgrown with weeds and toxic chemicals.

This is where you must trust that scary, uncomfortable, and living in the unknown is right where you're supposed to be.  Clear the debris from the past, and excavate your unconscious mind so that the unconscious behaviors, emotions, thought patterns, and perceptual filters running your life on autopilot and creating your current illusion are revealed.

The current Narcissistic culture does not support this type of internal focus, reflection and renewal.  It uses distractions of all kinds to keep us "busy", frantic, over stimulated.  It encourages us to look "outward" for validation, when in reality we need to look inward to find the clues we need to be happy and live a purposeful life.

What this means is that we must take down time, spend time alone in contemplation. Solitude.  We have only our intuition to guide us along, which is a good thing.  The still small voice within is given a chance to grow stronger and guide us along.  The beauty of this process in living by intuition is that people will emerge who support you in your "becoming".  People you didn't really know were there.  They offer all manner of support and encouragement, bring you books to help you, talk you through your emotions and confusion; but most importantly, they offer up a space for you to be entirely yourself, without expectations, for you to become who you really are - not what society or other people think you should be.

These are the people who will come forward with you.   They require nothing from you because they "see" you for who you really are and accept you for the space you're in.  And as you pick your way along this unknown path, you become less frightened, you relax, and surrender to this transition because it is inevitable and resisting is only more painful than just plucking your way through this maze of figuring things out.  You come to live and understand that, "To know is, not to know."  And this journey is actually a gift, and an adventure to embrace because you will never live more in the moment than when you are in a state of "becoming". And, as you are being led to "something" in the unknown, the upshot is learning to trust what's going on inside of you, instead of listening to the "noise" of the external world.  Know that you're in a good place, you're open.