Few life changing habits that can help to master at controlling our emotions and become self disciplined:
Hatred is a big term in many cultures. Humans in general have a tendency to hate everything or every one does not feel like belonging to their inner circle. Now we all have our own ways to define the inner circle. Some people consider inner circle to be their close family members who they can share anything with. Whereas some others like to put family out of the equation, rather include close friends. But if we take a look at our inner circle from a 50000 point of view, we generally tend to like and socialize easily with people belonging to our own cultures, race, ethnicity etc. Why is this? Is this a bad thing? No, I would not consider this to be a bad thing. However there is a limitation that we as humans must place to this so called inner circle. If every human generation before us thought the same way with the same cultural and religious biased opinions, the world would not be the same today. We would not have been able to witness all the great innovations the world has witnessed today. Most important thing in todays world is collaboration which leads to innovations. Let me stop right there, I don’t intend to make this article about my beliefs / disbeliefs on technological innovations.
We all run into situations life where we are forced to live with people we “hate”, work for a tough boss, be involved in a toxic environment. No doubt this is tough to deal with. But most of us get through these situations without complaining, why? Just think about it - many people continue with their current jobs even though they are not happy about it, simply because of the fear of not being able to find a new job with the same level of pay and same comforts. This fear is real. We also run into many situations outside of work life that involves people we don’t like to spend time with, we still find a way to get through these situations too except not all the time. Humans have the greatest capability to think, make choices between right and wrong etc. However these choices are deeply tied with emotions and our biased opinions we develop against people in our life. Successful people become successful not because they are super smart and possess incredible success credentials that puts them apart from non successful people, but because they are good at managing their emotions. Emotions affects decision making capabilities of human beings.
What do we do to control emotions:
There are literally hundreds of books, articles and publications available on this topic. My goal is to simplify the process as much as possible. I have been called by different names like angry bird, angry young man, nut cracker etc. I used to struggle with controlling my emotions and often end up showing my short temper outbursts in a bad way. This costed me many good relationships and literally costed a job. Over the years I have spent a lot of time learning about own behaviors, analyzing my own thought process and more importantly develop specific set of skills that helps me find ways to control my emotions in tough situations. The next three paragraphs are the most valuable lesson any one can give you on this topic.
Step 1:Learn to observe yourself:
Have you ever felt that you are losing control on your physical actions or emotional thoughts in particular situations? Well trust me you are not alone. Most of the human beings go through the same cycle in almost every situation in their lives. Just like any other organ in human body, Brian never stops doing its thing “thinking”. But the fact is we never have problems with continuous functioning of any other organs in our body but we complain about our Brian doing its job. Why? Because our lives are too centered around what our brain does. First thing we all must learn is to stop complaining and believe that we have the greatest ability to control our emotions and our thinking process unlike any other creature on earth. So the first step in learning to control our emotions is to learn to observe oneself. Let me explain. Few years ago when i first started my research journey on this topic,I had received a great one liner advise from a psychologist in India “Observe yourself”. It took me months to learn the true meaning of this advise. I started observing keenly how my body reacts and changes physically with every thought that passes through my brain. For example when i am angry my fingers become stiff, my postures tend to become straight. Even when i was lying down on bed, I stand right up when i get angry. When i feel happy or amazed i get goose bumps. I started putting this into practice right away. When i get angry i try to spend a minute observing those physical changes in my body, I even try to take a note of increased heart rate, flow of blood in my body. This helped me become more self aware than i was earlier. This was the first step in my journey and is in fact the best step.
Step 2: Deep Breathe:
This is the most common phrase we come across in movies, shows and even in our day to day lives. Whenever some one gets angry / agitated out most common instinct is to say “take deep breaths, calm down”. Now how many of us actually understand the calming effects of deep breathing? Very few. Most of the smart watches, smart phones today have inbuilt health apps which suggests people to take deep breaths at regular intervals. In a nutshell deep breathing is the most soothing thing to calm down our emotions and cut off our brains thinking cycle. But in a tough situation when your emotions are high, how can you remember to clam yourself down and take deep breaths? It’s not easy to do that.We must build deep breathing inbuilt into our subconscious memory such that when the time comes our brain will remember to trigger deep breathing as a response to calm down our emotions and control the anger. This requires years and years worth of effort and practice. A average Hindu Yogi spends 16 years practicing deep breathing and in spirituality to become good at controlling their emotions. I am not suggesting you to run away from your life and spend the time in eternity, but rather we must understand that deep breathing as a weapon to control your brain requires years of practice and experience. Start from the very moment you read through this article. You will start noticing changes in your mood, health and physic within few weeks on practicing.
Step3: Develop will power
Self awareness and mindfulness are two most important traits for self development. Will power is the result of both these things. Humans are very lucky to have this great ability to make choices. Will power can be defined as the ability to resist short term temptations to win long term goals. As an example if a student wants to score good grades in an examination, he or she must work hard, complete all the studying in time prior to the examination. With so many possible derivation factors in student life, studying for tests requires great determination. This is called will power. Everything we do have very deep ties with our emotions. Food as an example is a great emotion to most human beings. I am very emotionally attached to food. Our body and brain craves for all kinds of tasty, salty, spicy, savory and high carb foods when we tend to feel low. We can think of thousand ways in which humans are emotionally connected to food. It requires great will power and self determination to resist the temp station to win long term goals. Will power will eventually help us become more self aware and be more self disciplined. Few ways to help develop will power are fasting, meditation, journaling and goal setting.
I have been fasting every day i my life for the past 7 months now. This helped me to become less emotionally attached to food. I also find my life at a better place physically and mentally. I lost over 20 pounds of weight, i feel strong and i am able to run for more than 1 mile now. This is great achievement for a person weighing over 300 pounds. I also practice meditation on regular basis. Nw media Tati on and deep breathing are very closely related to each other. Try to find a noise and disturbance free environment and practice deep breathing with complete focus on your body. Observe how your body changes with each exhale and inhale. Over time you will become skilled at this.
I hope you find my article helpful and easy to read. Please don’t forget to leave a comment and subscribe to my blog. I can also be reached via email at factbuster01@gmail.com
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