Success Recipe: Managing your emotions

By UDEME ARCHIBONG

“We do not fully comprehend what we can do with our emotions. When we control them we have power. When they control us the results are often disastrous.”

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

There can never be success or failure in life without emotions coming to play. The peak and lows of life is triggered by emotions. The dynamics of life revolves around emotions. Emotions are an integral part of life because human beings are emotional creatures.

Emotions undergoes spiral of changes both positively and negatively. Emotions if not controlled and directed can spiral out of control and emotions spiraled out of control can lead to a life out of control culminating in destiny wreckage. Emotions managed effectively are an invincible force for good. When you habitually talk about negative emotions you feed it and it increases its intensity and grip over your life.

However, when you focus on positive emotions you feed the positive and starve or weaken the corresponding negative emotions; hence the negative emotions lose control over you. Taking absolute responsibility for your life creates a sense of control and this stimulates positive emotions.

Abdicating responsibility for your life or irresponsibility produces negative emotions as life spirals out of control. Mismanaged emotions are a disaster to destiny. You do not need to consult your feelings to determine how to behave or respond in any given moment rather you consult your previously thought-out values based on eternal principles to determine your response to any given event.

Mismanaged emotions are the gateway in indulging our excesses; unbridled passions and impulses. Emotions do not always view with the lens of right and wise choices rather emotions for the most part view life with the lens of how it feels good at the moment. Feeling good rather than thinking right is the predominant pursuit of emotions. Consequently, emotions are not on the truth-quest rather it is on the feeling good at the moment-quest.

Circumstance and events are the thermostat of our emotions; what people did to us; what they said to or about us can trigger negative emotions to invade our minds if we dwell on them. Whenever we ignore or neglect our conscience and indulge in what is wrong or treat people badly without apologizing and choosing to act better in future events, triggers negative emotions. In fact, most times negative emotions perpetuates when there are unresolved issues within us that we refuse to confront and this affects our personality adversely.

What you confront, you will confound. What you hide from torments you. What you run away from catches up with you. What you face and deal with surrenders to you. Until you speak it out, you can’t let it out. Until you let it out, you can’t get out toxic emotions.

Feelings can be distorted and corruptible-a choice can be morally wrong but it may feel right or morally right but it may feel wrong. Therefore, emotions are not dependable source of direction for our actions or choices in life. Emotions should be weighed in the scale of eternal principles and if found wanting should be overridden with wise actions.

Emotionally driven people lose their sense of moderation. And when moderation is lost bondage or slavery sets in. Most times the root of negative emotions are pains and hurts lurking within the recesses of our hearts that we had locked within us from our childhood and growing into adulthood, we think we can move on without confronting these root issues and dealing with them.

Definitely, we can move on but we will never move up and move ahead if these root issues triggering negative emotions are not dealt with or resolved. Throw away your excuse bag; there is no benefit filling it up with excuses. Excuses only excuse you out of the success domain. Your past is a timeframe on the timeline of life that has passed; never revisit it. Your future is a time space on the timeline of life; fill it up with the life that you are committed to lead.

Don’t get stuck in the past; get tough and press forward into the future. We should not live in denial of our emotion and we certainly should not be a slave to our emotions. We should acknowledge, control and redirect negative emotions so that it should not dictate our choices or actions. When we talk through how we feel, we will go through to the other side of victory.

When we talk about how we feel, we will groan through and relive the feelings. When we bottle-up how we feel, we will be a bundle of beaten down case. When negative emotions stirs up within, don’t level down to it rather level up above it by expressing it in the right way.

You can go to your own corner and express how you feel to God and ask Him to help you overcome the negative emotions and make right and wise choices. Let the Holy Spirit be your closest companion through life, He is your Helper; let Him help you through life.

Living a balanced life breeds emotional stability. Living truly is the key that unlocks the door of emotional stability. Never live life controlled by the expectations of others or being desperate for their acceptance and approval, it leads to emotional breakdown. Be validated from within.

Hidden secrets in the heart degenerate into emotional and physical traumatic experiences that could wreck personality and relationships. Exposing the hidden secrets of our hearts in the light of truth; confronting it; dealing with it; and making restitution frees us from emotional baggage that weighs us down in the journey of life.

When you feel an emotional outburst rushing within rush out of the scene and release the “outburst” in the filter of reason and conscience and discard the negatives; get back to act or respond rightly and wisely.

 

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