Last week we spoke about Mastering your emotions. This is a critical skill to leading a happier, more fulfilling life. Your emotions are here to serve you. They act as markers for you to listen to what is going on, to show you that you need to take care of yourself, to warn you of potential danger. They are very useful if you use them as you should. To do this you need to master your emotions and allow yourself to process them as they come up.
Too many people become Masters of ignoring, quashing or vomiting all over the first person who turns up at their worst instead of….Stopping, listening, asking themselves, what am I feeling, where is this coming from? do I need space or time? Living with your head in the sand has to stop people!
If you did not read the first part ‘Mastering your Emotions Pt 1,’ then please do so by going here. Otherwise you are literally only getting half of the picture.
Here is the third tip on how to gain Mastery of your Emotions.
3) Get Curious About What You Can Learn
Getting curious helps you master your emotion, solve the challenge, and prevent the same problem from occurring in the future.
Here’s some Empowering Questions to find the empowering meaning in any negative emotion or situation:
- a) What else could this mean?
- b) What can I learn from this?
- c) How do I want to feel?
- d) What would I have to believe to feel that way right now?
- e) What am I willing to do about it right now?
4) Get Confident
The fastest, simplest, and most powerful way to handle any emotion is to remember a time when you felt a similar emotion and realise that you’ve successfully handled this emotion before.
If you handled it in the past, you can handle it again today.
Ask yourself, “What did I do back then to deal with this emotion?”
If you do the same things, you will get similar results.
5) Look for evidence of your own past success
Again, you want to remember the ways you’ve handled this emotion in the past, and rehearse handling situations where this Action Signal would come up in the future.
Ask yourself, “What are 3-4 ways I could change my perception when an Action Signal comes up?”
Here’s a few suggestions:
To change your perception, ask yourself, “What else could this mean?” or “What’s great about this?”
Another great question may be, “What can I do now to feel the way I want?”
At first your brain might say, “NOTHING!” But if you push yourself and keep asking, you will come up with an answer.
A powerful thing I did when I used to become anxious about presenting to a group would be to acknowledge the butterflies in my stomach (that felt like ostriches), and say “how exciting is this???” This would help me take myself from a place of fear to a more anticipatory and excited outlook. After all it’s not about me, it’s about how I can help others.
6) Take Action
The final step is to get excited of the fact that you can easily handle this emotion and take some action right away to prove that you’ve handled it.
And when is the best time to handle an emotion? When you first begin to feel it!
You want to hug and handle this monster while it’s little.
Obviously, to know how to master your emotions takes practice. The more that you use these steps to emotional mastery, the better you will get at mastering your emotions.
Until next time, Care, Connect and be a Courageous Communicator. Let’s change the world we live in one conversation at a time.
