Mastering The Power of Your Emotions

How to Control What Happens In You Irrespective of What Happens To You

Elisha Ogbonna

• Editorial: Rustik Haws LLC
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781649341068
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Personal Development
• Categoría: Self Improvement

Every day of our lives, we are face with situations that could bring to us joy or sadness, love or hatred, fear or confidence. Every events and obstacles of the world around us aims at taking hold of our emotions to influence our feeling and actions. Emotions are at the centre of everything we do. If you can control your emotions, you can control your life. But as straightforward as this sound, most people are not the masters of their emotions. This is evident by the epidemic of depression, anxiety, suicides, violence, and broken relationships in today's society.

In Mastering the Power of Your Emotions, you will be presented with an instructive map of the emotional landscapes so many of us are forced to navigate. Furthermore, the five Laws of Emotions; how to handle rejection, abandonment, depression, and grief; and how to release and replace negative emotions with positive ones.

Chapter One:

The Five Most Distressing Emotions

Every one of us is emotionally wired to be happy or sad. Our individual desires move us to pursue things that we believe will give us pleasure or joy. Everything we do in this life is either influenced by our emotions or will. The pursuit of happiness and satisfaction is everyone’s goal. This is evident when we move from one city to another, one job to another or one career to another. It is all about happiness and fulfillment. Whatever we have acquired or look forward to acquiring—house, furniture, car, education, or business success—is connected to our desires. We work hard and make smart decisions to get what we believe will meet our needs, goals, desires, and dreams.

What is the bottom line for all our toil and labor under the sun? It is in my opinion to be happy and find some level of satisfaction. When we achieve our goals, we are happy, and with good feeling from our accomplishment, we are often motivated to accomplish more. Positive emotions—enthusiasm, anticipation, hope, or joy—are uplifting and charming. We love and want them. We love it when things are going well on our terms. It is true for every human.

However, emotions are like day and night and the seasons of nature. Daytime comes and makes way for the night at sunset. Likewise, nighttime makes way for the day at dawn. Regardless of how much we love summer, when the time comes, winter must show up. Similarly, positive emotions are good, and we desire to hold on to them with a tight fist, but the time usually comes when they disappear. They disappear when we face challenges, meet obstacles, or are rejected. While it is great not to experience rejection, failure, or loss, it is impossible to escape them as long as we are alive, have family, or meet people. The ups and downs of life are inevitable. At one point or another, they will definitely find their way into our life to stir our emotions for actions.

When our desire hits a roadblock, we may experience anger. When we believe something negative is going to happen, we are likely to experience fear. Whereas most negative emotions are not bad but their effects can be distressing. Distressing emotions can be damaging when their energies are not harnessed properly. This is especially true when we are distressed and one of these damaging negative emotions steer us into destructive actions. Such negative emotions can be powerful enough to compel and propel us to make choices that could hurt ourselves or someone else.

The emotion of fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, and grief are the top five most distressing emotions. It is important that we learn about these negative emotions and gain a thorough understanding of how to master them in order to protect and grow our relationships at home, work, and in our community. We cannot wish negative feelings away by assuming that there is nothing we can do about our feelings. If we do, we hand our life and destiny over to feelings that would ultimately ruin them. The good news is that while we cannot control how we feel, we can control what we do, regardless of how bad we feel. Also, we can reduce or eliminate the impact of negative feelings regardless of the height or breadth of their influence. We can achieve more, develop great interpersonal skills, and ultimately carry out our daily duties with a heart free of hate and bitterness. The following are the five most distressing emotions everyone should watch out for.

The Emotion of Fear

Fear is the feeling of anxiety and agitation caused by the presence or imminence of danger. It is the feeling of disquiet and/or apprehension that causes a person to dread or be uneasy about what will happen next. Other words that could be used to describe fear are panic, terror, horror, alarm, dismay, fright, dread, and so on.

The emotion of fear is distressing and is associated with feeling alarmed, which may be for real or imaginary reasons. When we feel threatened by imminent danger, we become uneasy until our sense of security is restored.

The only healthy form of fear is a reverential awe, such as the one that a person might feel for God. Otherwise, fear in every other sense is a destroyer.

Many fears come naturally, and it is common to be afraid of things that we perceive as threatening or dangerous. From birth to adulthood, human life is characterized by fear every step of the way. For example, a newborn baby has two instinctive fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. When young children hold on to their parents’ clothing and refuse to let go, they are displaying that they feel safer with their parents. In their young minds, they are afraid of the unfamiliar and what could possibly hurt them.

When parents play with their toddlers and encourage them to walk on their own, children sometimes sit down in fear. But as soon as they become aware that there is support and that their parents will protect them from falling, they gain the confidence to keep trying. In order for toddlers to learn to walk, they must conquer the fear of falling. They achieve this through confidence and practice.

Loud noises are the second instinctive fear experienced by babies. It makes them uneasy and uncomfortable. They experience shock and sometimes will begin to cry. This is the way that babies, toddlers, and young children reveal their feelings of fear. As they grow up and begin to see and understand the sources of the noise, their perceptions change, and they become less fearful.

For adults, there are seven fundamental fears that we usually face at least once in our lives, and sometimes even every day. They include fear of criticism, fear of rejection,1 fear of loss (either of a loved one or the things we love most), fear of poverty, fear of sickness, fear of old age, and fear of death.

When fear is at work in our life, it enslaves us by blinding us to opportunities that surround us. It directs all our attention and thinking towards failure. Every opportunity that comes by will, in our perception, can be seen as a potential pitfall because it makes us dwell on the past failures.

Fear is a dangerous and devastating emotion. It is the complete opposite of faith. If faith can facilitate the healing of the sick, fear can gradually take them on a journey to their grave. People of great faith do great things, and people with great fear achieve nothing in life. One the one hand, faith makes people great, while on the other hand, fear makes people inadequate. Fear can torment the human spirit, soul, and body. Fear also gives birth to anxiety, and anxiety kills. Fear does not care about one’s age or status. It is the destroyer of destiny. It can make the strongest humans become the weakest.

When you overcome fear, new facts emerge because your spirit will grow. Just like a baby who has conquered the fear of falling when they took the risk to stand and walk, we can also conquer our fears by taking risks, thereby making it easier to get rid of similar fears in the future and becoming even stronger to face greater fears. Risk is what human nature hates, but where we are today is the product of risk. Everything around us that science and technology has achieved are products of risk. The biological research that gives birth to vaccines, pills, and other medical treatments is in one way or the other a result of risk. We fear risk and are oftentimes afraid of such challenges, but when we don’t take risks, we fail. We need to conquer our fears to succeed in life. To conquer fear, we must all operate with the principle of faith—that is, we must believe and trust that something good will happen regardless of the threatening circumstances.

The key to managing our fears is to understand what we are afraid of and why we are afraid of it, and to explore available options to achieve what we want. Some of the options may be to persevere or retreat, but not to surrender. When we take a moment to pause and think about our fears, we often begin to see solutions to our problems. For example, I remembered that at my current workplace, I was late for the interview while I had planned to be a least thirty minutes early. My wife took my car and went for shopping. When she came back, I had already lost fifteen minutes of the planned schedule, but that was not too bad. I met heavy traffic on the way and the traffic jam caused me to be late for my job interview. I was filled with fear that I would lose that job opportunity.

My emotions were running high, and I was thrown into deep confusion. While sitting in the car at a traffic signal, I remembered that I had two options. First option was to turn back and go home, and the second option was to drive to the company and apologize to the interviewer for being late. I chose the second option and by choosing that option, I persevered and chose to face my fear. Then came the light, and like a flash it said, “Call the receptionist.” I called and told the receptionist about the situation and that I will be ten to fifteen minutes late for the interview. The receptionist told me that she would pass the information to the interviewer.

Upon arrival at the company, I met with the receptionist and explained her the whole situation and for being late for the interview. She called the interviewers and let them know that I had arrived. They came over, and I repeated the same thing what I’d told the receptionist on phone. They confirmed getting my message and would proceed with the interview. I had the interview and got hired. I am in no way promoting lateness, but this example serves as a lesson for anyone who feels knocked down by the unforeseen circumstances and has been filled with fear that the worst would happen. Pick up yourself from where you have fallen, encourage yourself, and try again. Keep the motion on, and it will let fears and anxiety get out of your way.

There is no reason for fear and you just need to take a step. Success and failure, riches and poverty, health and sickness, acceptance and rejection, and even life and death are two roads that goes in different directions. If you want one, you must refuse the other. You cannot be going in both directions at the same time. It is your duty to know what you want in life, and identify the road that will take you there.

When it comes to the fear of death, I would advise that we should take the example of ant’s life. In case you feel a lesson from ants is not comparable, let us consider the life of a farmer. Farming is the activity of growing crops and or raising livestock, that holds great lesson for us. The various steps for growing crops include loosening the soil, seeding, special watering, transplanting, and harvesting, among others. All these activities are carried out in good faith. Farmers should not worry about the harvest, but they carry out their farming activities as required. They spend time and resources to follow all steps of agricultural practices, including preparation of soil, sowing, adding manure and fertilizers, and irrigation. Once the crop is ready and it is time for harvesting, they perform harvesting and store the crop. And after harvest, some crops may be stored for themselves and the remaining is sold to the traders.

Do farmers worry about losing all their crops due to drought, flood, birds, or pests? Does it stop them from farming? Of course, not! Why would you worry about the unknown? Why would you terrorize yourself with something that may never happen soon? Why die before the actual death? The fear of death cannot change human beings’ destiny. It rather keeps its victims dying and may claim their lives before time. It is not a solution, but remains a problem. Farmers do not declare drought or famine before they actually happen. They are mostly optimistic, even when the weather does not look favourable.

Optimism keeps farmers and dreamers going. They persevere even in the midst of the storm. You can look at the bright side of life and worry less about ...