Dana Gatto
Negative emotion can make you believe things are worse than they are. It can give you the flawed perspective that things are terrible. It can lead you to believe all kinds of negative things are happening and will continue to happen.
This makes sense , doesn’t it? Because feeling negative emotion means all you can see is negative!
Hear that!
It is not the actual situation. It is not the event. It is the EMOTION. You are looking through a filter of negative emotion. Picture a pair of glasses. One pair might be sad, one might be angry, one might be enthusiastic, etc..
You can look at something like snow and if you were already stuck in a negative emotional state (wearing annoyed glasses for example) you might see dread, cold, traffic, work (because now you have to shovel), etc. If you were in a good mood (wearing cheerful glasses) you might see how the sun glitters off the snow, an opportunity for fun (snowball fights or building a snowman with your kids), a beautiful covering over the bare trees and ground, brightness, etc.
It wasn’t the snow that created the emotion. It was the emotion.
Happy people tend to be happy in most situations, and interestingly they have more good things happen to them. They find better solutions. They have more “luck.” And it keeps going round.
Depressed people tend to be depressed in most situations, angry people tend to be angry in most situations. And not surprisingly they tend to have bad “luck” and more problems. Well that makes sense given that you create your reality through your thought! Because depressed people have depressed thoughts!
Which emotion do you tend to come back to? If you think about it, it isn’t the situations that bring about the emotion. It is that you find a way to get back to your most practiced emotion no matter what. You find an excuse. You find a suitable topic. You find a story you have been telling for years. You look for evidence to support your practiced emotion and why you have the right to be there whether it brings you towards what you want or do not want.
Well this is interesting. If our emotional state is a result of practice, a result of staying there too long and not using it as momentary guidance, something we allow to be triggered doesn’t that mean we could practice positive emotions and allow this to be our most natural state?
WHY YES IT DOES!!
Next time you start telling a story that brings you down, stop. Next time you turn on a movie that makes you cry, stop. Next time you start debating topics that make you angry, stop. Next time you go to turn on the evening news, stop. Ask yourself why you are doing things that keep you in a state that does not feel good.
You are meant to spend most of your time in a positive emotional place living life on YOUR terms. Take the power back by taking control of how you feel.
Do more things that are fun. Tell more happy stories. Watch more comedies. Listen to better music. Turn off the news. Make lists of all the great things you have done. Write a bucket list. Play!
JUST GET HAPPY!!! And keep practicing.
