Emotional Mastery

[Eli]

Hi everyone, 

I watched how to master your emotions as well as how to deal with strong negative emotions and there's something that's very confusing there.

In one video Leo's message is: be aware of the thought that you're having about whatever is happening and notice how that thought is what creates the emotion and he calls that a filter and says that we shouldn't have a lazy interpretation of things but rather a positive one even when the situation is not so good, so bottom line: take an active role.

In the second video Leo says that we should just sit down with the emotion and let it be and allow ourselves to feel it without resisting it, which is a completely passive role here that he's asking us to take.

Now here's my question: which attitude do you need to have? Do you sit down and feel the hurt and not control it and don't resist it or do you go ahead and change what you're thinking about the whole situation so you feel better about it? In other words do you need to be active or passive to master your emotions? 

[Saarah]

@Eli I think it's important to do both, the thing about the conducting the emotions one, is that it's about ensuring you don't resist emotions or pretend they're not there, from that place is when you can start thinking more positive thoughts, so both methods can work together to reach the same end goal, I'd say the positive thinking one is a lower level advice compared to the conducting emotions one, but i think they can also be used for different situations. The conducting emotions one is for strong feelings that you can't just change up, whereas thinking positive is for smaller emotions, compare the situation for example where someone cut you off in traffic and to top it off there's a massive queue and you're so mad, that situation would be useful to do the positive thinking method whereby you'd say to yourself, "at least I have time to listen to this podcast now" etc.

Whereas if you had strong emotions and we're dealing with something much larger like a breakup, I'd say first you allow all your feelings to come through, sit with them, be mindful of them which is the 'passive' approach, as Alan Watts says "there are no wrong feelings" it's about making sure you don't bottle them up, but once you'd conducted and accepted your emotions, you'd then be able to move on from that place to start taking positive action in your thinking like "I have so much free time now, I get to go out and meet new people" etc. 

There are many things that may seem contradictory or unable to work together with all the videos sometimes, but they do actually work together as life is like that and issues often exist at multiple levels and dimensions, see any piece of advice of Leo's that is at loggerheads as tackling two different dimensions of the same problem 

hope that helps! 

[Pav]

Your thoughts and emotions are very interconnected. You thoughts which arise automatically. They've found that people who are depressed will constantly think distorted thoughts. This could involve constantly making negative judgements of their own character and/or of others; constantly putting themselves down, even when they only made an insignificant mistake they may greatly exaggerate the implications, they may turn a complete non-issue into a disaster though distorted thinking; ignoring the positives in themselves/others/life or even managing to turn them into negatives; it may also include a depressive or nihilistic outlook of life/existence overall. 

Cognitive-Behavioural therapy is the most successful treatment for depression available. It basically involves (1) noticing when an automatic distorted though appears, and (2) countering that thought with one that is realistic. Overtime (a few months or even weeks), their automatic thoughts will become much more realistic.

This is an instance where changing your thoughts is highly beneficial and necessary; when they only involve unrealistic judgements. 

At the same time you must accept the way you are feeling completely; zero resistance to your emotions. If you have a neurosis you can take steps to solve it but you must accept that it is that you are feeling that way. You cannot repress one emotion without repressing them all. Bottling up your emotions is never a good thing, they will always be their and repression will only make them worse. You must face your neurosis head on and work to solve them legitimately, while completely accepting that they are there without providing any resistance.

Depression is a case where that emotion is caused by an obvious distortion. There will be many times when feeling sad emotions is entirely legitimate and healthy, ie it is healthy to be mournful when a loved one dies or to feel remorse when you've wronged someone. Completely feeling into these emotions can be a form of healing, you may gain some insight. Emotions are often you subconscious trying to tell you something.

With enough acceptance of your emotions, you will come to a stage where sad emotions are no longer perceived as being negative. You can still be happy even while feeling down.

[Elton]

@Eli nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Which means that from the time we are living we are labelling emotions good or bad and thus when we experience it we feel good or bad.if you do the exercise Leo mentioned in the master your emotions you will notice that your moods will change temporarily but as soon as you stop you will realise that those emotions will come back because of years and years of conditioning.when you are passive about the emotions you would want to practice feeling it completely without any judgements be mindfull of the negative conversation in your mind while feeling the emotions and just surrender to it because thats the only thing you can do to a emotion. Resistance causes pain let go of resistance. However if you want to deal with emotional issues then practice meditation. And perhaps enlightenment I don't know much about enlightenment.