How to Take Control of your Feelings and Emotions, One Step at a time.
By Matt Perelstein
July, 2008
Follow these 7 Simple (tho’ not Easy) steps to learn to “Deal with” your feelings & emotions, completely, effectively, and beautifully –
1 Awareness that we do Feel, a Lot: Get a Clue about the importance/depth of our feelings and emotions, and fully “get” how huge an impact they have on our daily lives.
2 Knowing our Body: Get in touch with what/how we, as a unique person, Feels, and where/how/even why we carry our feelings, inside of us.
3 Accepting our Feelings: They are good, and clean, and pure, and natural… and the core of Us. Let ‘em be. Let ‘em live. Let ‘em free. Accepting our feelings = Accepting Ourselves!
4 Expression of Feelings: Learning effective and sane ways to express ourselves and our genuine feelings, as deeply as they are felt, in a safe/loving environment, in a way that brings people closer to us, rather than pushing them away.
5 Release pains from the past: We are learning how to process (feel) the very core of our beings, and letting go (changing beliefs about) our unexpressed, negative, painful fears, angers, hurts, and disappointments. If the pain remains, even unconsciously, they will color your existance and leave little room for the positives of life.
6 Replace darkness with light — gloom with bright — hate with love — with power from above. Even, at first, if you have to ‘manufacture’ positive thots and feelings (i.e.-fake it ’til you make it) , they are way more fun than the negative ones.
7 Rejoice and celebrate life! Love, pain, joy, anger, sadness — the whole enchilada. Yes, no pain no gain is true, for awhile, but as you grow, the pains lessen and the gain is Wonderful!!
That’s it. Master these, and you’ll have Total control of how much you Enjoy and Live your life, from then on!
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The 7 Steps to Healing our Feelings
I’ll discuss each one in greater depth.
Remember, the first thing in all learning is AWARENESS.
“Awareness is the first key to Change.”
If we don’t know, we can’t make choices.
If we don’t know, we are a victim of ourselves, and to those who do.
If we don’t know, we can’t change.
If we don’t know, we can’t grow.
If our relationships aren’t working, let’s find out why.
If we repeat the same patterns over and over, learn what’s behind all that.
If we’re unhappy, let’s learn how to find & release the Joy in our hearts.
If we don’t have enough love in our life, know that still, there’s Hope.
“We came to realize that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.“
- Bill W. step 2 of 12.
Remember, we are Personally Responsible for our Lives.
If we don’t know, we find out.
If it ain’t working, we can fix it.
If we feel that our lives are out of control emotionally, we can change it.
We finally realize that we can’t do it alone.
We connect with others, give what we can and ask for help.
“Only as high as I reach can I grow,
Only as far as I seek can I go,
Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be.”
- Karen Ravn
Step 1: Awareness that we do Feel, a Lot
What are you feeling right now? (stop reading for a sec, close your eyes and just notice what your body is feeling right now…. ready? go. Close ‘em and listen to your heart for a moment.)
Were you able to identify some things about how you currently feel?
We never STOP feeling, ever.
Even while sound asleep, our body constantly feels.
However, we are only AWARE of our feelings when we choose to be (notice them), or
when they get really BIG and kinda take over our body (sometimes called “issues” or “drama” or “free expression” or “freaking out”).
The problem is that until we are AWARE of what we feel, and how strongly we feel it, we can’t really DO anything with our feelings. We are powerless.
Doc says: “We can only make Decisions about that which we are consciously aware of.”
So, as you go thru your day today NOTICE how you feel. You don’t even have to stop what you are doing… just be aware of your pain, or happiness, heaviness, or lightness, laughter, or wanting to cry.
Just Notice your body today… and we’ll talk about Step 2 next… Knowing what we feel.
Step 2. Knowing our Body
This is about identification of Feelings.
It’s time to put a Name to the Feelings we feel. Is it Sadness or Joy, Guilt or Anger, Fear or Love?
Below is a chart of different Feelings to help you identify them.
It’s very important that we learn to Identify what it is that we are feeling, so we can
Do something with each feeling.
Can we feel more than one feeling at a time? Definitely.
Is it important to be able to Separate the feelings and deal with them one at a time? Yes!
Does identification help relieve negative feelings, in favor of positive ones? You bet.
(link to Feelings chart here)
Step 3. Accepting our Feelings
Have you ever said “I’m not angry, just hurt?”
or how about “I’m Ok”, when you aren’t?
Do you find yourself saying “Yes” when you mean “No”, or “No” when you mean
“Yes”?
These are about not Accepting your own feelings.
If we can ACCEPT that we are Angry, and Accept that we are hurt or sad, and Accept
if we don’t feel safe, or cared for, or ready, then we have sooo many Choices (and
choices are good!)
It’s OK to feel Anger.
It’s OK to be Sad.
It’s OK to be disappointed.
It’s OK to feel unloved.
If our body feels it, it feels it. period. (in class, I tell a kinda gross analogy here — that it’s like going to be bathroom. When you body needs to go, do you agonize over it, deny it, justify it, try to find the root cause it, stuff it, blame it or otherwise put way more energy on it than necessary? probably not. When we feel we need to Go, we find a safe, clean place where it is Ok to “express” our bodily functions, and we let
them go easily and naturally… and it’s done. However, with our emotional feelings, we get all weird about them because we were often taught, as children, that feelings are Bad or not acceptable.)
So please, ACCEPT that your body feels what it feels (and yes ladies, even Anger).
Accepting your feelings means accepting yourself, who you are, and what’s important to you!
Step 4. Expression of Feelings
Doc says,
“Feelings expressed as deeply as they are felt, will REDUCE in intensity and are free to change”.
Our feelings can get ‘stuck’ in our body, and must be Expressed fully, in order to be
released.
Once we know what we feel, it’s important to Allow and Express our feelings, so they
can be released and replaced.
We don’t get in trouble for feeeeeeeling angry, we, we get in trouble for what we doooooo with our anger. When we choose to Express our anger in unproductive, yucky ways.
Expressing ourselves does NOT mean that we spew our opinions and judgments all over, nor throw our Anger or Boredom or Irritation around unchecked. It’s about “Fully Expressing” ourselves in a way that is
cleansing, life-enhancing, love-blossoming, peace-creating Expression. On of our biggest challenges in life, imho, is to find ways to Express our Feelings, as deeply as they are felt, in a way that brings people closer to us, rather than pushing people away.
Step 5. Release pains from the past
Feel ‘em and Let ‘em Go!
You don’t need to hang on to them anymore!
Whatever they are Protecting inside of us, we can grow PAST them and find other
ways of Protecting ourselves. (yep, that’s what they hang around for… to Protect
you and to Remind you)
MOST people we help in class… I ask, “Are you holding onto it, or is it holding on to
you?”… most answer… “I’m holding on to it”
Look in your belly, that seems to be where many of our feelings lie.
If you have long-term Negative Feelings hanging around inside your body – ask
yourself:
• What are they for?
• What are you to Learn from them?
• Why would I Need them?
• Why am I hanging on to these?
The answers will probably surprise you.
Step 6: Replace darkness with light
They’re dark. They’re ugly. and they drag us down…
and we know that we gotta feel ‘em to heal ‘em.
sooo, we become aware of them,
we feel them, and we let ‘em go.
but we’re not done yet…
It’s kinda bizarre how it works, but once the negative feelings are released (like via
crying, raging, depressing or NLPing), there’s a hole that is left. The negative
feelings actually take up some kind of space inside our bodies (again, often in
our belly, but also in our chest, shoulders, neck, lower back, hands, feet and/or
forehead). Maybe it’s our spirit that holds them rather than our body… I’m not sure… but somehow they do get lodged inside of us, and can cause major dis-ease (disease).
I think it’s our spirit that holds them first (esp. from childhood), but if our spirit
doesn’t heal them and release them, they start showing up in our bodies… as
physical manifestations of emotional pain (not good).
Regardless where they reside, once the negatives are released, there will be a SPACE…
which you can choose to fill however you wish (Yeehaa!). If you do nothing with this Space, the old, familiar, protective feelings will likely return.
So it’s important that we fill that space with something new… something better… something cleaner and brighter and life-enhancing.
• Fill up with good feelings
• Fill up with love from other people
• Fill up with love for yourself
• Fill up with a color, any color, that makes you feel good
• Fill up with love from your Higher Power
• Fill up with the good parts of YOU
Assignment: Notice inside of you, how your internal space is filled. Do you carry around a lot of Hurt, Anger, Sadness and/or Guilt? If so, notice the SPACE that these feelings take up inside you. How big are they? Where do you carry them?
Now, imagine what this space COULD be filled with — Love, Joy, Appreciation and Peace. KICK OUT the negative feelings (which we call ‘Processing’) and your body, and it’s negative emotions, are magically free to change.
Step 7: Rejoice and celebrate life!
What if emotional pain was not that bigga deal?
What if we could face our very worst fears, head on, and beat them?
What if nothing could get us Angry enough to blow up, ever, unless we allowed it to?
What if we were TOTALLY in control of our Feelings & Emotions?
and were no longer a Victim of ourselves?
How Wonderful that would be!
How Freeing that would be!
How Peaceful that woud be!
How ALIVE we could feel!
There is hope and there is life out there — or more accurately — IN THERE.
Learn more about how to effectively Take Control of Your Feelings & Emotions and
your life will be within your control, forever!
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