Emotional Mastery is the ability to exercise control over your emotional state without letting it affect you. For a healthy mind and body, it is of utmost importance to keep a check on our emotions. It is not to say that you do not feel them, but rather that you consciously acknowledge them, embrace them, process them, and let them pass. Our emotions are complex mental states that can change our psychological or physical states. Emotions can be triggered by external or internal stimuli. Emotions are contagious. We must be mindful of not receiving negative emotions like anger, guilt, blame, fear, grief, and sadness or giving out these emotions.
There are six essential steps to emotional mastery.
Step One – Awareness
This simply means being aware of the start of the subtlest (finest) of emotions, which, if left unchecked, will grow into important disturbances. For example, irritation leads to frustration leads to anger leads to rage.
Step Two – Acknowledge
Which means taking responsibility and being true to yourself for the emotion by understanding and acknowledging that I am the creator of the emotion, not someone or something else.
Step three – Acceptance.
Fully accept the presence of the emotion without resisting (opposing) it in any way. If it is resisted it simply becomes stronger or is suppressed for another day. Sitting with it and fully feeling it releases its hold.
Step Four – Ascend
This is the moment of full detachment from both the emotion and the inner source of emotion. In the process of detached observation, the emotion is losing its power. And it is only through detached observation that the emotion will begin to dissolve.
Step Five – Attune
This means returning our attention to the very center of ourselves where our inner peace and power are to be found. This is the purpose of meditation.
Step Six – Tolerance
Tolerance is about having a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, or other aspects differ from our own. While we can tolerate or accept someone without understanding them, true empathy and growth come from seeking to understand others deeply. Tolerance fosters a world where differences are acknowledged, accepted, and respected.
Hurt people hurt other people. If you are hurting, you carry the seed of being hurtful within you. Many times, the victim and the villain are the same person separated in time. When you get hurt and become a victim, you unconsciously choose to perpetuate the same negativity you detest, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The destination of peace can never be reached through the streets of hurt. If you desire peace, you need to let go of anger, hurt, and resentment through non-judgment, forgiveness, and acceptance. Today, let us choose to heal instead of hurting.
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