“There is nothing you can do about a present negative emotion you feel; emotions are simply the result of holding on to negative thoughts.” ~Yogi Kanna

Do you get frustrated when you struggle to keep certain emotions in check?  Maybe you struggle with anger, sadness, anxiety, or some other type of emotion.  For me, my biggest struggle is with patience.  Even though I remind myself to be patient regularly, I still struggle with maintaining patience.  If you’re anything like me, you know that it’s just so hard to keep emotions under control at times, and when they do get the best of us, we certainly don’t feel good about ourselves.

If I want to play the blame game, I can pin my emotional volatility problems onto my genetics.  I can just look at my lineage and have all the evidence I need to support the fact that I struggle to keep my emotions in check sometimes.  Unfortunately, genetics can only do so much.  As much as we’d like to blame our DNA, we do have the ability to control our emotions.  We can’t simply chalk it up to our genetic makeup, and we certainly can’t just look at our lineage and excuse ourselves from keeping our emotions in check.

So here we are at the “easier said than done” part of the discussion.  Sure, it’s easy to say we have the ability to control our emotions, but it is hard to do it, or even to know where to start.

One thing I have found particularly helpful, and I want to share it with you today, is moving from what I call the “head space” into the “heart space.”  In other words, we have to move from thinking and move toward loving.

Let me explain.  When I lose patience, it’s because I am thinking about how I want things “to be.”  The lack of patience comes from knowing how I want things “to be,” but knowing things “aren’t” what I want them “to be.”  This sort of “inner conflict” that arises because I am thinking about how things are not what I want them “to be” is the source of my negative emotion.  You could extend this line of thinking to really any sort of emotion, like anger, frustration, sadness or anxiety.

If we can get to a place where we accept things as they are, realizing that we can’t change what got us to “now,” it will help.  Just move your focus from “thinking” about how things aren’t how you want them “to be” with your head and move “down” into your heart and just fill that space with warmth and love.  

Understand that things are as they are.  Things will be as they will be.  Come to peace with what “is.”  All the events in the universe have transpired to get us to where we are now.  To “fight” against “what is” is like fighting against the universe.  You are going against the flow.  What “is” simply “is.”  We can’t change what “is.”

Just continue to surround what “is” with that warm and loving feeling that comes from the heart.  Don’t judge anything as good or bad.  Come to peace with it.  Accept it.  You can’t change it.  You can only influence what is yet to come.

Next, ask yourself what you can do in a loving way to resolve the thought.  If you can’t find an answer, then ask yourself if it’s better to move forward in love or cling to what you want things “to be.”  I am confident that if you continue to fill your heart with love, the emotion which was a cause of discomfort within will eventually soften and transition to feelings of love and warmth.

The next step, if you want to go to that next level, is to engage in meditation, to continue to return to those feelings of love.

This has done wonders for me, and I hope it helps you to help keep your emotions in check.  Give it a try, and please let me know what you thought about it.  I’d love to hear from you!

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/svilen001