In this weeks, MondayMotivator,
- Emotions play a significant role in our lives, influencing how we experience pain and pleasure.
- Radio Psychiatrist David Viscott outlined a cycle of emotional responses to pain: hurt in the present, anger from the past, and anxiety for the future.
- Understanding and harnessing emotions can make them constructive rather than destructive.
Today, more than ever before, it appears everyone wants to experience pleasure and avoid pain. However, pain is unavoidable. It’s how you react to it that you have control over.
Pioneering Radio Psychiatrist David Viscott reduced emotional complexity to a single cycle that repeats in our lives:
- Pain in the present is experienced as hurt
- Pain in the past experienced as anger
- Pain in the future experienced as anxiety
- Unexpressed anger is called guilt.
Lastly, the depletion of energy when anger redirects inward creates depression, an illness which is rampant today.
Some psychologists believe people have two minds, one rational and one emotional. Initially, your emotions guide your thinking and values and often overtake reason. When passion surges, the emotions take over, and they arouse two sensations – pain or pleasure. That is pain through loss and pleasure through gain.
Keep in mind everything you think and, therefore, feel reflects who you are. Simply put, your present emotions are a reflection of how you currently think and feel together with experience.
So, it is possible to harness your emotions and make them work for you. They can be constructive or destructive. Why waste time being angry when laughter will do, or why feel hate when love and kindness will do?
Having both hands on the wheel of your life is possible, and the power of your emotions is the fuel to lead a better life.
This week, think my emotions are powerful tools. I will gain control over them and make them work positively for me to improve my life.