How often do your negative emotions come up because of the behaviour of someone else towards you?
Every day we all face situations, people and even places that evoke within us emotional stress. How do you deal with this?
Because our life experience is mainly formed as a result of our relationships with other people, it is within these interactions that we mainly form our view of the world.
When this view of the world does not make us feel good, wouldn’t you like to know that there is another way?
Sadly, our default mechanism in a busy world can be to lay the blame for our negative emotions at someone else’s door and then carry that resentment within us for the rest of the day (and sometimes longer).
“She never listens to me!”
“My boss never shows me any appreciation of the good work I do”
“If she didn’t interfere in my life/work/relationships, I would be happy!”
AND so on – you can probably add your very own example here too!
WHAT IF your negative emotions were not the fault of someone else’s behaviour?
WHAT IF you had access to complete control over these feelings that obstruct your own well-being?
WHAT IF, the truth is, you are actually ALLOWING this negative emotion into your life?
Let’s look at a nice, warm example, about LOVE, for a moment (so, a positive emotion)
When you send loving thoughts and intentions towards someone – your Father, your Daughter, your partner, even your dog or cat – WHO is actually feeling the love? Yes, your friend/pet/lover would get the benefit of a hug/cuddle/kiss etc but the chemical reaction of ‘love’ comes from you, and is IN you… YOU receive the benefit of your own positive emotions.
So, let’s move this example to a negative emotion (which is always fear-based, whether it be frustration, anger or depression).
Applying the same logic as we did above, you can easily see that the benefactor of your negative, fear-based emotion is YOU yourself. ..
But, I hear you cry, HOW can I put a stop to this feeling of irritation when my daughter answers back, OR my boss ignores my good work:
1) Breathe – deep, conscious breathing as distinct from taking shallow breaths
2) Never make assumptions – we place all sorts of filters around each experience, never really knowing why someone might be behaving the way he/she is
3) Take some learning from the situation for yourself – no experience is wasted experience
4) Take your POWER back – the truth is that by allowing someone to make you feel bad, you are giving away your power to them
5) Send out compassion to the very person who is ‘causing’ you to step out of your own well-being **
6) Breathe
7) Relax!
The magic is in Step 5 – by recognising that you might not understand the motives for someone’s behaviour towards you (AND that you are translating it according to your own previous life experiences) you can send compassion out.
Sprinkle some magic dust of compassion over yourself, the other person and the situation.
Who is feeling that benefit of that compassion? You are!
Step 5 deflates your fear and allows your flow of well-being back in. Just as you deserve it to be, always.
And breathe and relax!
With love
Victoria
I like the simplicity of your aproach. Having a simple procedure is very helpful. We need more compassion in the worksplace and for ourselves. I’ve also written a lot about emotions in the worplace and in the UK a lot of business people dont like to discuss it. But they are happy to disucss being ‘passionate’ about things or being ‘frustrated’ by situations which is in fact the same stuff. Let me know if you are intrested in seeing some of my blogs / articles.