Calming the Mind and Emotions in Three Simple Steps

Nearly everyone loses their cool from time to time.  Let's face it, that's just part of being human.  Stuff happens.  Someone cuts you off in traffic and gives you a scare ...you drop tonights spagetti dinner on the floor after a long day at the office, or ...a computer somewhere screws up your phone bill, and you get bounced around from person to person as you seek to straighten out the mess.  Occassionally, life does get the best of us.  The thing is, when something does trip your trigger, how quickly can you recover?  How long does it take you to return to peace?

In days past, I'm embarrassed to say, emotional turmoil would stay with me like a bear camped out for the winter.  Upset lingered.  Happily, now, that's no longer true for me. 

It takes a lot now to get me going sideways.  World events don't do it, nor do slights, waits, insults or failures.  These situations don't get under my skin anymore, because I've learned one of the great secrets in life ...all upset is born of misperception.

For example, most people would agree that you would be justified in your anger if your live-in boyfriend or girlfriend decided to stay out all night and party till dawn.  "Heck yes," they'd say, "You have every right to be angry at that."

If you look closely, however, you'll find that his or her staying out all night isn't the cause of your upset.  What's upsetting you isn't what he or she did, it's the meaning you give to the event that causes the upset.  In other words, it's not, I'm really angry with you for staying out all night.  It's ...I feel  awful because I really want to feel loved and respected.  When you stay out all night, I feel neither.
 

The reason this distinction is important is that, in statement number one, you're inferring that you'd be happy if your partner wouldn't stay out all night; but that's not true is it?  What you really want is to feel loved and respected.  Thus, being able to communicate that desire is the first step towards manifesting it. 

Before we can communicate our true desires, however, we first have to know what they are.  Unfortunately, as long as we continue to blame other people for our emotional state, we'll never gain that clarity and insight.  We have to learn to ‘stop and pause' when we notice ourselves becoming reactive, so that we can turn the light of our attention inward, and take a peek at what's happening beneath the surface.  Then, once we see the cause of our upset, we can ‘respond' to the situation thoughtfully. 

Calming the mind and emotions, even in the most challenging situations, isn't as hard as you might think.  It's a simple, three-step process.  First you stop and pause ...then you surrender to the moment by admitting that you don't have all the answers  ...and lastly, you make peace with how you're feeling, whether you like the way it feels, or not.  This, by the way, is much more simple than it sounds. 

The first step towards calming the mind and emotions is to stop and pause, for a split second, when you notice your emotional state turning sour.  It takes a bit of will to interrupt your habitual reactions, but ask yourself this ...will yelling, screaming and upset create the loving environment I choose to live in?  Your answer, by the way, isn't important.  Simply asking the question creates a ‘pause' long enough to move on to step two ...admitting that you don't have all the answers.

In your in calm and rational state, it's easy to admit that you don't have all the answers, isn't it?  Let's face it, none of us has all the answers.  When we're upset, however, and our emotions hijack our better senses, we tend to become very arrogant and there's a good reason for that.  The egoic-self is extremely arrogant and it believes that being right is more important than anything else. 

The ego, in fact, would rather be right than happy.  Once the ego judges something, or puts a label on something, it will defend that label with all its might.  This includes, for better or worse, the labels you apply to yourself.  In step two, you're asked to recognize this fact, and put the ego in its place.  Step two is an act of surrender.   You're surrendering your arrogance and the need to be right.  This admission opens the door to step three.

In step three, you make peace with how you're feeling whether you like the way you feel or not.  This is called acceptance.  Acceptance, contrary to popular opinion, doesn't mean you have to feel good about something.  You can, in fact, come to acceptance and continue to feel really angry if you want.  The point is ...you're not trying to change the way you feel; you're simply going to make peace with the fact that you feel this way.  In other words, you're going to tell yourself that it's okay that I feel hurt, angry, annoyed, frustrated, etc.  This is how I feel and I'm not going to make myself right or wrong for feeling the way that I do.

When we learn to accept our feelings as valid and okay, something amazing happens ..they lose their edge.  Yes, you may still feel uncomfortable, sometimes even extremely uncomfortable, but you won't feel the need to defend, attack, blame, justify or change the way you feel.  You'll simply be with the experience and gain the wisdom, understanding and insight it has to offer.  From this place of watchful awareness, you'll begin to see the underlying reasons for your upset, as well as, the means to resolve the situation lovingly. 

It helps to remember this ...there are only two kinds of experiences in life ...those that are easily enjoyed ...and those that offer us an opportunity to learn and grow!

Bob Bloom is the author of the newly released Taming The Tiger of Emotion, A Radical Change of Mind.   The purpose of this book is to induce a radical shift in thinking ...out of the reactive mind, which is rooted in our ancient memories of fear, pain and suffering ...into the creative mind, our direct connection to love, inspiration and unlimited creativity.  

www.TamingTheTiger.us