Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Everyone has an emotional theme that they portray be it depressed, happy, sad or angry, frustrated or excited – which one do you live in the majority of the time?
Do the following exercise for more clarity.
Draw a line down the middle of a blank page.
On the left list all the positive emotions you have felt in the past week.
On the right list all the negative emotions you have felt in the past week.
Have a look at your list is it more than 100, is it between 50 and 100 or more likely is under 20 or even under 10?
Even though there are over 4200 emotional words in the English language we are in the habit of using the same emotions!
Our emotions have many powers over us, for example
The words you attach to your experience become your experience. For example remember the time you were at the dinner table and Mum said get the salt! You said I don’t want to get the salt! She said get the salt! You still said I don’t want to get the salt. You had to though! You go to the cupboard open it up and you don’t see the salt! She comes over and grabs the salt which was right in front of you.
Your eyes see the salt but your mind doesn’t communicate the location to your eyes as it doesn’t want to lie to you. If you keep focusing on what you’re telling yourself you will get that continuously, your mind won’t lie to you.
Why does this matter? The meaning you put on anything gives you an emotion, the emotion you feel determines your quality of life.
What life are you going to choose?