You Can Choose Your Emotional State

Years ago I arranged to be interviewed on a podcast about my newly released novel, Flying Lessons. I was in the height of my anxiety at the time and before the interview I started freaking out. I considered calling the host and cancelling because I felt so terrible. I was pacing the living room floor wondering what I would do about this horrible situation that I’d put myself in when I remembered a quote I’d read once by Fritz Perls.

“Fear is excitement without the breath.”
―Fritz Perls

Thinking of that quote I started breathing deeply as I paced. This breathing calmed me enough before the interview to be able to answer all of the questions the host asked me without freaking out completely. I set that incident aside in my memory and went back to living my anxiety ridden life.

Later I started getting severe headaches and eye pain that made it hard for me to function. I have a tumor on my pituitary gland called a prolactinoma. A prolactinoma is a hormone secreting tumor on the pea-sized gland that sits just behind the eyes and beneath the brain. There is not a lot of space in that area of your skull and as luck would have it, my tumor seemed to swell up when it was bathed for long periods of time in the stress hormone cortisol. All of my worrying was making my tumor swell and press on the optic nerve of my right eye.

I talk a lot about the value of meditation and mindfulness to help ease anxiety, but there is another concept that really helped me get a handle on my anxiety and the sadness that used to plague me.

Everyday of our lives is made up with a series of choices. We make choices all the time. We chose to get up on time or hit the snooze button for a few more minutes of sleep. We chose what to eat for breakfast, what to wear for the day, and how we spend our time.

We also make other choices that we don’t necessarily think of as choices at all. We choose to get frustrated in traffic on the way to work. We choose to be angry with a coworker. We choose to feel happy about a friend’s successes.

Many people treat emotions as if they just happen to them. We say things like that made me mad or you make me so happy, but have you ever considered that the real source of your emotions is you? You have the power to make yourself happy, angry, or sad.

Tony Robbins talks about a triad of emotions:

• Physiology
• Focus
• Meaning we give events

What happens to your body when you feel sad? Where are your shoulders? How is your breathing? What are you thinking about? When they are unhappy most people collapse in on themselves. Their shoulders come forward. They slump. Their head goes down. Their breathing becomes shallow.

When you are happy the opposite happens to your body. Your shoulders are back. You breathe more deeply. Your head is up. You think about positive things.

Our physiology (what you do with your body), our focus, and the meaning we give things controls our emotional state. Once you realize this and are able to tap into that power you can experience your life in a whole new way. You will no longer be the victim of your emotions. You’ll be able to tap into an appropriate state to help you get more done in life.

Many of our emotional reactions to events in our daily lives are habits. We’ve always reacted a certain way so without thinking we react that way again. But what would happen if you broke that cycle and reacted in a new way? How would that change your life?

Think of all the emotions you experience in a week. Which of those emotions do you feel like you spend the most time in? As humans we experience a wide variety of emotions. There is a time and place for every emotion and I certainly don’t believe in suppressing negative emotions and pretending everything is great when it is not, but if you are spending most of your time in a negative emotion something has got to change. It has to change for your well-being and the well-being of the people around you.

It took a health problem for me to realize that I needed to figure out how to make some kind of change in my life. It took a health crisis to make me say enough is a enough and start a series of experiments to get control over what was happening to me. Don’t wait for a similar situation to happen to you before you decide to make a change.

Everyday we make choices in our lives. Some are oblivious and some are not so obvious. So before you react to something that didn’t quite go the way it should. Before you choose to take the well worn emotion path in a particular situation. Take a few deep breaths and choose your actions and emotions wisely.

If you missed last week’s episode of Imagine the Possibilities you can find it here.