Emotional discipline is a skill that is ripe for allowing you to hone in completely in this emotional life. It is a gracious gift to be fully aware of what you’re feeling, without becoming a slave to it. In mental health, we teach that feelings are not facts. Clients are educated and encouraged to practice recognizing and labeling feelings to increase their own sensations of each one. Over time, this becomes Emotional Intelligence. In yoga, we encourage students to do pretty much the same thing, just using different words and focusing on ‘allowing’ before ‘letting go’. At the end of the day, both philosophies strive towards the same thing; giving you your power back. For now, let’s just pull some juicy tidbits of info into our field of awareness.
Emotional Discipline Is A Skill You Can Expand
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions.
I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
~ Oscar Wilde
Like any skill, your ability to become emotionally self-discipline is equal to the effort that you’re willing to put into the process. So, can you take a moment and notice, REALLY NOTICE, how you’re feeling in this moment? What are the sensations? Are you fond of this feeling or trying to push it away?
What Do Emotions Do?
By in large, emotions enrich our life and enhance our connections with ourselves and the world around us. They allow us to communicate with others in a very efficient way through subtle energy, body language, facial expressions, etc. The thing is, when we become consciously disconnected from our emotions, they run RIOT right along with the ego. While it may be cute to watch a toddler transition from happy, to sad, to perfectly content in a 10-second span, it’s less admirable as we age. In this form, emotions are also less efficient in communicating anything of value. At some point as we grew, we all adopted some form of emotional regulation. From time to time, we serve ouselves best in revisiting how those initial strategies are working out for us. Emotions can be serious or topical, fleeting or lasting, and they run a large spectrum of sensation, functionality, and use. One of the first things that we often observe in bringing our awareness back to our emotions is how some are perfectly in balance with the stimulus that sparked them, and how some are irrationally spiraling out of control.
How Do You Cultivate Emotional Balance?
Understand this, YOU ARE ALLOWED to feel whatever it is that you are feeling. I’m not asking you to deny or resist the natural sensations that you experience. What I am asking you to consider is if it’s worth it to you, to ramp up some of your emotional intelligence skills in order to regulate your life in a more effective way. Could you be more in tune, more self-aware, a little more understanding? Do your emotions commonly convey the truth of what you are feeling, or do they tend to get in your way? Emotional discipline work is a great way to improve your self-regulation and to lighten your emotional load through deepening self-acceptance. So, now that you know, where do you go from here?
6 Easy Ways To Make Gains
- Journal about it.
- Try yoga.
- Meditate.
- Consult with a therapist or life coach.
- Communicate honestly with the people around you.
- Research a little; the more we know, the easier we shift.