I agree with Gary Sherman that managing your emotional
state is essential for good mental health.
We all become reactive at times. Each of us has a unique
set of issues, statements, and behaviors that move us into
reaction. Reactivity has a whole range of behaviors
that includes anger, sadness, emotional pain, physical
pain, and fear. A situation that makes one person feel hurt
might make another person turn mean. A third person may even
respond to the same experience with compassion. The different
reactions are due to our innate uniqueness and the
conditioning we received through our parenting and
cultural influences.
Helen Keller and a few other conscious people have made
statements like "We do not see things as they are. We see things
as we are." The message is that everything we experience
reflects our inner selves.
It is my belief that good psychological health is
based on how we handle our reactivity. In fact, our
reactivity is the primary way we can gauge our level
of mental health and emotional maturity. The more
often and the greater your reactivity, the less emotionally
mature you are. The key is to know under what
circumstances you are reactive and to start using your
awareness to collect information to manage your
emotional state, because it is the responsibility of each of
us to manage our own emotional state.
Many of us, at times, try to manage and control the
people around us rather than accepting our responsibility to
manage our own emotional state. There are times when we
do need to confront the behavior of another, such as the
alcoholic, the abuser, and the thief. At these times, if we
confront the other person with clarity and without undue intensity,
we are managing our reactivity and emotional state.
You can use your clarity and emotional intensity as your guide
to measuring the appropriateness of your response.
These sessions will allow you to look at your emotional state, take
responsibility for it, and learn techniques that you can use
to reduce your reactivity, so you can behave in
a responsible manner, even during times of stress and fatigue. You
are your emotional state and it's your job to manage it
wisely. This does not mean that you
repress or suppress your feelings. All of us must
learn to be fully engaged with our feelings and
express them appropriately.
It is my belief that all feelings arise from an
initial surge of energy from a life situation. Then,
our internal conditioning, through thoughts, and images
and beliefs, comes into play with that energy to
produce the emotion. As you learn to be aware of the
energetic fields in your body and how you influence
them through thoughts, beliefs, and images, you can
start the process of learning to manage your emotional
state.
|