What are emotions for

We all Have emotions. We all feel them at any given moment.

But what are emotions for?

What’s the purpose of feeling them?

Emotions are there so for us to pay attention to them.

And the way to do that is to imagine that inside you have a thermometer to measure the temperature of your emotions.

This thermometer is exactly like the ordinary thermometer, the one that measures the temperature of your body.

So you put this “thermometer” in your body at the place you feel your emotions. In my case, it’s the stomach. This is where I feel my emotions.

For some people, it’s in the middle of the chest, in the heart area. So you put your thermometer where you feel your emotions. And only you actually know your neutral emotional temperature.

That is when the temperature of your emotions is okay. And when you notice that the temperature is going up a little bit.

When it gets to the point where you are feeling uncomfortable.

That’s when:

You stop.
You pay attention.
And take action.

Perhaps you can ask yourself

“What can I do differently to drop my temperature of this particular emotion back to neutral”?

So, for example, you are having a bad day. You notice that the temperature of your frustration is getting higher. And as the day goes on, it gets higher and higher until you are uncomfortable.

So that’s when you stop and take action.

You ask yourself what you can do differently so the temperature of my frustration drops to my neutral.

Which then links very well to the second question:

“Can I get rid of negative emotions”?

No!

Emotions, even though they are negative, are not a problem. They come and go like any other emotion.

They become a problem, however, when you choose to ignore them.

So, for example, let’s take your frustration. The day goes on, you get frustrated, then even more so and you are very uncomfortable.

And then you choose to ignore the frustration and do nothing. You don’t take action. And when you don’t take action, you lose control.

So paying attention to your emotions means having self-control.

So, which is the challenge for this week? Practice self-control by paying attention to your emotional thermometer.

The minute you feel uncomfortable, when you feel that the temperature of any particular emotion is going higher than you would like it to, then you stop. Pay attention to it. Take action.

Whatever it is, you can do differently to bring your emotional temperature back to neutral.

So while you are doing this exercise, practising self-control by paying attention to your emotions, you may have doubts or concerns or you don’t how to do it. Then you know what to do.