We all have them: emotions! However, only a few people on Earth have learned to master them. How come? This has to do with our current point in evolution. We are mostly emotionally polarized which means that we mostly look at life through the lens of our emotions.

Like everything in life, emotions deepen by repetition. In other words, as we give into an emotion once, it will become easier to give into it a second time and a third time until it eventually becomes second nature to habitually give into a given emotion.

If you give into anger, worry, or discouragement once, it will soon become natural to become angry, worried or discouraged … and what’s more, with each repetition it takes less to provoke the emotion. Each indulgence makes the habit more at home in the fabric of our bodies and before we know it we’ll start acting out our new habit.

With this understanding in mind, how may we prevent undesirable emotions taking hold of us in the first place?

Well, to begin with, the best time to deal with undesirable emotions is to catch them the moment they start because with each repetition, the root of the emotional habit grows deeper, and the deeper the root of the habit, the more difficult it will be later on to dislodge it.

So, whenever you find yourself indulging in a negative emotion, immediately (!) take hold of it and deny it entrance into your consciousness by saying firmly and decisively, „Get out!“ Each time you do this, the habitual emotion grows weaker and your will grows stronger.

Refuse to express an emotion and it dies! However, the key to success is to catch it before it  has a chance to enter your consciousness. And to be resolute in your denial!

Now, here is something else you can do. This is actually an ancient „secret“ that has been around for ages. Here it is: When you are about to be taken over by anger, worry, despair etc., count to ten and the whole incidence will seem laughable and childish. When you establish the habit to count to ten before you actually give into the unpleasant emotion, say an unkind word etc., you have a chance to think and reason how ridiculous it is to be taken over by the same unpleasant emotion over and over again (often for years!) and how desirable it is to just get over yourself and master this unpleasant emotion once and for all and be free of it!

When you give yourself ten seconds to think about the whole situation and to remind yourself that being taken over by the force of an emotion means to be the slave of your emotional body, …, when you give yourself ten seconds to remind yourself that emotions are real, tangible forces that you can direct as you please, you will stop dreading the onslaught of unpleasant emotions and begin to look at it as the perfect opportunity and perfect timing to redirect the emotional force into a higher channel.

Counting to ten is a wonderful way to get a handle on our forces. Emotions are real, tangible forces. That’s why they „force“ us into certain actions and we feel like we are at their mercy, unable to do anything about it. However, this is not true because we can do something about it: We can redirect them into a higher channel.