Tag Archives: emotions

My boyfriend says I tend to be too “negative.” He says I complain too much about some of the people I meet and have to work with. I guess I do complain a lot—other people have said the same thing to me. Is there something you can say to someone (me) who is frustrated most of the time with the way some people are?

The most important thing here is to know that we create our own reality. What does that really mean? On a deep level we set up the box of signs of what we want to see. We may want evidence that someone loves us: they call after work, bring the milk home, and things like that. If we are looking for love, we search to see all the evidence that the person loves us. If we want to see the opposite, we search for the proof that confirms that. But it’s our mind that sets up the box of limits that proves what we really want to see.

Buddhists use a different language to say the same thing. For example, they say that everything on the outside is a reflection of what’s inside. We only see what we know. We only see what’s in our consciousness. As we get to know someone, we see what is similar to us, and if there is enough similarity, we put them in the “I like” category. We have to have an open mind to explore someone who is dissimilar. They are there for a reason; perhaps they are a gate for something beyond what we know. There’s got to be something behind the dissimilarity. The person who hates someone, behind the hate is something powerful. We need to open our mind and believe in change and then something we don’t know will help us move into the unknown.

I am a person who has great difficulty controlling my emotions. They get out of hand and get the best of me before I realize what’s happening. Are some people just more emotional than others? How does traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) view emotions? Are there any effective techniques for controlling our emotions?

Emotion is the true feeling of your consciousness.  It’s all based on how you want to receive information.  You then “cook” the information you receive.  For example, if you are sad, you gather information to feed the sadness.  This emotion resonates with the Lung (sadness is associated with the Lung according to TCM’s Five-Element theory).  It means you still have a healthy Lung, in order to be able to do this.

Emotions are Life; without them you’re just a piece of meat!  They are positive, not negative.  It just depends on how you want to see things. Emotions are a screen.  They are a picture of something. If you are angry, acknowledge your anger.  No matter what has made you angry, you are absolutely right—from your own angle, from what you see, you have every right to be angry.  But don’t get stuck there!  You have to see why you get angry.  Once you know you are angry, you have to go to the next step. Change!

With thirty different people, one event would stimulate something different in each person.  Some might laugh at the event; some would get angry.  But the point is this:  you have to change. Otherwise, the emotion will eventually express itself in a symptom. So don’t think “negative” emotions are bad.  You are alive!  You are able to see things.  Be true to yourself and find out why you are angry, if you are angry.  Then change the way you see things.

Consider this:  Take any object, depending on where you sit in front of that object, you’ll see something different.  All that changes is the change of angle!  It’s simple.  A stone is an example of how you can look at things from a different angle.  From one side, the stone appears smooth and white in color.  If you turn it just a little, it may show jagged areas and black lines.  Which is the true perception?  Both!  If you can turn your perception of events and people, then you can free up the energy trapped in the emotion.  Look at the weather:  nature can change on a dime.  If you know how to be flexible like nature, then things that happen in your life will not be a problem.

How you receive emotions is based on your thoughts.  You can change your thoughts.  They are a program, just like on t.v.  It’s up to you—what you want to see.  If you don’t like the reality you see, you can change the channel!  It’s up to you.  This is a basic principle.  There are many specific examples to illustrate this principle.  For instance, a woman finds herself filled with anger on having to wait over three hours to see her doctor.  It just makes her wild with anger.  We have to look closely at our emotions and our thoughts.  In any given situation where emotion is out of balance, our relationship to that situation is out of balance.  Change the relationship to the situation! In the case of the woman mentioned above, she needs to become aware that she chose the doctor and she then put herself into that system and all that it brings with it.  The doctor has to follow the system that he or she is part of.  If you don’t like what the system holds for you, change it!  If you change, you won’t need that system, so you will go to a different doctor in another system.  One day, you may find that you don’t even need a doctor.

You have the power to use you emotion wisely.  It’s your energy. Move this energy to a different level.  It’s important to realize that you never do something that you don’t need.  Remember, the universe always provides what you need, not necessarily what you want.