Today in one of my group calls we talked about useful emotions, and how they are when we are in emotional adulthood and taking responsibility for the way we feel. I sometimes blame my kids or my husband for how I feel and why I am frustrated. I know that some of you do the same, ha. But I am actually in charge of that at all times. It’s never someone else’s problem. I don’t want to give anyone else that power, how could I think that someone else can make me feel good or happy if I can’t even do it myself. Isn't that an interesting way of thinking about it?
We talked about how indulgent emotions are the ones that get us stuck. These are the emotions we use to stay where we are, and not progress forward or take steps to meet our goals. We like to call that being in emotional childhood. I realized today that one indulgent emotion for me is comfort. I am always seeking to be comfortable, the perfect temperature, the clean house, the nice and quiet kids, the clean laundry all perfectly put away, the seamless after school routine, the weekly menu all planned out ...it's all because I want to be comfortable. This is not very useful because I just stay in that space of always wanting everything to be comfortable and running smoothly. I use my time up in doing these things all to create comfort. But our ability to succeed is dependent upon our ability to be uncomfortable. So it's kind of amazing that I am always seeking comfort…
Someone said that tired is theirs, that they use tired all the time to not have to do stuff, they use the story of "poor me, I'm tired and it's all wrapped around self pity.
Someone else said he’s professional about using self doubt and confusion to not move forward in her goals.
The good news is we can actually create our emotions by watching our thinking. We can focus on emotional adulthood, we are in charge of how we feel by the way we choose to think about any given situation.
I love the question of Is it True? Every time I am caught in a negative feeling or emotion I can ask myself if it’s true, whatever I am blaming on whoever…and I can do the turnaround and see that the opposite is also true or truer than the story I was telling myself before that.
And then look at it with curiosity and compassion. I love that.