Whatever kind of emotion you feel is a signal. It is a call to action. Your emotions are there for a reason and therefore you should listen to your them very carefully. Whenever you feel a certain emotion, recognize it in your body, but don’t identify with it. Instead try to understand why they arose in the first place and investigate what they might want to “tell” you.
For example: don’t tell yourself that you are angry. YOU are not angry.
YOU are not your anger. It is very important to separate yourself from the emotions or else they might consume you. If you find yourself having troubles with detaching yourself from very toxic emotions, to a point where they start consuming you in an unusual rage, consider reading Eckart Tolle’s book A New Earth.
To prevent that from happening you should work on controlling your emotions as soon as they arise.
Motion is emotion, so take some action. Whenever an event in your life triggers any unwanted emotion in your body (anger, jealousy, stress, etc.) and you feel like it starts to overwhelm you, try the following:
Take a deep breath. It will slow you down. Feel the air in your lungs and focus intensely on it. Try to visualise how the air moves in and out of your body.
Try to locate the emotion. Where do you feel it? Is in your stomach or is it maybe in your lungs? Is there some tension in your body? Where? Once you know where that overwhelming emotions arises you have already separated yourself from it.
You cannot be angry and also be the one containing the anger. This process automatically makes you and the emotion into two independent entities. Once you fully realize that, you can choose to let go of that toxic emotion. You feel like in control. You are no longer the emotion, you furthermore are the silent observer.
As long as you identify with the emotion (or with the story connected to that specific event which triggered the emotion) you cannot overcome and resolve it. You can choose to let go of unwanted, unhealthy and toxic emotions just as you can choose to hold tight to them and identify with them.
It is your choice.
