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At this time in history, we tend to wish to amplify any good feeling that we experience. At the same time, we desire to change feelings that we don’t like, such as when we feel fear or feel we aren’t loved.
Many times, people resort to shady ways to change the undesirable feelings. For example, some go out and drown in alcohol, others binge eat, others watch TV or go to a party to distract themselves.
It has become a norm for people to try to change their emotions instead of diving deep into those emotions in order to experience them fully.
However, when you go deep into any emotion that you are feeling, you get to a point where you become freed from that emotion and you experience joy. Freedom comes from the ability to stand and go deep into each emotion.
My grandma unknowingly taught me this principle. One day, I called her a number of times and she didn’t answer my calls. A few minutes later, she picked up the phone and in a clearly distressed voice said that she would call me back, and she hung up.
My brain immediately started imagining all sorts of bad things that could have happened, such as someone dying.
DOWNLOAD the Worksheet Below to Learn How to Manage Emotions!
About five minutes later, my phone rang, and it was grandma. I was taken aback when she sounded very cheerful as if nothing had happened minutes earlier. In my mind, I wondered whether it was the same person that I had called earlier, since the mood had undergone a huge transformation so quickly.
I asked her about what had happened earlier and she explained that she has a rule that each time emotions build up inside her, she goes into her bedroom and sets a timer to five minutes. She then allows herself to feel the emotion 100 percent.
“So, how does this work?” I asked her.
She explained that on this particular occasion, she was feeling sad. So, she set the timer to 5 minutes and allowed herself to feel every ounce of sadness. And when the timer indicated that the 5 minutes were up, she just started laughing!
This approach is beautiful in this day and age when we are constantly trying to run away from our emotions. Some of our coping mechanisms are so off that we even take alcohol (a depressant) in order to celebrate something good that has just happened.
We constantly try to douse, block, hide or run away from our emotions. We need to learn to set a timer to 5 minutes so that we can feel the entire emotion until it leads us back to joy.
A group of monks I interacted with on my 25th or 26th birthday in Fiji mentioned the phrase that “all emotions felt fully lead back to joy.” Powerful, huh?
For example, if angry, set your timer and feel as angry as possible for the full 5 minutes. At the end of those 5 minutes, a circuit breaker will click in your mind and you will burst out laughing. You will feel good!
That is the key message on this day of the 100-day challenge; all emotions felt fully lead back to joy.
Why Do I Experience a Certain Emotion for a Week or More?
When you only experience the surface of an emotion, it will drag on for days or even weeks. However, if you immerse yourself fully in that emotion, it will be exhausted quickly and you will be free from it. The body is built to get rid of emotions or experiences if those emotions are experienced fully.
Don’t try to work with what is behind the emotion; that is a different thing altogether. That is why immersing yourself fully in an emotion in order to be free from it won’t work if you are dealing with chronic pain, anxiety or depression.
For anxiety and depression, do something different. Train yourself to snap out of that state. Get someone to be with you in a room and feel the anxiety or depression as intensely as you can.
Once you feel you have reached the most intense level of that feeling, burst into laughter! In this case, set your timer to 5 minutes and laugh throughout that duration.
It doesn’t matter whether the laughter is genuine or fake in the beginning. What is certain is that you will be laughing hysterically by the end of those 5 minutes. This is more certain to be the case if you tell the person in the room with you to mimic your laughter.
DOWNLOAD the Worksheet Below to Learn How to Manage Emotions!
The idea behind all this is that you need to train your body to shift from the deepest depths of anxiety or depression to the peak of joy.
I trained a friend to use this “snap exercise” and he was able to change from having sweaty palms inside a train to belly-laughing throughout the train ride.
For chronic pain, a different approach is needed because the pain has been caused by a physical issue, such as a pinched nerve. You, therefore, need to first address the root cause of that pain by seeing a chiropractor, a massage therapist or any other professional that can resolve the physical cause of your chronic pain.
Tip: When you eat well, sleep well, exercise regularly and maintain a positive outlook, it is easy for you to deal with any pain, anxiety or depression that you experience.
However, if you haven’t eaten, haven’t slept, haven’t worked out, your body is already beat down and any anxiety, regardless of how tiny it is, will knock you down simply because your body and mind wasn’t primed to withstand such a feeling.
Practice being at your physical and emotional best so that you can deal with emotional setbacks quickly and easily. If you are at your worst, a tiny emotional set back will knock you out.
That is it for Day 72 of the challenge. Download the worksheet below to support you on your journey!
To Your Success,
Jairek Robbins