There is love, joy, admiration, empathy, exhilaration, inspiration, gratitude, interest, amusement, and laughter, among many positive emotions. Then there’s sadness, anger, jealousy, toxic pride, disgust, loneliness, annoyance, ego, and so on. 

We go through all of these emotions which means that we experience them based on a specific situation. A loved one passes away making us feel extreme pain and grievance. We achieve a milestone like an award and it makes us happy and proud of ourselves.

The emotions we experience are objects but many times, we see them as ourselves. 

“Oh, I am an extremely sensitive person. I get too emotional, too quickly.” While another person might say, “I am not too emotional. In fact, I don’t even cry in the movies but my wife brings a bunch of tissues just in case, which is mostly the case. She loves those romantic movies. Frankly, I am more of a Rambo movie type of person.”

What we’re doing here is classifying our emotions as part of who we are as individuals. In this blog, I am here to tell you that you are not your emotions and your emotions are not you. They do not stand for who you are because emotions are limited. They are different entities and are separate from a person which means that attachment, anger, jealousy, envy, or any desire are objects presented to a person to have an experience.

Consider two levels here: Level #1 and Level #2

Level #1 refers to the gap between a person and their emotions (in this case, objects).

When you give power to these objects, they feel real. These emotions are experiences caused by your consciousness.

Therefore, any experience = consciousness + emotions (objects)

For any experience, there is an underlying consciousness which is the ground of experience.

So, who is giving the power to these objects? You!

Hence, remove the object by not giving your energy to it.

So, if jealousy is an emotion that you experience, do not fuel it further because this emotion will lead you to take actionable steps that are not required.

Level #2 refers to the absence of emotions wherein here we contradict what I said before so bear with me. When I said the emotions are not you, I did not mean that they are external. They can arise from you but it is up to you to decide the ones you want to generate and feel.

Take, for example, the ocean. What is the ocean and its waves made of? Water…

Imagine the ocean and the waves saying that they need water from external sources. Does that even make sense? Would you not call the ocean an ‘unaware entity’ for not being able to recognize its abundance?

Therefore, level #2 refers to acknowledging the emotions but also realizing the reality of their existence. They are appearances without substantial existence. They do not have the power to impact us unless we invest our time, effort, and energy into feeling them.

They are like a mirage that provides the experience of water when the water is just an illusion. There is no functionality of these emotions unless you fuel them with your power.

Therefore, when it comes to emotions and you feel some of them overwhelming you, consider using the WINNER approach. Ask yourself this question:

WINNER? = Am I Willing to Invest into Something Which is Not Real?

Should I be willing to invest my Time, Effort, and Energy into the emotions that overwhelm me in the wrong direction?

If you have found yourself also feeling like a victim in situations. It’s time to reverse those feelings and give yourself the power you already have, unlock your potential. Enhance your Spiritual Quotient (SiQ) so that you never find an unnecessary opportunity to underestimate yourself. Get ready to identify the reality of your emotions, understand them, and recognize them, so that you never get controlled by them. When you build this kind of awareness, your broken circle is sealed with completeness.

It is like what Plato once said but I hope not to have it that way: “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Let’s make sure that we don’t let our resultant behavior become a result of the fleeting desires and emotions that most likely brew storms within us from time to time.