Have you ever played with a high striker or a strength tester at a carnival or amusement park? The objective is to strike the lever’s end with the mallet with as much strength as you’ve got. The force you use defines how high the puck will go upwards to reach the top and ring the bell. Ding! Ding! Ding! You Win!

Many people love this game because it’s fun and it defines our eagerness to indulge in powerplay.

Just like the high striker, many people feel the need to apply as much force as they can to fuel their emotions, especially the negative ones. Be it anger, jealousy, toxic pride, annoyance, ego… the list goes on.

Examples:

– Why don’t I have a bigger house than them?

– I should have received that award instead of him.

– Why am I not tall enough?

– She gets paid more than me!

We tend to invest our time, energy, and effort in fleeting emotions.

For instance, if a friend is having a bad day, you feel bad for them. But you stop feeling good about yourself when they’re having a better day than you.

Somehow your deprivation seems unfair when someone else is experiencing the abundance of something you want, lack, and don’t get despite your efforts.

Dr Henry: At last, this tomb reveals antiquity’s darkest secret. A secret erased from history and forgotten to time. Princess Ahmanet. Beautiful, cunning, and ruthless. Sole heir to the throne of Egypt. The Pharaoh’s kingdom would one day be hers to rule without mercy or fear. And Ahmanet would be worshipped as a living god. But Pharaoh had a son. The boy, now, would inherit her destiny. And Ahmanet understood power was not given. It had to be taken. Vowing revenge, she made a choice to embrace evil. The god of Death. They made a pact. A pact that would unleash darkness itself. Ahmanet was reborn a monster.

The Mummy has been a timeless movie known for its stories of greed, vengeance, and injustice. The adventures that followed lead the characters to either their end or victory. But what I bring to you to learn from this movie is the character of Princess Ahmanet. She was obsessed with the power to rule and the desire to be worshipped as a living god. She was eagerly looking forward to it but her life takes a turn of events.

When her father had a son, she was filled with anger and stubbornness. Due to her unwillingness to let go of her desires and emotions, and allow destiny to take its place, she committed violent acts of murder against her family. She murdered her father and the little boy who was born.

“Emotions are paying guests renting space within us. We are the owners that either allow them to stay or let go.”

~Krescon Coaches

So much so is the drive of emotions that if we let them out of hand, they take control of our lives.

We often feel that our emotions define us as individuals. In reality, the feelings we experience are objects of our underlying consciousness.

“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 sad movies based on real-life events.”

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 finite and 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: the ground of experience.

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

You are the source of all things. No one else and nothing else plays this part.

Hence, you must decide whether or not you want to feel certain emotions.

For instance, if you are jealous of someone, do not fuel it further. It might lead you nowhere.

On the other hand, level #2 refers to knowing the reality of your emotions. When I said the emotions are not you, I did not mean that they are external. They arise from within you but you can 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 in Something Which is Not Real?

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

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”

~Baruch Spinoza

When you build and enhance your SiQ or Spiritual Quotient, you strengthen your ability to shift from the ground of experience to the ground of neutrality. At this moment, you can properly define the root of your emotions, and their reality, and hence, complete the circle of incompleteness.

When this happens, emotions such as jealousy, anger, sadness, and so on cannot take away the throne of ownership. You cannot be robbed of the core of your true self. Even positive emotions like happiness and love can blind you from certain realities but when you know the reality of these emotions, you can take control.

Therefore, guide your emotions in the path that you wish for them to take, much like what Robert T. Kiyosaki once said, “Emotions are what make us human. Make us real. The word ‘emotion’ stands for energy in motion. Be truthful about your emotions, and use your mind and emotions in your favor, not against yourself.”