from thought to emotion: taking control of your life

I venture to say that you are having quite an emotional experience at the moment. Everyone is. It is quite normal. Everyone is always feeling something: sadness, joy, fear, pain, shame, anger or even revulsion.

We humans have emotions, and they rule much of our day. They are the way we experience our world and our lives.

Most people think that the emotions we have are in some way the result of “fate.” This is to say that we in reality have very little control over our emotional life. Most people have more or less the feeling that their emotional life rules them, not that they rule their emotional life.

Actually, it is the other way around.

We decide what kind of emotions we have. If you can get to the place where you consciously experience how you create your own emotions, you can change your emotional experience positively. That is what this text is about.

So let’s take a very specific look at the formation of emotion in one very specific human life.

Emily has a panic attack every time she has to speak in public. Her great problem is that she often has to speak in front of other people. Emily tries to control her emotions with the greatest possible severity, but she is often not successful. Just the other day, Emily began shaking violently before giving a speech to the local realtors’ association, of which she is president. Emily desperately tried to calm her nerves, but it didn’t work, and she was very embarrassed, because she could not control her trembling hands.

Why is Emily always so nervous when she has to speak?

Emily can give you the answer to that, but even the answer doesn’t help her. It began in her childhood, when her father made fun of her looks and claimed she lacked intelligence. Unfortunately, Emily’s father did not think much of women. Even as a young child, Emily became very afraid of standing in front of other people and had an intense problem with her self-image. As she grew into adulthood, Emily’s problems did not disappear. On the contrary, they grew worse. At age 16, Emily’s face exploded with acne. She then considered herself the ugliest person in the world. Sure, the acne disappeared within two years. Physically, Emily developed into a very normal (and quite good-looking) young woman. But, that was not Emily’s emotional experience. 

Emily became an intense introvert. No one could truly get to know her. She was exceptionally timid around men and assumed she would always be an “ugly duckling.” She “lowered her sights” professionally and personally. The result was a number of unsuccessful relationships and then two marriages that ended in divorce. Emily became a realtor after she failed to complete her college studies and failed at quite a number of other jobs. Later on, Emily worked her way “up the professional ladder” as a realtor until she owned her own realty firm and had a number of employees. At age 47 she became president of the reality association.

All of the professional success in the world could not compensate for Emily’s deep inner feelings of insufficiency and the profound fear of others. At the core of Emily’s emotional experience of her self and the world around her was one central concept of self: the unintelligent “ugly duckling” she had wrongly been led to believe she was as a child.

But how in the world could Emily change her experience, and how can you change your emotional experience of your self and your world so that you can become free and experience joy in daily life?

Now: Please read the following words very carefully, several times, if necessary, in order to understand them. For, if you truly understand them, they are going to change your life.

Your concepts are based on your very specific life experience. And, your concepts generate thought. Thought generates emotion. Not the other way around.

Repeat these words a few times to let them sink in, and even let me repeat them here in print once: Your emotions are generated by your thoughts. Thought is in turn generated by your concepts. Your concepts are created by your own very specific life experience.

Emily’s fear of speaking in public is generated by several thoughts that repeat themselves constantly in Emily’s mind. Here are the very simple thoughts:

• You are stupid.
• No one likes you.
• You are an ugly duckling and everybody thinks so.

These thoughts generate Emily’s emotions: her fears, her shaking hands and particularly her panic attacks when she has to speak in public. All of these thoughts are created by her personal concept of self, which originated in her childhood.

You may suddenly feel very excited while you read my words, because if you understand their meaning, you are beginning to move into a position of power over your own life: 

If you can change your thoughts, you can change your daily emotional reality. And, if you can change your daily emotional reality, you can change your life. Deeply!

You may wish to read these words to let them sink in a few times.

You can go deeper. Move into your own self-concept. What do you truly and secretly think about yourself and why? Almost everyone knows this consciously. Most people simply wish not to admit what they think about themselves. They spend a lot of their lives running away from what they really think about themselves and attempt to create a very different and very illusory reality.

Emily isn't truly an ugly duckling. She only believes she is because of her experience in childhood. Emily isn't objectively unintelligent. She only believes she is because of her experience in childhood. Emily’s beliefs are part of her concept of self.

Emily’s beliefs about who she is are not true. Yours are not, either. Your beliefs about yourself originated in childhood, just as did Emily’s. Your beliefs, which are today part of your self-concept, create your thoughts, which in turn create your daily emotional experience.

If joy isn't part of your daily emotional experience, you are missing out on life. Find out what you think about your self and change it.

You can change thought.

It is your choice.

I repeat here: what you think is your choice.

Change your thought, and you change your experience of your self and your life.

This is very powerful stuff. It is the stuff of the deepest possible change!

Emily does not need to think that she is unintelligent, that she is an “ugly duckling” or that no one likes her. These thoughts are her choice, if she wishes to think them. You do not need to think what you do about yourself, either.

The thoughts that you have about yourself in your daily life are an illusion. They were created by concepts that arose early in your life from your life experience at the time. These experiences are from the past. There is no reason that they should form your present life, unless wish them to do so.

When you begin to realize this, you can truly begin to take control of your life. You can begin to re-examine your life from a much more neutral perspective and begin to re-create it from the perspective of the present, not of the past!

Emotions do not need to rule you. They were created by events from the past, and they are an illusion. I can easily demonstrate this to you.

Let us take Emily’s fear of speaking in public. Why is Emily afraid of speaking in front of people? Of course, the fear arises out of Emily’s childhood and her experiences with her father. But, today, Emily’s fear is in a very real sense an expression of self-love. How can that be?

Well, Emily’s fear of speaking in public is proof of her self-love. The whole basis of Emily’s fear, from the perspective of the present, is to ensure that Emily not make a fool out of herself in front of other people. Emily feels she could bear the shame and the pain that would result from appearing to be a fool. So, the fear is Emily’s tool to shield her from a shameful and painful experience, in the end, an expression of self-love!

The basis of all emotion is love. When you know this and have deeply understood it, emotion stops ruling your life. With some practice, you can get into a position of choosing which emotions you have in your daily life.

If I were you, I would choose love. For, love is the ultimate basis of all emotion. Why not choose the ultimate reality? It is by far the best place to be!

By the way, if you need a little help dissolving the self-concept that resulted from your past, you might ask me to assist you. You may find that I can be of service here.

Andrew Terker