365 STEPS TO SELF-CONFIDENCE
Feelings can be triggered subconsciously by countless factors beyond
your control – it’s the way you’re made. But you don’ t have to be
governed by them. Haven’t you overruled your emotions when you
knew that acting on them would have had disastrous consequences? For
instance, when you’ve been so angry with someone you wanted to hit
them, but restrained yourself.
Think of five or six instances when you felt yourself becoming
emotional (eg angry, jealous, afraid) and didn’t act on it. What
happened? How did you handle it? What was the outcome? What
would have happened if you’d gone with the emotion?346You can be grossly misled by your emotions.■ Just because something feelswrong, it doesn’t necessarily follow that
itiswrong.
■ Similarly, just because it feelsright, it doesn’t automatically follow
that it isright.Millions are terrified of domestic spiders; but these tiny creatures carry
no threat. These poor unfortunate people are being tricked by their
own senses!
When an anxious feeling comes over you, ask yourself, ‘Where is
this coming from? Am I really in danger? Or am I merely being
deceived by my emotional conditioning?’347Try not to identify with your emotions. They are something you
experience, but they are not you. Train yourself to watch them as if they
were happening to someone else. Be curious about them, allow them to
be,but don’t react.
When you stay calm and simply observe an emotion without reacting,
healing takes place. You still feel it, but you’re no longer affected by it.348