Our emotions are created by our thoughts. What we think about our neighbors, our house, our performance at work, and everything else, determine how we feel about them. So, what do our thoughts consist of? This might seem like common sense, because obviously our thoughts are just words running through our mind. Although this seems plain as day, have you ever considered that the specific vocabulary we use in our minds influences our feelings more than anything else?
It’s possible to create specific emotions. We can intentionally choose what we want to feel! It just takes the training of our thoughts and the words we use in our mind. Authors are a great example of this. Have you ever read something that made you feel such strong emotion that it brought you to tears? A book is just a collection of words on a page, but it can make you feel real emotions! This is because the author knows what emotion they want to convey, so they carefully pick the words they know will make them successful.
You can utilize this same skill as the author of your own story!
We learn how to feel emotions. From a young age we are taught to feel respect, gratitude, and patience. We might not realize it, but we have also been taught to feel fear. Why else would we be afraid to try new things? We have internalized that the normal emotion to feel when we do something outside of our comfort zone is fear. We can learn to replace these emotions with other important, and more positive, emotions, such as excitement and joy. It just takes some practice to recognize when we are feeling an emotion that isn’t helping us and consciously choose thoughts that will create an emotion that is more useful.
What are the top three emotions you experience? Are they different from the top three emotions you want to experience? What thoughts are generating your emotions, and how can you change them to feel different emotions? If one of your most common emotions is worry, then you might think a lot about all of the ways that something could go wrong. By changing your thoughts to all the different ways that something could be great, you are turning your worry into excitement!
By being deliberate about our thoughts and the specific words running through our minds, we can have more impact on the emotions we feel!