Welcome to the Grow Inward Podcast, I am your host Adrian Petrillo.
In last weeks episode we explored connection to thoughts and some interesting dynamics that are often at play when it comes to your unique experience of life. I want to expand into your connection to emotions and how these two dynamics of ourselves are so closely linked together when it comes to your experience.
When it comes to emotions and our connection to them it is clearly a very large subject, one on which countless entire books have been written on. There are so many different dynamics and factors involved when it comes to your emotions, which speaks to the fact of just how complex this subject can be depending on how you want to approach it.
For the purposes of this episode, I would like to keep this a bit more narrow in scope and concentrate on tying together some of what we have already discussed about thoughts. It is an interesting correlation to discuss, and while it is a rather narrow consideration of such a large topic such as emotions, I think it is still a very interesting portion of that much larger picture, and yet one that you can certainly apply on the path to inner growth. I also think that by breaking things down into some smaller parts is very helpful in many ways. I think that looking at smaller portions of a larger picture is still very valuable in its own right. Individual parts still have their own relevance and it isn't always necessary to take every single aspect of any one thing under consideration when it comes to application in particular areas of our lives.
With that, let's being with one of the first connections I would like to discuss in regards to emotions, which is how deeply your emotions are connected to your thoughts and some of the different ways that this connection is both valuable and insightful. First off, I think that our emotional responses to many of our experiences in life can tell us a great deal about ourselves, while also providing clues for areas of improvement. For instance, if you are someone that doesn't really experience much of an emotional response in various situations, this would be a great clue to explore the reasons behind that. It may not be a problem to lack emotions in this way, but it would probably be a bit more unusual by conventional standards. I think it would be safe to say that most people are heavily influenced by emotions in all areas of their lives. This can be to varying degrees of course, but it is certainly a more common experience I would say, which would beg the question, why do I seem to be different?
I am increasingly of the mind that the thoughts and experiences you have established throughout the course of your life are going to be the single biggest factor in the emotional responses that you experience in many different experiences. This makes good sense when you consider that the different experiences you have had in life all have led you to have certain thoughts and beliefs, and the more that you have found evidence of these connections you have made will most certainly have some type of emotion tied to them. If you think about a particularly challenging problem that you experienced early in life and how that makes you feel when you experience it today when you see that, you can easily get a feel for what I am saying here. There are experiences you have had that created strong emotions, and there are thoughts or beliefs that are connected directly to those experiences which manifest every single time you experience them today, even if only as an outside observer.
This is an example of how you can have a deeply emotional response to things which you have a deep connection to, things that may be from long ago that still influence your thoughts and behavior today. Powerful emotional responses that carry on into your adult life and create stress or anxiety are a great clue that you are carrying something which heavily influences you to this very day, and it may be worth examining further so that you can remove your emotional connection to specific experiences. These kinds of responses are a great indication from you body that something is still a problem for you, and while it may be very uncomfortable it is a clear indication to you of an area for potential examination and improvement.
Conversely, if you just randomly witness an act of kindness and are immediately filled with love and happiness at the very sight of this, it can leave you feeling completely inspired and renew your sense of faith in people and humanity. Things like this can also invoke such a strong emotional response that you begin to create new positive thoughts and emotions which move you to act in other areas of your own life. Now this is just a simple example, but if you think about how different emotions connect deeply to many different parts of ourselves you can begin to see just how powerful they can be. If you can learn to create more positive connections to your emotions you can shift your experience in very significant ways. It isn't that we won't have negative experiences or emotions, but this is where the thoughts that you create around experiences can have a significant impact on the emotions you feel when they appear in your life. Depending on these thoughts, you can radically alter your connection to them and the experiences themselves.
An important step in consciously creating your connections to specific events in regards to an emotional response, is to begin by taking a moment to separate the two. Regardless of what you are experiencing in life, even if it is a very negative experience, if you can look at the event itself and your emotional response to the event as two very separate things you gain some valuable leverage in managing both your thoughts and your emotions. If you feel a powerful negative emotion right away it can be very easy to have a thought that leads to a belief in which all of these elements become tied together into one truth that you justify in your own mind. In this kind of circumstance try instead to separate the thoughts and the emotions as separate things and examine both of them from different perspectives which you may not have considered. By doing this you can remove the powerful charge from them which might lead you to create a meaning that isn't necessarily true, one that you might internalize and ruminate over in some negative association or feedback loop.
This process can be particularly helpful from an inner growth perspective, and this is because of something I am sure you have heard before. It is better to respond vs. react. This is something I have worked really hard on, and I won't lie it is a struggle to do all the time. Even so, it is something which I personally consider incredibly valuable and worthwhile to practice constantly. Have you ever seen someone act in this way in the face of immense pressure or adversity, and they just gracefully control themselves in a way that you found inspiring? I know that I have witnessed this and when you see it from the outside looking in, you can't help but be impressed and inspired to want to be able to respond so gracefully in your own life. It is a wonderful and valuable gift to be able to do this, and I think it is as worthwhile of a pursuit as any honestly.
There are so many areas of our lives where we can and would like to improve, and I find it staggering just how many different options there are. At the same time, it just speaks to how much inner work is needed and so incredibly valuable in our world. Here we are talking about one small sliver of our emotions, but having explosive or highly emotional responses to experiences doesn't really help any of us in most cases and it is an area where we can all improve and set a better example I think. If you can get past the reaction phase and learn to instead thoughtfully respond, you will be doing yourself and your relationships a huge service, but it doesn't end there.
When you begin to be more thoughtful with your connection with your emotions, it really can begin to serve you as an indispensable source of guidance in your life. I think that when you begin to really examine your emotions from this perspective you will find that they are a tool that is always working to provide input that you can use in all sorts of different and useful ways. Your emotions are always giving you incredibly valuable feedback in every area of your life. They can tell you when something is wrong, they can confirm when you are doing everything right, they can warn you of danger, they can shift your attention to what is really important, they can guide you in making difficult decisions, and so much more.
This is also somewhere that the connection between your thoughts and your emotions is worth examining. I think it is easy to focus on your negative thoughts and emotions so often, but given the things we have discussed on both of these subjects so far it may be worth establishing some new considerations and connections for yourself? By weeding out your negative connotations to these aspects of yourself and choosing to create thoughts and beliefs and to see them for what they are, you can use them to empower your rather than limit you. Choose to view your thoughts and your emotions as tools of creation and guidance, because that is exactly what they are. Remember that they can work in the opposite as well if you aren't careful about the way in which you choose to hold and wield these tools.
We are all given so many tools to use in life, but with those tools comes free will. Free will really is a big responsibility when you consider that it can literally make all the difference when it comes to creating your life in a way that you truly want it to be, this is a choice! Be mindful of the thoughts and beliefs you create, be mindful of the emotions you attach to each of them, and be ever aware of all the tools and choices you have at your disposal. Be discerning in all of these matters and reflect often on how these things are playing out in your life. What connections are you creating, are you empowering or limiting yourself, growing or shrinking yourself, believing or doubting yourself. Make it a part of your practice to pay closer attention to all of these different part of yourself and you are making a wonderful difference in your own life. It doesn't always need to look perfect, in fact it rarely will, but trust yourself and do your best but most importantly refuse to ever give up on yourself. Every moment you spend on yourself and your inner growth is making you stronger, healthier, wiser, and more beautiful, and I couldn't be more proud of you for just wanting to do better for yourself. You are incredible and I wish you all the best in your life!
Until next time, never underestimate the power you have within you and keep growing inward.
