Why Live 1.10

1.10 Unhealthy Actions Aren’t Acceptable. 

It’s healthy to learn how to feel your emotions. It’s vital that you learn your own internal messaging. And it is unacceptable to take unhealthy actions.

Just because your crush doesn’t call you back, doesn’t mean you should cut yourself.

So you feel full of life and important around someone, doesn’t mean you should try to break up their marriage. 

The point of learning your internal messages is so that you can take control of your habits. It is not to become controlled by your impulses.

I saw a beautiful interview once where a theist was talking to an atheist. The theist expressed their fear that without religion people would rape and murder. The atheist replied “I rape as much as I want. I murder as much as I want. And that amount is zero. I don’t need religion to be a decent human being.”

The same is true for all of us. Having the urge to slam on your breaks when someone is following too close does not mean you have to take that action.

When you become aware of your emotions then you can begin to craft your internal messages. 

When someone calls and you feel sad, you’ll begin to take ownership of your power to choose what that Sadness means. You could conclude that sadness means you miss and value that person. Or you can conclude that sadness means you need to let that person leave your life.

The more often you practice, the quicker you will become. 

As I’ve said before,  you are already doing this process. You are already feeling all the time. And your brain is already deciding what those emotions mean.

A man might feel nervous around a woman and conclude it means he really likes her. While he might be nervous around another woman and concludes it’s because he doesn’t trust her. All of it unconscious. His I only awareness is that he is attracted to 1 woman and wary of another.

Take control. Start becoming aware of what you’re feeling. Then become aware of the little conclusions you’re drawing in response to your emotions.

This won’t happen quickly if you’ve been conditioned your whole life to shun emotions.

The first step I encourage people to do is to start verbalizing the emotions that they see in others.

“It seems to me that you’re upset, can I help with that?”

Most people are conditioned to shun emotions so expect most reactions to be a denial. That’s OK. We aren’t trying to change the other person, we are improving your own ability to recognize emotion.

Remember,  this is about your internal messages which motivate your habits. Speak with compassion and curiosity.

Perhaps someone broke one of your tools at work and you find yourself angry. Instead of stomping off to yell at someone, try pausing and sitting with that anger.

Maybe that anger triggers an internal message that you can’t afford a new tool because you’re an incompetent lover. Now you know this is a self esteem issue.

Maybe instead the anger triggers an internal message that you are not valued at your job and there is no respect. Now you know that you should be looking for another job.

Learn to separate the emotion from the internal message. Once you can do this you can then “observe" your emotional responses instead of react to them.

When you can choose how you respond to your emotions, you can be healthy for others around you.

It will be easier for you to understand which people around you are reacting instead of responding. And it will help you to become aware when you are beginning to react yourself.

The important thing is to hold yourself accountable for being healthy with your actions.

Once you know better, start doing better. You’ll catch yourself more often. Don’t aim for perfection- sometimes you’ll get catch up in the emotions and need time away.

That’s OK.