Feelings can be either positive or negative. Positive feelings are constructive, they lead us to better versions of ourselves, while negative feelings are destructive and get out the worst of us. Sometimes we think back and assess our actions, regretting most of them. Endless thoughts like how and why I did this thing or that, how did I let this person say this thing to me and get away with it, how did I say that, it’s totally not me.
The question here is how many times we tend to be happy with ourselves, happy with what we did, happy with what we said, happy with how we felt. It’s amazing what emotional swings or changes can do to a person, if one feels happy he/she can feel very powerful, productive capable of doing anything on earth, while on the other hand if one feels down or depressed, one tends to be weak, unwilling and incapable of exerting any effort. One can tell a person’s mood from the way he/she walks, if you are walking slowly, back bent and can’t make eye contact you are most probably down, while if you are energetic, back is straight, face is cheerful you are most likely in a good mood. So watch out, your body language reveals you.
When we feel depressed we are more likely to act in self-destructive ways. Our emotions would be self-destructive, our thoughts would be self-destructive, and we probably do not realize that except after a long time passes. A drastic change in our life status usually involves a huge flow of feelings. Negative emotions mostly dominate, if we are changing jobs, loosing friends, even getting into new projects or relationships all this can involve fear or depression, but if we have powerful minds to control that status, we can be optimistic, cheerful and looking forward to the best.
We have to realize that change is part of the cycle of life; life has its ups and downs, good days and bad, rain and sunshine, winter and spring, illness and health, laughter and tears. Nothing bad will last forever. As well as, nothing good will last forever. So let’s look at every bad situation and say “THIS TOO WILL PASS”.
A human mind initially experiences various moods in very short time intervals. The question here is, are you by nature an emotional person or a rational one? An emotional person is a person who let’s his/her feelings control every bit of his/her life’s productivity and actions. Work, relationships, hobbies would be directly affected by ones mood and feelings. On the other hand a rational person is a person who has feelings, but involves the mind in the daily action, tough controlling the flow of feelings and its effect on the daily productive life.
An overly emotional person wouldn’t go to work, wouldn’t even want to get out of bed when depressed, while fully energetic and productive when cheerful. Whereas a rational person are able to differentiate and know that important things and duties come first, then the mood. There is the classical example of the Sad Clown, which is an oxymoron in itself, as the Clown’s job is to entertain the audience and make them laugh regardless of his mental state.
A great deal of emotional changes come from our surroundings, such as relationships with other individuals or groups, be it family, coworkers or managers, friends or loved ones. Most of the mood changes stemming from external factors strongly depend on the expectations we have towards others, putting that in plain English requires some examples.
Emotions we need or expect from others could be attention, affection, admiration, adoration, appreciation, esteem, worth, understanding and many more. Naturally, one expects friends to be around while passing though a crisis, expects a loved one to provide emotional support while going through work changes or any rough times. If any one of those expectations are not met a great deal of confusion and depression is the result, bearing in mind that the other person did not do anything wrong except not meeting the unspoken expectations of his/her friends. If we tend to rationalize this we can find that a great deal of the confusion coming from such situations can be avoided by lowering expectations from other to the minimum, though providing sheer love to all, although hard, as well as communication as much as possible to convey expectations as well as emotions to the counterpart of such a relation
Leaving ourselves to the flow of feelings is not really a good idea, while using it to improve is a total booster to our capabilities, powers and talents. The comparison is exactly like the autumn leaf helplessly flowing with the stream of water, and a talented surfer using the water flow to gain speed and energy to cruise on top of rough seas.
What one needs to continually do is, learning to identify, in specifics, one’s own feelings, NOW "how do I really feel?" and "Why exactly do I feel this way?" are the questions posed. But if we need this to work we need to be VERY honest with ourselves, once we do that we start to involve our minds in our feelings, we start to rationalize things.
Feelings are mostly volatile and unpredictable, so when we tend to be calm, trying to involve our minds we try to decrease the impact of our emotions on our actions thus keeping our foolishness to ourselves. By applying this concept we hope to decrease the impact of our emotions on our daily lives and our relationships with others. Being emotionally intelligent is a good virtue as it will definitely decrease our tendency to get hurt or hurt others.
So to get out of this dilemma we have to think about BALANCE, balancing our feelings with our minds is the key to happy lives.