How to Best Master Your Emotions
Your well-being depends on your own state of mind.
Of course, external events have some impact. But how you perceive what occurs can make a significant difference.
For example:
One person, when provoked, lashes out in anger while another remains calm and seeks a peaceful solution.
One person feels envious when they witness a friend’s success while another celebrates it and uses it as fuel to improve herself.
One person feels profoundly disturbed by the smallest criticism while another looks for the gem in the onslaught and lets the rest roll off his back.
If you’re more like person one and less like person two, don’t worry. Most of us are. But you can learn to master your emotions and cultivate a positive state of mind. You’ll feel so much more inner peace and outer confidence when you do.
In Beyond Religion, Ethics for the Whole World, the Dalai Lama has devoted several chapters to working with emotions.
Let’s take a look at his step-by-step guidance.
1. Understand Destructive Emotions
First, instead of blaming external events, we must understand, without a doubt, that our own negative thoughts and emotions can obstruct our happiness and lead to destructive behaviors that harm others.
What are destructive emotions? Are all negative emotions bad?
Let me explain.
Emotions are seen quite differently in Buddhism than in the West.
Interestingly, the concept of “emotions” as a separate category does not exist in Buddhism.
Rather, all mental states are seen to include aspects of both cognition and feeling in varying proportions. Mental states contain five always present factors, which include feeling, discrimination, volition, attention, and contact.
In the West, we categorize emotions as pleasurable or painful.
Whereas in classical Buddhist psychology, the Dalai Lama explains, mental states, which as stated above include a feeling component, are viewed in terms of whether they’re beneficial or harmful.
This is a key difference. Because an emotion that is painful like grief is not necessarily harmful. And an emotion that is pleasurable like lust may cause pain to another.
The word “afflictive”—which means to cause pain or suffering—is used interchangeably with the word “destructive” to describe mental states that detract from one’s long-term well being or cause harm to others:
“Generally speaking, we can define destructive emotions as those states which undermine our well-being by creating inner turmoil, thereby undermining self-control and depriving us of mental freedom. Within this, it is also possible to distinguish between two sub-categories: those emotional states that are destructive in themselves, such as greed, hatred, or malice; and those states, such as attachment, anger, or fear, which only become destructive where their intensity is disproportionate to the situation in which they arise.”—the Dalai Lama
So, most of what we call emotions in the West have a dual nature — a good side and a dark side. From an evolutionary point of view, the Dalai Lama says:
Attachment brings us together, increasing our chances of survival.
Desire drives us to get up everyday.
Anger help us to respond to threats to our survival and well-being.
Fear triggers vigilance in potentially harmful situations.
Envy encourages competition so we take care of our basic needs.
Most emotions are not innately destructive.
They only become destructive when their intensity is out of proportion to the situation or they occur in situations in which they’re not called for.
To translate, that could mean:
Always doubting yourself even though you have many positive qualities. In this context, self-doubt can become destructive. It can lead to self-destructive behaviors like cutting or eating disorders.
Anger can be constructive when it fuels positive social action and change. But it becomes destructive when it encourages violent behavior that harms others.
Bear in mind, however, the Dalia Lama warns us not to be too dogmatic with these terms, automatically labeling a behavior one way or the other:
“So when we are dealing with matters as subtle as human mental processes, it is important not to be too dogmatic. It is difficult or impossible to determine whether or not a given mental state is destructive without know its context. Often we can make this determination only by taking into account the underlying motivation, the specific object of the emotion, the consequences of the emotion, and so on. In the area of the human mind, therefore, we should always maintain an attitude of open-mindedness, pragmatism, and flexibility.”—the Dalai Lama
Lastly, destructive emotions distort our perception of reality.
When we feel deeply attached, we sometimes perceive something as more desirable than it is and fail to see its shortcomings. Strong attachment is fundamentally an unstable emotion that can easily turn into resentment, anger, or even hatred.
On the other hand, when you’re intensely angry at someone, they can seem to be devoid of all positive qualities. The emotion overpowers our higher thought centers. As a result, we can lose the ability to discern between right and wrong and act impulsively in ways that we later regret.
In short, afflictive mental states cloud our judgment and can cause us to act in irrational ways.
So firstly, we must understand the nature of destructive emotions and exactly how harmful they truly are. Afflictive emotions lead to both personal problems and societal problems like war, poverty, and environmental degradation.
This can’t just be a passing thought. We need to contemplate the destructive nature of afflictive mental states until we arrive at a strong conviction to do all that we can to overcome them in ourselves.
2. Oppose Destructive Emotions
Now that we’re clear on the meaning of destructive emotions, the Dalai Lama recommends taking a stance of opposition towards them.
In other words, because we recognize how harmful they are, we say an absolute “no” to destructive emotions. We pledge to counter them with passion and unflagging determination.
This doesn’t mean you have to freak out when a negative emotion arises in your mind. You can’t control what appears in your mind. Those seeds were planted a long time ago.
Just notice when a negative emotion arises and allow it to pass by. This is the essence of mindfulness practice.
Of course, this isn’t easy at first. But every time you manage it, you plant a new seed in the garden of your mind. Those seeds eventually bloom into more inner peace.
3. Cultivate Emotional Awareness
Bring awareness to the negative emotions that arise in your mind. Observe and study them closely. Examine:
Your triggers
How negative emotions make you feel
The behaviors they tend to provoke
The more you know yourself and how destructive emotions effect you, the more you’ll be able to catch them before they lead to harmful outcomes.
Don’t suppress them. Bottling up negative emotions can have a counter-productive effect. For example, suppressing anger can lead to a delayed explosion.
Even in mindfulness meditation, there is no effort to suppress emotion. You allow an emotion to arise, observe it, and allow it to dissolve on its own. It will dissolve if you don’t fuel it with thoughts.
Again, this takes practice, but it’s more than doable.
4. Apply Attentiveness
Attentiveness to emotional experience can be difficult to achieve at first.
Emotions arise so quickly. They can invade and seemingly occupy one’s whole consciousness before you even know what happened. It may seem impossible to catch an emotion in its infancy.
Attentiveness is similar to emotional awareness, but brings an even greater precision.
Buddhism describes steps in a causal chain that occur as an emotion gains momentum. Simply explained, it begins with an external stimulus and ends with a behavioral response with multiple, millisecond steps in between.
Because emotions grow so fast, the best place to start interrupting reactions is near the end of the causal chain—between the full blown emotion and its behavioral expression.
For example, we feel enraged but we refrain from acting out that rage in harmful ways.
Once we repeatedly succeed at this later stage, we can learn to work backwards through the causal chain so we catch the afflictive emotion much earlier.
This level of emotional attentiveness only develops gradually with dedicated perseverance.
5. Get to Know Your Typical Reactions
To be able to catch an emotion before it catches you, it helps to get to know how destructive emotions effect us physically.
The Dalai Lama asks you to explore, for example, what it feels like when you first become annoyed?
Does your heartbeat change?
Do you feel any tightness in your face?
Do you experience tension in your arms and shoulders?
What other physical sensations do you experience?
You can also observe whether an afflictive emotion leads to a particular series of thoughts or an urge to engage in specific behaviors.
The more we know how we function when highjacked by destructive emotions, the earlier we’ll be able to see the signs, gain control, and refrain from harm.
Once you’ve mastered this final step on the causal chain, you can move one step back and try to catch the emotion before it reaches an explosive stage.
When you notice a strong emotion forming, before its full blow, you can use different methods to calm yourself and your response, for example:
Take deep breaths
Take your mind off the trigger
Reframe a negative into to a positive
Put yourself in the other person’s shoes
Looking at the situation from different angles and perspectives
Eventually, as you keep moving backward along the causal change, you’ll be able to catch yourself when the emotion is just a faint notion rather than fully formed.
6. Enhance Positive Qualities
Another way to improve our emotional state is to focus on and amplify the positive qualities that naturally exist within you.
The Dalai Lama mentions specific antidotes to specific emotions like:
Forbearance (patience) is the antidote to anger.
Courage is the antidote to fear.
Understanding is the antidote to doubt.
What are some of your naturally positive qualities? What are some positive qualities you would like to grow stronger? Make a list and make an intention to practice them regularly.
When you mind and heart are brimming with the positive, little space is left for the negative.
Closing Thoughts
It’s not easy to master your emotions, but it’s not complicated either. It simply takes a strong commitment and practice on a daily basis.
The Dalai Lama has laid out a step-by-step plan to help you master your emotions. Now it’s up to you. Will you follow his advice or let the emotional troublemakers run free?
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Living with Ease course or visit my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra
