Get Your Love Back By Learning To Control Your Emotions
There is a way of controlling emotions. First, we must learn to develop a positive attitude. A positive view enables us to judge each situation on its merits — we can stand back from a problem and take the broad, objective view. We can lay aside our self-centred attitudes and become more other-centred, more socially aware, and develop greater courage. This helps us to progress from merely reacting, animal—like, to a situation, to acting. In other words, we can learn to be in control of ourselves rather than being controlled by others, and so attain true freedom through self-control.
Do not take yourself too seriously
A major step towards the goals of self—forgetfulness and nurturing positive thought is to decide not to take ourselves too seriously. We have seen how the surges of uncontrolled feeling that we call our emotions are harmful, and that peace depends on attaching less importance to them and so freeing ourselves from them. But this does not mean fighting them. The self-centred, emotional, animal side of ourselves that threatens to take over our lives must be trained by kindness, not beaten into submission. Let us call it our ego. The point is that our small ego is not only negative. We simply have to handle it properly and not let it dominate our lives like a ham actor always hogging the limelight. We should speak gently to it, as to a well—trained dog: 'I'm busy just now, ego. Go and lie down. I’ll take you for a walk when I’ve got time.' Remembering to do this every now and then is a good way of learning to forget our ego.
Having trained our ego to take a back seat, we are in a better position to look dispassionately at our emotions and our selfish preoccupations, and even to be amused by them. Our ego is like a family pet: it lives with us but does not rule the roost. Once we have learned to be detached from our ego and no longer regard it as being so important, we can learn to laugh at ourselves, which is a sign that we are on the right road: the spiritual path. We have begun to live the conscious, spiritual life; we have broken the vicious circle of self—absorption.
Of course, we shall never banish our ego altogether: that would imply perfection, of which no human being is capable. What we can hope for is spiritual progress, which brings our ego increasingly under the control of our enlightened, spiritual side.
Do not take yourself too seriously
A major step towards the goals of self—forgetfulness and nurturing positive thought is to decide not to take ourselves too seriously. We have seen how the surges of uncontrolled feeling that we call our emotions are harmful, and that peace depends on attaching less importance to them and so freeing ourselves from them. But this does not mean fighting them. The self-centred, emotional, animal side of ourselves that threatens to take over our lives must be trained by kindness, not beaten into submission. Let us call it our ego. The point is that our small ego is not only negative. We simply have to handle it properly and not let it dominate our lives like a ham actor always hogging the limelight. We should speak gently to it, as to a well—trained dog: 'I'm busy just now, ego. Go and lie down. I’ll take you for a walk when I’ve got time.' Remembering to do this every now and then is a good way of learning to forget our ego.
Having trained our ego to take a back seat, we are in a better position to look dispassionately at our emotions and our selfish preoccupations, and even to be amused by them. Our ego is like a family pet: it lives with us but does not rule the roost. Once we have learned to be detached from our ego and no longer regard it as being so important, we can learn to laugh at ourselves, which is a sign that we are on the right road: the spiritual path. We have begun to live the conscious, spiritual life; we have broken the vicious circle of self—absorption.
Of course, we shall never banish our ego altogether: that would imply perfection, of which no human being is capable. What we can hope for is spiritual progress, which brings our ego increasingly under the control of our enlightened, spiritual side.
