Military and Mindful by Verell Benefsheh;Ortiz Lesley G.;

Author:Verell, Benefsheh;Ortiz, Lesley G.; [Benefsheh Verell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2020-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Navigate Your Emotions

“Biography Becomes Biology”

– Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss, Ph.D.

Emotions. They straight up suck – the “bad ones,” that is. No matter what class you’re flying, you’ll have to deal with occasional turbulence, and emotions can be very turbulent. I’ve been in dark places, trapped with rage, jealousy, and despair. There seemed to be no end to my pain, and truth be told I often wanted to be there. It somehow felt comfortable “knowing” that I was inadequate, unlovable, and worthless. I “knew” that the world would somehow be better off without me. I never contemplated taking my own life, but I definitely thought to myself, “If I were to get hit with a stray bullet right now, well, that would be okay.” No. That is definitely not okay. These thoughts are not healthy, but they come nonetheless. I didn’t know in those days that I had a choice I could make about these thoughts. Thoughts and emotions are so closely related, it’s difficult to separate the two. With this chapter, I’ll tackle emotions and how they connect with thoughts and then get more into how thoughts work with mindset in the next chapter. Understanding the choices you have when it comes to your emotions and thoughts is essential to living a First-Class Lifestyle. They can hold you hostage otherwise in a never-ending cycle of fear and terror, just as if you were a hostage on an actual plane. However, as uncomfortable as these subjects can sometimes be, this is where the real personal growth happens.

Let’s dive right in to the subject of your emotions. I often found that expressing how I really felt about myself, another person, or a subject at work could only happen on rare occasions. I usually didn’t want to experience the pain of being honest with myself or other people. It’s easier to not confront a person (or yourself) than to think that you’ve hurt his or her feelings. However, being a leader in the military, I had to find a kinder and more constructive way to tell a person I thought he was underperforming (rather than “you’re an idiot”) or risk the mission not getting accomplished. I had to go hole up in the bathroom when I felt tears of frustration and anger about to erupt like a long overdue volcano or risk appearing out of control and overly emotional. In short, we sometimes have to hide our true feelings at work or at home to either save us from embarrassment or prevent us from straight up being mean. How then, and when, do we express and release these emotions in a constructive manner?

First, understand that you are perfectly normal for feeling sad, angry, jealous, frustrated, or irritated at work and at home. You are allowed to feel these emotions just as you are allowed to feel happy, excited, proud, love, or those emotions that you consider to be “positive.” When we don’t allow ourselves to feel emotions or think we shouldn’t feel a certain way, we either stuff them down or bottle them up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.