How to take control over you mind?

 How to take control over you mind?

 Emotion. It’s sometimes referred to as the spiritor the breath of life. It prescribes our actions and colors our world. The one who can master the emotions can masteractions, and the one who masters actions is the master of all future realities. Today we look at the stories of 2 differentmen, 2 different world views, 2 different goals, and, ultimately, 2 different paths. This is Alexander. He belives that there are two kinds of peoplein the world: the conquerors and the conquered. If you want to be great, you have to becomea conqueror. It’s a dog eat dog world, and only the fitsurvive. You have to determine who will conquer withyou and whom you must conquer. Alexander read a lot as a kid. He fell in love with Greek heroes who displayedthe highest virtues: courage and bravery. They were leaders — not followers. He didn’t have much as a kid and had towork hard for everything he had. This led him to believe that a persons lifeis the outcome of their actions and that they must take complete responsibility for whathappens to them. Physically and intellectually, he held himselfto incredibly high standards. There’s no one he wanted to conquer morethan himself, each and every day. One day, he encountered a homeless man. The man asked him for some change. Alexander knew what he was seeing: a conqueredman. How could this man let himself be conqueredso badly? How many mistakes must he have made to endup in this position? Why doesn’t he take steps to dig himselfout of this hole? Instead, hes taking the lazy way out. He’s trying to take from those who workedhard for what they have. Those who made good decisions should not bepunished by those who made bad decisions. Alexander knew that if the man wanted to eat,he needed to learn how to fish and not have fish given to him. He became enraged by the mans weakness. “This man won’t get a penny from me”,he thought to himself, “that would only enable his destructive behaviors and pooratittude towards life. By suffering he’ll learn or he’ll die;that’s the way the world works.” This is Joseph. He believes that there are two kinds of peoplein the world: those who can help and those who need to be helped. His father taught him that the highest goodis to serve those who have nothing and to lift them up. Life is difficult, and those who have shouldserve those who have not. Joseph read a lot as a kid. He fell in love with various spiritual leaderswho loved all and lived to serve. He grew up quite well off and always feltindebted to those who didn’t. He felt lucky to have everything that he did. One day, he encountered a homeless man. The man asked him for some change. Joseph knew what he was seeing: a completelyunderserved man. This man had been abandoned by society. Joseph felt like weeping. “Imagine how much we have failed as a societyto let someone get to this point,” he thought to himself, “life is so difficult and fullof suffering and based on luck, that anyone of us could end up in his position.” He grabbed all the money he had in his pocketand handed it to the man. And so, both stories end here. Both men had unique worldviews shaped by theirpast experiences. They both percieved the same man in a differentlight. Where one saw a weak man, the other saw aforsakened man. Their perceptions led them to feel differentemotions. There emotions were heavily affected by whatthey thought they were seeing. In actuality, both men knew nothing aboutthe homeless man, and they have no idea what led him to his position. This is often the case in real life. From a young age, both men were surroundedby an invisible structure referred to as culture or environment. The knowledge they grabbed from this structureallows them to navigate the world. Alex grew up in a structure of personalityresponsibility, of strength & weakness. He can only see people in this way. It’s all he knows. Joseph grew up in a structure of collectiveresponsibility, of the needy & the fortunate. He can only see people in this way. It’s all he knows. For both men, emotions are tools. In Alex’s world, anger is a useful toolthat allows him to become strong — his highest ideal. In Joseph’s world, compassion is a usefultool that allows you to become a giver — his highest ideal. One might wonder, if you could change theinvisible structure that surrounds these men, if they reversed the books they read or thefamily that they had, would they perceive the world differently? If they percieve the world differently, wouldthey feel differently? The master of emotions, then, is the one whocan alter the invisible structure around them. This allows them to gather a diverse set ofconcepts which allows them to see the same scenario in different ways. They would be neither Alexander or Joseph. They would be both. They could become either one depending onthe circumstances. Take a look at this image. What shapes do you see? You’d probably say a bunch of 3/4 circlesand a square. Technically, there’s actually no squarethere. It’s simply a byproduct of how the 3/4 circlesare arranged. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’llalways see it there because you’re familiar with the concept of a square. If you never learned what a square was, you’dnever see it there in the image. There’s a layer of meaning hidden in thenegative space. Emotional mastery is about perceiving multiplelayers of meaning in the negative space of life. It’s about seeing all of the potential realitiesthat could exist. It’s about looking at a homeless man andseeing that his position could be a byproduct of his personal decisions or the byproductof a cultural failure. What I’m not saying is that these men canthink different thoughts and change their emotions in the moment. But, they can experience a different worldviewnow, so they see differently in the future. They can find new ways of seeing or interactingwith old things and all they need to do is listen — listen to the world in its manyforms. Had they listened to one anothers perspectives,or asked the homeless man for his perspective, they might have seen the whole situation ina new light. As we conclude, let’s return to this image. You probably think that theres nothing moreto this image than the 3/4 circles and the square. But what if I told you that this is actuallyjust one shape: a rectangle with 4-3/4 circles removed from it. It’s called a FiT rectangle. Just by listening, you now have a new wayof percieving these patterns which was invisible to you before — a new layer of meaning. So, how does one master the emotions? By listening, but more importantly, listeningto points of view that they haven’t heard before or that are contrary to their own. To feel differently, they have to see differently. To see differently, they have to gain knowledgethat they don’t have. To gain knowledge that they don’t have,they have to experience new things. I think Joseph Campbell said it best, The very cave you are afraid to enter turnsout to be the source of what you are looking for. This video was based on my best understandingof Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “theory of constructed emotion” which I talked aboutin another video. I put a link to it in the description.