The State of Your Choice.
How many states have you been in? Whenever I ask people this question, they inevitably start listing off how many of the different states in the United States of America they have visited.
I understand the reasoning, but it’s the wrong answer. Then I ask them what state do they live in, they usually answer with one or two words. Again wrong, but I can see how they got to that answer.
Because most people think of states in terms of geography, not emotion.
Yet it turns out that there are a lot of similarities between the two. As there are many states of land, there are also many states of emotion. I read one time of a list that mentions 131 different emotional states.
Exhausting thought isn’t it.
While some geographical states are similar to others, there are also those states with whom they appear to have little in common. The same is true of emotional states, where there are both similarities and differences.
But it’s also true that visiting, or taking up residence in a state is a choice. A voluntary choice.
Ok, put down your pitchforks. I know that my last statement tends to make some people very angry, so I would ask you to read the emotions that you felt when I told you that it was voluntary.
Did you feel a quiet acceptance, or a sudden anger? Did you immediately jump to telling me why I was wrong? If so, you might find the next statement kind of hard to take as well.
We choose our emotional states based on what we get out of them.
Please hear me clearly, because this is a difficult thing to understand. I am not talking about people who suffer from depression, that is a totally different matter. But in the case of someone who routinely, habitually chooses to be in a certain emotional state, they invariably do so because they are getting something out of it.
It is a reaction for them, born out of pain, and confusion and sorrow, and it is often so ingrained that they are completely unaware that there is a choice.
And there never will be, unless they decide to increase their awareness, and find out why they choose the way that they do.
Please understand that I am not judging them. I was one of those people for so long, and the first time I heard this truth I reacted against it pretty nastily, because believing that I didn’t have a choice about my emotional state freed me from the responsibility of managing it.
Also, consistently feeling like the victim (hard to admit but true) gave me a sense of significance, and certainty, and connection.
I was choosing my emotional state based on what I got out of it, not what I could get out of it.
Your emotional state IS a choice, and one that allows you to either stagnate or grow; find anger or find peace. When you truly understand this, you will have started the journey to becoming a person who chooses their emotions out of awareness rather than out of fear.
You will find a different person staring back at you than you ever thought possible.
And who knows, you might just find some joy along the way :)
—Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings