Do you know the difference between a feeling and an emotion? You may say that emotions are much deeper and stronger than feelings. From one viewpoint Pau Gasol Jersey , that's true. However, here's a detail about feelings that you may not know about: you can observe your feelings but not your emotions. When you experience feelings you are the observer and in full control; when you experience emotions, you cannot remain the observer and you are not in control.
Emotion Seems to Have a Life of its Own
In most cases, you can only experience them and not control them. You are no longer in control - the emotions are! They act collectively as a kind of psychic clone of the more complete, more human you.
That's the reason why we have emotional reactions to things that we sometimes later regret. We scream at our partners LaMarcus Aldridge Jersey , we leave our friends, and we smash things until they break. Mostly, this emotional clone is reactive, uncontrollable, and seemingly independent from our core selves.
The Wolf Story
A sage once said that each person has both a white and a black wolf inside himself that constantly fight each other. The black wolf is aggressive and reactive and the white wolf is calm and social. The winner of this battle is simply decided by which wolf we feed. Most of the time we are not aware that David Robinson Jersey , more often than not, we feed the black wolf and not the white one.
What can be done about this?
The black wolf can only live inside when you create it in the first place. A black wolf is a black hole that sucks up your energy.
1. The Black Wolf Called Anger
Anger is the result of not taking 100% responsibility for your life. You created the this wolf by reacting to an experience. Then you forgot that you created it. If you decide to take ownership of your creation, you must simply feel your way through the original experience. That feeling could be sadness, for example, but not anger. Sadness is the original feeling and an angry black wolf is the emotional result.
Perhaps you blame someone else for your anger. By doing so Tim Duncan Jersey , you make another person responsible for the wolf creation that is yours and yours alone! It's important to remember that everything in this world is a creation of yours in one form or another, even things that seem to have nothing to do with you directly.
2. The Black Wolf Called Resentment
Resentment is very close to anger. When you harbor resentment, you limit the spectrum of your feeling nature and a major part of you closes down. When you resent someone, you are saying very forcefully that the other person is the problem, the cause and the fault San Antonio Spurs Jersey , not you. You forcefully blame the other person so you don't have to look within.
You are declaring the other person, group or institution to be your enemy.
The problem is that resenting your enemy creates a dilemma that centers around the conflict that come from not taking full responsibility for the the situation. Ultimately, it is you who has the conflict, you who faces the dilemma, and you who began to harbor resentment.
3. The Black Wolf Called Blame
Like resentment Zach Randolph Jersey , blame is not much different from anger. In both cases, you attempt to make someone else responsible for what you feel by creating an emotional reaction. Resentment and blame are different faces of this type of emotional reaction.
Resentment is a form of disappointment that seems to have its source on the outside. For example, should you get fired it seems logical that the cause is your employer. If such a calamity happened, there probably wouldn't be much you could do about it. The cause seems to be external (your boss) even though your emotional reaction is generated within.
Everything changes when you accept that the cause is always you. You created it (you took the job), you experienced and accepted the situation (you created a positive or negative environment in which to work) Buddy Hield Jersey , and you reaped the results (you got rewarded or fired). You alone are responsible for this wolf. Why did you create a black wolf when you could have just as easily created a white one?
4. The Black Wolf Called Guilt
Guilt is much like blame of others, but turned back on yourself. When you're guilty, you actually take ownership of what you did. So why would you feel bad about it? Because you judge yourself as having taken the wrong action in a given situation.
You did it and now you are convinced it was wrong.
With a little introspection, you'll realize that guilt does not come from the original situation or action itself, but from the self-imposed judgment after the action. This judgment is DeMarcus Cousins Jersey , in fact, an emotional reaction that questions the original action you took in a given situation. When things fall apart afterwards, you tell yourself, "I made a mistake; I did not want to cause this." You blame yourself.