How to transform our emotions

Letting emotions flow and transform is one of the keys to psychological harmony.

Every day we encounter a Wide range of emotions that trap us and cause us problems. However, we can transform them and turn them into a source of growth and wisdom if we know how to understand them..

From Contemplative Psychotherapy, we approach the emotional world using resources validated by introspection and observation of the mind. Currently, these resources are being corroborated by Western science through the study of the brain during the practice of meditation.

Two principles of emotional health

Buddhist psychology provides us with two interesting factors to take into account in our therapeutic practice, in order to learn to manage and free ourselves from disturbing emotions. or kleshas: to let go of the clinging to the self, and to know that emotions are empty in their essence.

Letting go of clinging to the self

The Sanskrit word klesha, defines those emotions that generate restlessness, discomfort or disturbance. They provoke a state of mind that leads us to perform behaviors that can harm other people or ourselves..

These emotions are rooted in the idea of a fixed or solid self that cannot change and have a perception of self as being separate from others. "I get angry because you make me angry...".

However, the reality is that the idea of the self is a conceptual thing.What does this mean? Our life is made up of a sequence of moments of consciousness that we accumulate in our mental continuum and create our experience. If we analyze this in depth, who is our self? The self of a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago...? My child, adolescent, adult self...? We cannot find a fixed self.

If our emotions change, our thoughts flow and our sensations constantly arise and fade away, it means that all the processes that manifest in us are impermanent..... Therefore, there is no self that can remain static.

This gives us a great opportunity for change: we can transform everything that arises in our mind if we do not associate it with the idea of a fixed and immovable self. Letting go of this erroneous idea of a solid self leads to the liberation of the emotions that trap us again and again. If there is no self to hold on to, the emotions will manifest and dissolve, the emotions will manifest and dissolve on their own without causing a sequence of actions that chain themselves to others and cause suffering..

Emotions are empty in their essence

Emotions are an energy that arises, usually provoked by a thought and associated with a physical sensation.

This energy develops, has a path and then disappears naturally. It is a manifestation of our mind, it arises from it and dissolves it. If we have an emotion and we hold on to it, feeding it with thoughts of the past or encouraging it with projections of the future, the emotion can solidify, or it can intensify. If we look deeply at their root, we will realize that they are actually insubstantial. Where are they? They are in our mind, but they are not our mind.. Because if they were our mind they would be something fixed and immovable, and it does not work like that.

They are empty in essence because they have been formed by a series of causes and conditions that have favored them, and when these causes and conditions disappear, the emotion naturally dissolves. They do not exist independently.

For anger or pride to arise, something must have happened that has provoked that emotion in us. Moreover, different manifestations of emotions arise in each of us and are provoked by different causes. This leads us to the conclusion that in themselves have no entity, but depend on concrete situations and experiences.. This vision also offers us another great opportunity to learn how to manage them.

How can we transform our emotions?

As they are neither rigid nor solid, we can dissolve them and transform emotions. Like the alchemists who turn lead into gold. Disturbing emotions give us the great opportunity to turn them into great qualities.

Let's see what other aspects we have to take into account to transform them.

1. Mindfulness

It is the first step: to have an attitude of introspection and observation to favor self-knowledge. If we are not aware of what provokes a disturbing emotion or we do not even recognize it, it will be difficult to transform it..

It is important to maintain an honest and courageous attitude to unmask the emotions that appear in our mind. Many times we deny them or hide them. Sometimes because we are not even aware of them and sometimes because we are ashamed to know that we feel jealousy or envy. The reality is that we all have seeds of disturbing emotions in our mind (pride, jealousy, anger, ignorance, greed, attachment...). Some manifest themselves more easily and others lie in wait until the moment arises for them to manifest themselves..

Paying conscious attention and observing ourselves is very important if we want to free ourselves from their consequences and transform them.

2. The Disidentified Witness

It is important that mindfulness goes hand in hand with a disidentified observer.

What does this mean? We know that as human beings we can be aware of ourselves and the mind has the quality of observing itself. This capacity helps us to be able to observe our mental observe from a new perspective our mental processes and our emotions: why they arise, what have been the causes and conditions that have provoked the emotion.Why they arise, what have been the causes and conditions that have provoked the emotion, how they affect us, how they manifest in our behavior, what are their consequences and how we can transform them.

If through mindfulness and mindfulness or meditation, we become aware of how emotions arise in our mind, without identifying with them, we will see more and more clearly that emotions are not our mind.

We will observe a consciousness in which the experience of emotions manifests itself.. As we dissolve the self, we will realize that they have no power over us. This process can also be followed in a therapeutic process if the practitioner knows this spiritual path of personal development.

Training in disidentified witnessing is a resource that will help us to create a space of awareness in our experience. We disidentify in such a way that we do not feel trapped by the emotion. We observe it, experience it and let it go.

3. Impermanence

Just as we explore the emptiness of emotions, we must realize their impermanence. Emotions arise and fade away in the mind, but they are not part of the inherent nature of the mind.. They are transitory.

This quality is tremendously important, because it gives us the freedom to know that they do not want to stay with us. We do not need to hold on to them. Moreover, we have the ability to decide what to do with them, whether to solidify them or let them go.

We all feel angry at some point, but it is up to us whether we feed back the anger and become victims of its plans by throwing it against someone; or we express it without harming anything or anyone and let it go. If we observe attentively the insubstantiality of an emotion and its transience, we will have taken an important step to manage it without causing harm..

4. Causes and Conditions

We have named that emotions arise from causes and conditions and I will expound on this in more detail. For example, for anger to arise, some situation has to occur that provokes that emotion. This already shows us that emotions are not provoked by people, but by situations that are generated between people. And these situations depend a lot on each person.

A look can provoke threat to one person and indifference to another. It depends on what we are projecting in it. There are situations that in one moment of the day we accept naturally and in another we feel reactivity or discomfort. What does this mean? That it depends on us the way we manage the emotion.

Just as we create causes and conditions for the kleshas to emerge, we can bring about causes and conditions to favor positive emotions neutralizing the disturbing ones or to foster them in our environment and mind.

5. Balancing tendencies

One of the important antidotes that we can mobilize is to create positive habits.. If we foster our qualities and put them at the service of our kleshas, we will create new positive tendencies that can balance the disturbing tendencies.

To the extent that we unmask the emotions that create discomfort and generate antidotes to counteract them, they will lose intensity and frequency and gradually fade away.

That is why it is very important to train ourselves in mindfulnessto realize and remedy immediately, preventing us from letting ourselves be carried away by the uncontrolled consequences of conflicting emotions.

6. The antidotes

It is curious how in many occasions, the antidote is found in the poison itself. It happens in vaccines or in other daily elements (soap is made with oil...). The same thing happens on the spiritual path. From suffering comes wisdom.

If a person gets on our nerves, we can make him or her our teacher of patience and take the opportunity to cultivate this quality. Any situation that creates discomfort can be turned into a great opportunity for growth if we know how to use the right antidote.

For example, pride can train us to be more equanimous and humble, anger can connect us with love and compassion, envy with the joy of the good of others...

It is advisable that each one of us discover, being honest and brave, which are the emotions that destabilize us most frequently. Observe them, analyze them and find your own antidotes to convert them little by little into qualities and wisdom.

Conclusions

The emotions that trap us are a source of growth and wisdom if we know how to transform and manage them. To do so, we need to we need to commit ourselves to maintain a full and conscious attention to how they manifest themselves and the consequences they have on us and on others..

By knowing their nature and letting go of our clinging to an idea of self, we can move forward on our path of self-realization.