The most common default switch for most is to get angry, to become upset at themselves and everyone else around them. Even before realizing they’re becoming sad or mad, what they habitually do is eat or drink too much, before they begin to feel despondent about themselves.
The reason for this is the culmination from years of negative conditioning, realizing once you’re confronted, you habitually seek instant gratification through a learned response.
Once you become aware of this, there are steps to take to reduce the emotional outburst while increasing self-esteem. To improve your long term outlook, what you need is emotional resuscitation.
Once we reach adulthood, every action we take is a preconditioned response, good or bad, on autopilot.
We feel and respond the same way once certain events happen to us in our lives, which triggers the same physiological and mental state of mind.
Our Emotions Motivate Behaviour
What our emotions does is motivates us. What they do is prepares us to do certain things by sending assigned chemical signals to the cells, muscles, and organs.
Once you activate your emotions, you’re motivated to take action, regardless if you want to or not as it’s an instinctive response.
The emotions which inspires our troublesome behaviour are those which makes us become devalued and vulnerable, such as feeling anxiety, shame, or guilt.
In response, we attempt to feel empowered by devaluing others, by showing envy, resentment, or jealousy. What can also result is overworking, overeating, or drinking too much.
Our emotional energy then becomes weakened and narrow. We become nervous and bitter, as we struggle to maintain our enjoyment of life.
We then allow others to control how we feel, as they push all our emotional “hot” buttons and we react accordingly.
How Emotional Response Turn Into Habits
What’s easy to form is a habit. We automatically act on these conditioned emotions, and do so repeatedly. Habits are something that becomes robotic to us, without needing to think about it.
We automatically reach for our smartphone whenever we feel anxiety. We overeat, drink, or curse once feeling tense or challenged, or devalue someone once we feel upset or angry.
What the brain loves are habits, because what they do is conserve mental energy as we become lazy.
The difference between responding to a habit and a similar behaviour that’s consciously decided, are millions of multi-firing neurons.
Once a habit becomes formed in the brain, they can only be changed by replacing it with a different habit, to fill the void.
How To Change Habits
Since habits become mentally efficient, what they do is dominate our behaviour when under stress, or whenever our physical resources become depleted.
That’s why it becomes difficult to make any changes that lasts very long. Once we become tired, distracted, or stressed out, the old stored habits kick in.
The clinical approach when it comes to changing habits, is by practising new behaviours once the conditioned emotional response occurs.
So rather than overeating or swearing too much when you’re upset, practice meditation or go out for a run instead.
What it takes is an ongoing conscious effort, along with willpower to override any habit you want to rid of. Willpower however is easily exhaustible when it comes to our mental resources.
The reason why this determination is difficult to sustain, is because once our physical resources become low, or our distractions become too high, we just surrender to the pressure.
The Activation Of Emotions
Our emotions originate from the most primitive region of the brain, which is able to instantly process thought and action within a split second.
Even the slowest of emotions can occur infinitely quick, and the reason why you have no idea why you’re suddenly feeling ashamed, pathetic, or angry on impulse.
By the time you realize you’re feeling angry, you may have already cursed someone, at least in your mind. Before you realize you’re sad, you’re motivated to overeat or drink too much.
Before you know you’re feeling vulnerable, what you’re motivated is to deny, blame, or avoid the facts.
Prior to knowing you’re feeling ashamed, you’re motivated to seek quick adrenaline through active or passive aggression.
Once you become emotionally aware of your response and why, is when you’re more likely to recall what you’ve learned when you are calm and thinking clearly.
Changing Habits Requires Altering Emotions
Reconditioning our emotions is associating our devalued thoughts, with those which raises value in ourselves, along with others.
What valuing emotions does is it strengthens the emotional response, making them more flexible, offering a wider range of experiences.
Once this association is conditioned, the occurrence of a devaluing emotion then automatically stimulates valued emotions.
What doing so takes is practice, doing mental push ups, while reconditioning the emotions.
What repeating these emotional exercises does, is builds conditioned responses which moves you from an automatic devalued state, to feeling valued.
Physical Tolls On Emotion
Reconditioning appears as physical signs on the body. Physical changes will occur more quicker than the awareness of change in emotion.
What this enables is they being able to forge new emotional associations, which are usually subconscious.
So before you begin to knowingly feel anger, what you need is to attempt to take the effort of making the situation better.
Or before you begin to overeat or have another outburst, instead, notice something to appreciate, or make an attempt to connect with someone.
Before you realize you’re beginning to feel nervous; appreciate, improve, protect, or consolidate better with the situation. Then the habit eventually becomes transformed.