If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.
Warren Buffet
I love the above quote, with a few caveats: 1) the word, “control” can be quite misleading, as it’s not about a dictating relationship with your emotions. Emotional mastery is so much more than learning to turn on the faucet or turn off the faucet. 2) since money is currently the currency for energetic exchange, I like to think that the above quote is about energetic output and input.
Thus, if you can’t learn to master your emotions, you can’t master your energy flow.
Why is it important to have mastery over our emotional experiences and responses?
- Our relationships depend on it.
- Our footprint depends on it.
We can’t have successful, flourishing relationships if we can’t choose intentionally how to respond to our environment as well as the people around us. If we can’t harness our resources to be compassionate towards those who are hurting, patient with those stressing, or more importantly, appreciative of our own valiant efforts at a life best lived – meaningful, trustworthy, and deep relationships don’t develop.
Similarly, if we don’t know how to manage our emotions, the legacy we leave behind isn’t one worth noticing at all. When we struggle to temper anger, transmute anxiety, or listen to sadness, our creative pipes get plugged up: the work we produce as teachers, the positive influence as managers, and hearts elevated as musicians dwindle down to zero.
When we’ve learned to produce responses fueled by balanced emotions (logical and fulfilling), we can really begin to take back the wheel.
My secret to emotional mastery?
Don’t minimize any emotions; avoid exaggerating all emotions. The intensity and importance of the emotions experienced are all accurate wholly on their own.
When I stay away from doing either of those two things (minimizing or exaggerating), it comes with effortless ease – knowing how and when to express my emotions (emotional mastery).
Your call to action today:
Evaluate and identify one area in your life where you’re not content or satisfied. Understand which emotions become triggered in that area, and why (Pro tip: The fastest way to do this is to be like the giraffe: see the bigger picture).