We all experience times where our emotional state inhibits us from taking action that is positive and productive. It’s during these times where we may feel powerless and ultimately held hostage to the will of our own emotions.

Although it can be easy to get trapped INTO an unresourceful emotional state...at the same time, it’s also easy to get out of it.

Our mind works by gathering information that we collect through our five senses, and then translating that information.

That information is translated through association.

We associate with past memories, or utilizing the power of our imagination, we associate ideas and stories, which are then presented as movies that play on repeat within our mind’s eye.

It’s these movies that curate emotion. That emotion, which ultimately stemmed from a mere memory or imagined story, is then experienced as something that is very real.

These emotions affect us on a physiological level. Our breathing, posture, movements, gestures, etc change as a results of the emotions we’re experiencing.

Sometimes those physiological change are very subtle and barely noticeable such as a change in our posture or position of our eyes. Other times those changes can completely paralyze us or allow us to move in ways we never thought possible.

As much as we want to think that how we are responding is real and in accordance to what is really going on outside of us. The truth is that our mind does not know the difference between the external and internal reality.

Our neurophysiology is responding to what it associates with. It does not judge if those associations are accurate or not!

We can take control of our mind by influencing what our mind associates with. This is done by providing emotionally-based suggestions that our mind can utilize to associate with memories, ideas, and stories that are empowering and resourceful.

As we said before, those associations are then translated into emotion, which is expressed as movement throughout the body.

The more we understand about how perception works, the easier it is to take control over our emotional state. We may not be able to control what happens outside of us, but we can control what is happening within us, and how we express those aspects of ourselves through our body.

Stay tuned for part two in which I’ll share with you the simple method for how to do... just that.