Ask Grand Master Lu: Emotions
Question: I often have great difficulty controlling my anger—it gets the best of me before I realize what’s happening. Can you offer any effective techniques for controlling my emotions?
Answer: Emotion is the true feeling of your consciousness—it is positive, not negative. If you are angry, acknowledge your anger. No matter what has made you angry, you are absolutely right—from your own angle, you have every right to be angry. But don’t get stuck there! You have to see why you get angry and then work on changing that. Otherwise, the emotion will eventually express itself in a symptom. So don’t think “negative” emotions are bad. You are alive! Be true to yourself and find out why you are feeling angry. Then change the way you see things.
Consider this: Take a stone. Depending on where you sit in front of that stone, you’ll see something different. But all that changes is your angle. From one side, the stone may appear smooth and white in color. If you turn it just a little, it may show jagged areas and black lines. Which is the true perception? Both! If you can adjust your perception of events and people, you can free up the energy trapped in the emotion. Look at the weather: nature can change on a dime. If you know how to be flexible like nature, things that happen in your life will not be a problem.
In any given situation where emotions are out of balance, your relationship to that situation is out of balance. You have the power to use your emotions wisely—it’s your energy! You receive emotions based on your thoughts. So what’s not working? Are you stuck in an old thought process? Change your thoughts; they are a program, just like on t.v. What you want to see is entirely up to you. If you don’t like the reality you see, change the channel!