Control your Emotions, Control your Reality
Dr. Cynthia Sholes, PhD, MdH

Be Aware
(unknown author)

Watch your thoughts
They become your words

Watch your words
They become your actions

Watch your actions
They become your habits

Watch your habits
They become your Character

Watch your Character
It becomes your Destiny

This poem has always spoken to me about the power of thoughts to create our reality, but there have been so many times in my life that my thoughts were so negative that I felt ashamed of the reality that they must be creating. This shame brought guilt which would invariably bring on more negative thoughts and more shame and often depression and hopelessness. This downward spiral seemed inescapable at times until I learned the missing piece of the puzzle, emotions. Our thoughts often arise from our emotions, so the poem should begin with:

Watch your emotions
They become your thoughts

Emotions, though, are difficult to control because they arise from the subconscious mind and, very often, seem to be dependent upon external factors. The idea of controlling your emotions can also bring about a sense of helplessness if you don’t know how to change your emotions. Over the years and through my training, I have learned many ways to change your emotions from techniques such as hypnosis, positive affirmations, guided imagery, Emotional Freedom Technique and Neuro-Emotional Technique. Some of them are more effective than others depending on what your initial emotions might have been. But none of them worked in all circumstances as a self-help technique.

I have recently discovered the teachings of Abraham from Ester and Jerry Hicks and have learned a new way of looking at emotions. Abraham teaches that all emotions are good because they are indicators of our feeling states and the way we are occurring in our world. Taking emotions as indicators we can begin to learn how to use them to improve our state of mind instead of making ourselves wrong for having negative emotions or thoughts.

Knowing your Emotional Guidance Scale and Shifting your Emotions and Thoughts to Create you Reality.

Ester and Jerry Hicks have developed the Emotional Guidance Scale. Using this scale you can begin to familiarize your self with your emotional states and begin the change it to a more positive state, one step at a time. By moving your emotional state up the Emotional Guidance Scale you can begin to move your thoughts into a positive state and begin to create a positive reality for yourself.

Emotional Guidance Scale
(Copied from Ask and It Is Given, by Ester and Jerry Hicks)

Emotional States:
1. Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/Love/Appreciation
2. Passion
3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4. Positive Expectation/Belief
5. Optimism
6. Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11. Overwhelm
12. Disappointment
13. Doubt
14. Worry
15. Blame
16. Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred/Rage
20. Jealousy
21. Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22. Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness

How to shift your emotional state to a more positive one using the Emotional Guidance Scale.

Creating your dreams, passions and desires requires you to be in an emotional state between (1) Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/love/Appreciation and (5) Optimism. If your emotional state is lower than this, your thoughts will not be consistent with the creation of your most positive desires.

Although you may have tried to move your emotional state directly from a low emotional state such as anger to a higher one like joy or even hopefulness, and you may have, at times, been successful, it is very difficult to do this without first moving through most of the emotions in between. This is why so many of the self help techniques such as positive affirmations and self hypnosis aren’t always effective. You can’t begin to use them if your emotional state is too low. You must first bring your emotional state up to at least (8) boredom or (9) pessimism, before these techniques can work well.

To do this first, find language to express your current emotions about the issue at hand. Listen to your thoughts they will give you the language. From this language, determine your emotional point at this moment. Now, chose the emotion that is just up the scale from your current emotion and create a new language, new thoughts that express your issue with this emotional content. It should feel better.
For example, if you are feeling angry about and issue, moving into feelings of discouragement about it will make you feel better and is a relatively easy jump to make. All you need to do to make this jump is to change the wording of your thoughts about the issue slightly. When you have done that then you are ready to move up the emotional guidance scale further by changing your thoughts to match another more positive emotion. You can continue doing this until you are where you want to be on the emotional scale. Some days you may be satisfied with contentment and others you may want to achieve joy or elation.

I had heard of the emotional guidance scale many times before but it didn’t click into my life until I was able to recognize the negative emotional pattern that I was in and why. When I considered my own emotions I would lump all of the negative emotions (11) overwhelm to (22) despair all together as equally “bad” and undesirable. For example if I would find myself in anger, I would immediately go to shame for having this negative emotions making myself feel worse. If I would want to blame someone else for the object of my anger and then I make myself wrong for blaming others and not taking responsibility myself. This caused more feelings of shame and guilt and moved me down on the scale rather than up. When I learned that blame could be used as a stepping stone to move me up on the emotional guidance scale, I quit making myself wrong and began to move myself up and out of the negative emotional pattern that I had created. I also realized that if I was in frustration, blame would move me down on the emotional guidance scale, in the opposite direction than I would like to go. But, pessimism would move me in the right direction. Learning the scale and learning to distinguish my own emotions gave me a great deal of control and power over them. I still have negative emotions but now I languish in my negative emotions for a much shorter time.

Use the scale to recognize your own negative emotion patterns and learn how to shift them in a positive direction by taking small steps and knowing that no matter where you are that is the right place to begin.

Creating your Dreams

Once you have moved your emotions into a positive state, then let your thoughts begin to create your reality. What are your dreams, your passions? Identify them and begin to flesh them out in your mind in detail. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Relax and put yourself in a state of self hypnosis and begin to visualize, imagine your dreams are really true. Smell them, feel them, see them, and hear them. By doing this you will begin to set them in motion. As your subconscious mind aligns with them so will your emotions and thoughts and from your thoughts come your words, and your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny. And, least you forget, it all begins with BEING AWARE.

To learn how you can manage your emotions and create a life that you love call Dr. Cynthia Sholes for an appointment 650-704-1252.