Being overly reactive to the people and situations around you is more than just exhausting. It actually displaces you from your personal power and undermines your ability to create the life you desire.
Here are 3 principles that you can begin applying today to regain control of your vibration – and therefore, your emotional reactions.
First, declare that you – not anyone or anything outside of you – are in charge of the way you feel.
Being less emotionally reactive begins by accepting one fundamental premise: You have the ability to set your own emotional tone, regardless of how others around you are feeling.
If you’ve fallen into the habit of being emotionally reactive, you probably feel at the mercy of other people’s moods. This is what happens when we haven’t yet learned that we have the ability to calibrate our own emotional state. We naturally fall into vibrational synch with the most dominant energy stream that surrounds us.
But while this may seem like good news when we’re in the presence of positive, uplifting people, it’s ultimately disempowering. Because emotionally reacting to others leaves us completely out of control of our own life experience.
Truth be told, most of us are highly emotionally reactive.
Meaning, we allow our internal moods and emotions to be controlled by events in the outer world. And so, when something we consider to be good happens, our mood raises in response. But if we perceive someone or something as misbehaving, our good mood plummets.
When this is our orientation, we are literally handing the reigns of our life experience over to another. So the first step to reclaiming your power is to assert that you and you alone are in charge of your mood. The next step is to declare how you desire to feel and anchor yourself in that desired vibration.
To become less emotionally reactive, declare how you want to feel and then anchor yourself into that desired vibration.
Most people wait until they’re already in an unpleasant situation and then react to the environment they find themselves in. But as a deliberate creator, you can decide to make a far more beneficial choice.
You have the power to decide in advance how you want to feel and then set yourself up to experience that in every way you can think of. I call this “preparing your internal environment,” and the good news is, it’s a skill you’ve already practiced many times throughout your life.
For example, think of the last time you hosted an event that turned out really well. Chances are, you didn’t just throw it together last minute, but actually spent time creating it in advance.
You probably curated your guest list based on the potential chemistry, interests, and synergy of each person within the group. You likely took some time to think about the type of meal you wanted to make, then gathered the necessary ingredients. On the day of the event, you probably even took steps to clean and beautify your home to make it joyous and welcoming to guests. And all of these things were done, in advance, for one singular purpose: to enhance the mood and experience of everyone involved. You can apply a similar process to prepare your mood, so you can be more deliberate about your emotions and less reactive.
Here’s how to prepare your internal environment.
To prepare your mood in advance of any situation or interaction, simply begin thinking thoughts of appreciation and joyful anticipation. Go out of your way to notice and enhance all the possible positive aspects of everyone you’re about to encounter. And while you’re at it, keep a running mental list of all the things you appreciate about yourself. Decide in advance what qualities you wish to embody, and then take whatever actions support you in achieving that state.
For example, suppose your intention is to show up to a meeting with your boss feeling calm and relaxed. You’d want to begin thinking, in advance of that meeting, about the actions that would naturally foster that state of being. You might consider getting a good night’s sleep or giving yourself a few extra minutes in the morning. If you’re going after a state of enthusiasm, perhaps listening to some inspiring music or going for a brisk walk would set the stage.
Reactive people stumble into a given situation and let the dominant vibration influence their mood. Deliberate creators set their emotional tone on purpose by tending to it in advance.
The final step to becoming less emotionally reactive is to give yourself permission to do what feels best to you.
“Doing what feels best to oneself” may seem like obvious advice, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t follow it. We put up with bad-feeling relationships for all kinds of reasons, and all of them come at a huge personal cost.
Proclaim that you are 100% responsible for your mood, then decide how you want to feel. If you take these first steps, the final step will come easy, and the most beneficial choices will be clear.
You see, you can’t be committed to being peaceful and engage in conflict at the same time. Or, you can’t decide that you want to feel loving and entertain hateful thoughts. You have to make a choice between the two, and if you allow them, your feelings will guide the way.
Give yourself permission to pull back from resistance-filled people and situations. Simply walk away for the time being, if you can. And if the present situation doesn’t allow for that option, then at least withdraw your attention from the conflict.
Remember that you are in charge of how, where, and on what you direct your focus.
You can focus very specifically, or you can view a situation in the most general of terms. Whenever you find yourself in a situation where the negative momentum is very strong, making feeling better your first priority.
No matter where or who we’re with, there is always something we can do to bring more well-being into our experience. We just have to a) make our well-being a priority, and b) be willing to actively seek out better-feeling options.
Christy Whitman is an energy healer, Master Certified Law of Attraction Coach, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Having It All: A Woman’s Guide to Unlimited Abundance. Her latest book, The Desire Factor: How to Embrace Your Materialistic Nature to Reclaim Your Full Spiritual Power is on sale now at www.thedesirefactor.com. Christy communicates with, and for, The Quantum Council, a collection of non-physical ascended masters who desire to help humanity understand that we are divinely designed for well-being, abundance, success, and loving relationships. You can take the first step in alignment and creating your desires by a free 30-day program called Watch Your Words by going here: www.watchyourwords.com.
