Chapter 45 – Differentiating Emotions
Before we master the emotional dimension it is imperative that we understand the actual “end game”. First and foremost, no person on earth can control their feelings, that is one of man kinds biggest misnomers. Think about it… If you are walking your child across the street, and they get hit by a vehicle, is it possible to not be sad ? If you are walking down that same street, and that vehicle is chasing you and your child, is it possible not to feel fear ? So at the end of the day, none of us are in control of our feelings. What differentiates a warrior from the average person however, is how one reacts to their feelings. If the average person while walking their child is suddenly confronted with a violent speeding vehicle, there is a good chance their fear will debilitate them. Their reaction, instead of grabbing the child and evading the vehicle, would more resume a dear staring frozen in headlights. A warrior on the other hand, will feel the exact same fear as an average person. However, that “feeling”, not only will not debilitate them, that “feeling”, will actually improve their agility, and nimbleness. The so called, war hero, who does amazing things in battle, I can assure you feels the same fear, as his fellow soldiers. How they react to that fear, is what actually makes them a hero.
Now getting back to our original points, of differentiating, and processing emotions, and ascertaining an “end-game”. First and foremost, when we come to realize that everyone feels fear, everyone feels sadness, everyone feels anger, etc, etc… That actual knowledge becomes a tool for empowerment. While the average person, is bucking and fighting these emotions head on, the warrior, is excepting these feelings, allowing them to come in and be processed.
If you could indulge me for a moment, I would like to share with you another dangerous and common misnomer… Confusing, fear with panic. Panic is something we feel, when we are tired, angry and claustrophobic. A good example is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Imagine being exhausted, you are wrestling with somebody, that you really really want to beat, and you are in that moment struggling not to be on the bottom, typically what happens at this juncture, physiologically the heart rate sky rockets, we vascilate between hyper ventilating and holding our breath. And whatever drop of energy we had left in our body, we used up with “reckless disregard”. There is a very very simple answer to never panic again. We simply desensitize our selves(this is a Seal Team Six Technique I used to Call Stress Inoculation). Never ever again fear the bottom, simply embrace the bottom. Spend 50 hours on the bottom and your fear will be gone. As the biofeedback axiom goes, control follows awareness. Therefore the more we are aware of our feelings the more we can control our reaction to them. The more we are aware of panic, the more we can control our reaction to it. And I can tell you from 25 years of wrestling with the greatest Jiu-Jitsu proponents on planet earth, that all of these people have one thing in common, “the mastery of the reaction to their feelings”... The End Game !
Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.
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