What Dominant Emotions Run Your Life?

I have a beautiful card stack next to my bed and each morning I pull a card for the day. My favorite card so far said, “What are the dominant emotions that run my life?”  This question brought so much pondering for me. The first question I asked myself was, “There are emotions running my life. What are the dominant ones? Are they positive emotions or negative emotions?”  If they were negative emotions, I wanted to clear them because I wanted positive, dominant emotions running my life.  I realized I could spend lots of time and energy trying to clear negative emotions or, instead, I could more quickly and easily embrace positive emotions to push out any negative emotions.

All of this thinking led to the most important question:  “What are dominant emotions that would help us run a happy, successful life?”  The ones that come to mind are:  abundance, adaptable, accepting, aligned, ambitious, authentic, balanced, calm, capable, centered, cheerful, clear, committed, compassionate, composed, confident, connected, considerate, courageous, creative, decisive, elevated, expressive, faithful, flexible, focused, forgiven, fulfilled, generous, glad, grateful, grateful, grounded, happy, healed, honest, hopeful, inspired, intuitive, joyful, kind, liberated, lighthearted, loved, motivated, nurtured, open-minded, optimistic, passionate, patient, peaceful, perceptive, protected, purposeful, reassured, renewed, resolute, respectful, responsible, safe, spiritual, spontaneous, stable, still, strengthened, supported, teachable, thankful, tolerant, transforming, trusting, valued, well, whole, wisdom, and worthy.

Imagine if it were just three to five of these emotions that drove your daily actions, dominating your thoughts, moving you forward. With any of the emotions in the list dominating your thoughts and actions you could not help but move forward, accomplish goals, and feel happier! How would it be if someone asked you how you felt today, and you responded with, “I feel balanced, capable, and whole today!”?

Perhaps you look at this list and think “I want to feel these emotions. I want these emotions to dominate and run my life; but, how do I embrace them and let them dominate my thoughts and actions?”

Here are four steps to embrace the positive emotions you want and how to let them drive your life.

Step 1

Look through the list of emotions and choose one emotion that you want to cultivate and embrace.

Step 2

For the next week spend five to ten minutes daily in reflection asking yourself questions about what may be standing in the way between you and that emotion. One way to do this is by journaling. For example, if you want to have more abundance in your life, reflect on questions like “What will it take for me to believe I am worthy and able to receive more?”, “Am I limiting gifts that would otherwise flow to me?”, or “Do I have a subconscious belief that life should be hard?”.

Reflective journaling includes thinking about the triggers that may cause you to block the emotion(s) you want to experience. Reflect on the behaviors and thoughts that may stand in the way between you and the emotion. Assess if there are relationships that need work so that the emotion can be experienced.

As you reflect on these thoughts and questions over the next week, clarity and answers will come as to what you may need to change to experience this emotion.

Step 3

On ten sticky notes write an afformation regarding this emotion. Afformations are affirmations written in question form. For example, if you want more abundance in your life, you might write an afformation like one of these, “Why does abundance flow to me in unexpected and surprising ways?”, “Why do I receive all good gifts?” or “Why am I open to more abundance in my life?”.  Put the sticky notes where you will see them often throughout the day, such as on a cupboard door, the door to the bathroom, your computer monitors, your steering wheel, the wall by your desk, by the sink, etc.; read the afformation each time you see the sticky notes.

Affirmations have helped millions of people achieve their personal and professional goals. But, what if, you could take those positive statements and add some power to them?  To summarize Noah St. John from his book, Affirmations, “Affirmations are statements of something we want to be true in our life. For example, “I am happy.” or “I am capable.”.

We have tens of thousands of thoughts each day and many we are not even aware of most of the time. Our life reflects our daily thoughts. So, if we say these affirmations to ourselves many times a day would they not begin to reflect in our lives? Because your mind responds automatically to something that is both simpler and more powerful than statements, affirmation statements rarely have the power for change.

“If you do not believe your positive statements yet, why not ask questions that will change your life?” You create your life by the statements you say to yourself and others and by the questions you ask yourself and others. The questions are where the power in change lies.

As St. John says in his book, “Most people are going through life asking a lot of disempowering questions without realizing it – then they wonder why they are not getting the results they dream of.” For example, disempowering questions that we ask ourselves might by “Why do I not have enough money?”, “Why do I never get the breaks that other people get?”

You manifest what you focus on. If I focus on the disempowering questions of why I do not have enough money, I am probably going to be always struggling with money. In other words, when you ask yourself negative questions, you get negative results.

What if you change the question to be empowering? “Empowering questions unleash your ability to take action and express who you really are.” Image changing those disempowering questions to something like “Why do I always have enough money?” or “Why am I so lucky?”. You just reverse the negative question to a positive.  This principle of empowering questions or affirmations can easily be applied to embracing positive emotions.  An affirmation for abundance would be written something like, “I allow abundance in my life.” Both forms may appear the same but when we state the affirmation the brain gets confused when we also send the negative thoughts we tend to have about the topic. When we pose it as a question the brain searches for the answer and we see it much clearer. Why not use your mind to create the life you do want, rather than one you do not?

Step 4

Spend two minutes twice each day for the next five days visualizing your life as you experience the emotion. Try to feel the emotion and imagine your physical body’s reaction as the emotion sweeps through your body? Imagine the positive things happening around you as this emotion fills your body and visualize how you communicate with others as you embrace this emotion.

Visualization is a useful mental tool which we all use every day, usually unknowingly. For example, we use it when we read a book, look for solutions, or giving directions. Visualization includes imagining how we would act in certain circumstances, how we would feel in certain situations, and how we are going to enjoy a future event. In the case of this exercise, spend time visualizing yourself experiencing the emotion in different ways and in different situations in your life.

Visualization practice allows us to experience the emotion without neutralizing it with negative thoughts. It helps bring that emotion into reality. Just as athletes improve their performance with visual mental rehearsals and writers envision their characters and scenes before putting pen to paper, you can visualize the emotion you want to feel. Visualization can also be used in similar ways to reflective journaling in that you can visually see yourself letting go of the triggers and behaviors that stand in the way of your experiencing that emotion and letting that positive emotion help you release them.

Step 5

As you reflect on this emotion and do visualization exercises, breathe in the aroma of an essential oil that will help the body adapt and embrace this emotion. For example, orange essential oil is the “Oil of Abundance.” Each emotion in the following list has one or more essential oils that work in parallel with the emotion. (You can order any of these oils or contact me at: lynxinbio.com/y3t6b)

Essential oils are powerful emotional triggers. They are extracted from plants and many are 40-70 times more potent than herbs. Like herbs, they can support the body in healing. Additionally, the aroma of essential oils can penetrate the limbic brain and trigger emotional changes through chemical releases. Essential oils can also penetrate the cells of the body and support the physical healing by helping the cells to release negative emotions and embrace positive emotions.

At the end of the five days, it may be necessary to repeat the steps for the same emotion for another five days or until that positive emotion you chose becomes a dominant emotion. Repeat these four steps for a handful of other positive emotions. As we embrace more positive emotions fewer negative emotions will dominate our life and change will begin to be noticed.

Bringing these steps back to the beginning, what if instead of asking each morning, “What are the dominant emotions that run my life?”, we tell ourselves each morning, “These are the dominant emotions running my life today:  abundance, gratefulness, and support” (or whatever three emotions you choose).  By intentionally listing the emotions, reflecting on them, visualizing them, adding affirmations for them, and partnering them with aroma of essential oils, you cannot help but have a more positive, happier life where you are accomplishing your goals and achieving your dreams. As you let these positive emotions dominate your life, you will also be reflecting those positive feelings on those around you. You have the choice as to what dominate emotions run your life!

about

PJ Hanks

PJ Hanks has spent over 40 years in businesses helping women find hope, discover solutions, and achieve goals. She has a wealth of experience with various tools, proven techniques, and love to help her clients find success in all areas of their lives. As a Bastyr trained aromatherapist, a certified holistic health coach, and a successful business leader, PJ assists her clients to become their best selves.

PJ has been a successful entrepreneur for 30+ years and believes that when your emotional and physical wellness is good, your business and work-life are thriving, and you are working on yourself personally you can feel as though you can cope with all the rest of life.

PJ lives in Carnation, WA with her husband and has three adult children and loves being a grandmother to two darling twin granddaughters. She enjoys crafting, being with family and friends, and traveling. She loves to have deep conversations and to help others find hope and joy!

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