On this episode, taking the reins of your feelings to put
you back in control. This is the holistic alpha male
optimization podcast where we help you unleash your true power
as a man. Hey guys, welcome back to the
show. I'm Stephen Mathis.
Thanks for being a part of the TRIBE.
Let's talk about our feelings. There's a fundamental flaw in
the way that I know I approached feelings for a very long time
and I think the way that frankly, most people do because
it is the natural way. But there is a a better way.
There is a way that is much more powerful, but it does take some
learning, some perspective shifts and some practice for
sure as it relates to how we can get more out of our feelings and
that is to take the reins of our feelings back.
See, most of the time, most people do not take control of
their feelings. Their feelings are a result of
what they do or what happens, right?
So for most of my life, I would live my life and stuff would
happen and I would feel certain ways as a consequence of
whatever happened, however the day was going or whatever it may
be. However, the truth is equally
there. It is equally present that we
can control our feelings, that we can guide them, and that we
can in fact get better results and get more out of our life by
looking at it feelings first. So let's talk about that a
little bit more. There's a quote by a guy named
Rick Rubin. I know a few of you may be
familiar with Rick Rubin. If you're not, he's a music
producer. Very, very brilliant guy, helps
people get the most out of themselves is the way that I
would describe it. And there's a quote from him.
He said the better you feel, the better things go, the better you
feel the better things go. And there's a couple of
different ways to take that and to look at that.
One is to prioritize our feelings, right?
To recognize that how we feel actually matters, right?
It's not just this side note. It's not like we can go about
our day and our lives and be productive and thrive and all
the things if our feelings are just a side note, a footnote,
right? Our feelings are important when
we drive positive feelings, when we guide our choices and our
habits and the way that we live based on what makes us feel good
in a deep and fundamental way, things go better.
When we feel better, things go better.
However, the other part of that is that if we recognize that as
a truth, which Can you agree with me on that?
Would you say that when we feel better, things go better?
I, I found that to be true. If you found that to be true as
well, then what we can do is we can also say, you know what if I
want things to go better, I can intentionally feel better.
I can intentionally feel better. And that doesn't just mean doing
particular habits or whatever that typically make you feel
good. It does mean that too, right?
So if your workout, your meditation, getting outside,
doing whatever those things that you know kind of lead to you
feeling good, by all means do those.
But the next step is we can choose our feelings.
We can choose what we are going to feel and engage with.
We can practice feeling certain ways.
We can be OK with feelings that maybe aren't as fun instead of
resisting them. And thus we get back to taking
the reins of our feelings. Let's talk about that part a
little bit more. When we resist feelings that we
don't like. If you're feeling stressed or
depressed or lonely or whatever other feelings that people often
resist that I know I have and still do at times, if we resist
those, we give our power to the feeling.
We give control of our being to that feeling, and the more that
we resist it, the more it tends to stick around.
So if we're going to take control and take the reins back,
take the reins of our life back from our feelings, one part of
that is actually being OK with feelings that suck, but just be
OK with it. So you're lonely, OK, Be OK with
it. Decide to be OK with that.
You're depressed. OK, I'm down.
I'm down right now. That's OK, right?
It seems kind of trite. Maybe it would be a way to put
it. It seems a little too simple.
But truthfully, there is such tremendous power in just having
feelings that come up, whether it's anger or depression or
sadness or loneliness or any of these other more challenging
kind of feelings, having them come up and just deciding, you
know what, that's OK. It's OK.
As soon as you do that, you immediately take power back.
You take the reins back, you let that thing go to a large degree.
And what you'll find is that actually by being OK with
something, it kind of just wanders off.
It's like if you engage with it and you get all freaked out and
you get all upset, it's going to get all upset and it's going to
want to stay around and, and engage with you, right?
But if you just kind of ignore it, like, OK, I see you
depression, it's OK. You know, that's OK.
I'm kind of down today. That's OK.
Then it kind of just gets bored and wanders off.
And then all the sudden you might find that you're not
actually not all that depressed anymore when we stop resisting
it so much. Another key part of this, and
this is a part that is very uncommon, I don't think there's
a lot of people who even realize that we can really do this, and
even fewer that actually practice it on a regular basis.
And that is that we can create experiences and outcomes and
ways of being in our life by practicing emotions, by
practicing feeling a certain way.
One of my favorite studies about the power of imagination
practice is they took a group of high school students, they
divided them up into three groups, just random high school
students, right? They divided them up into three
groups. They tested them shooting free
throws with a basketball and one group, they tested them all in
the first day, right? One group practiced every day
for three weeks with a ball. Another group didn't practice at
all. The third group practiced every
day for three weeks, but they practiced only in their
imagination, and at the end of three weeks they test all three
groups again. The group that didn't practice
at all, 0% improvement almost precisely the same.
The group that practiced with the ball improved 24%.
The group that practiced only in their imagination, Only in their
imagination, zero practice with a ball whatsoever for three
weeks improved 23%, almost the same as the group that practice
with the ball. So that's a very physical skill.
Obviously shooting a basketball, shooting a free throw, that's a
very, very physical skill. The beautiful thing about
emotions is that the same power of imagination practice applies,
but it works even better because emotions are completely within
us. We don't have this kind of, you
know, with a physical skill like shooting a free throw.
There's the physical skill part of it, the muscle memory part of
it. There's all of that kind of
physical world stuff where is with our emotions, they are
entirely within us. So when we practice them within
us in our imagination, it is even more powerful.
So a practical way to do this because I know it might seem
like kind of an out there concept that you can practice
emotions, but you absolutely can.
And not only will it help you bring more of that emotion into
your life and be more of that emotion.
So for example, you might actually practice being patient
with your kids and imagining that, and it not only will help
you be more patient, but it will guide you automatically towards
that. Because when you practice stuff
in your imagination, your nervous system cannot tell the
difference between that and a real experience.
And so when we experience stuff repeatedly, it becomes kind of
automatic. So if you practice a particular
feeling in your imagination, that feelings going to start to
become kind of automatic. So if you go into your
imagination and you practice feeling confident, or you
practice feeling how you're going to feel when you achieve
that certain goal or whatever it is.
When you practice those positive feelings that you want to bring
into your life, you will automatically be pulled more
towards that thing. You will automatically draw it
towards you more, and maybe most importantly, you will
automatically act in accordance with that feeling.
That's the most important thing to wrap up on here is that when
you practice emotions, you will automatically act in ways that
are in accordance with that emotion.
That goes for negative emotions that you in essence practice by
dwelling on them, right? So if, for example, you dwell on
an emotion of being lonely and you focus on that and you resist
it and you think about it, what you will actually do is you will
find yourself taking the actions automatically that lead towards
more of that because that's what you're practicing.
Conversely, when you practice a positive, when you practice a
positive emotion, when you practice the emotions that will
come from a positive outcome, you will likewise find yourself
automatically taking the actions that lead toward those outcome,
those outcomes, and those emotions.
I hope this makes sense. The practical way to apply that
apply it is this meditate meaning very simply close your
eyes, just sit still, lay down, close your eyes, that's it.
You can turn on some non music or non word kind of music, it's
some meditation music or something like that if you like.
Or you can just sit in in stillness, but close your eyes
either laying down or sitting down and breathe, maybe focus on
your breath for a minute or two and then just play around in
your imagination. Don't take it too seriously.
And you don't not need to try to become that thing right now.
You don't need to try to come out of your imagination where
after my imagination, I'm going to feel this way for the rest of
the day. You don't need to worry about
that. Just practice in your
imagination for right now, feeling that way right now.
It's it's much more simple actually than than it then it
sounds, I think, or then it can be, it can come across kind of
complex and weird, but literally just close your eyes, practice
feeling a certain way and then go about your day.
And the more you do that, the more you're going to draw that
thing into your life. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for being part of the tribe.
If you're watching video, sorry for the little my dog hit the
tripod. So there you go.
Life happens, imperfection happens.
Sending you guys good vibes. Have an amazing rest of your
day. Talk to you soon.