As we go through recovery a lot of emotions seem to appear,with me anyway, so i found this on the web hope it helps
Your ?Emotional Pot?
To help you better understand each of these influences, imagine for a moment a pot of water which is heated by three fuel sources: your past, the present and your future.
This pot represents your current emotional state at any one time. When the pot heats up and the water starts to boil, you will begin to experience the emotional pressure and discomfort known as stress.
When the pot begins to cool down this emotional pressure and discomfort will be reduced, and you will start to feel more relaxed and at ease.
All three of these fuel sources (past, present & future) are able to heat your emotional pot, as they are all capable of generating emotion within you.
The Heat Of The Past
As was discussed in the previous article, all of the experiences and emotions you have had in the past are stored within your subconscious and unconscious mind.
If something triggers these stored memories, you will experience the feelings associated with that memory again.
What this means is that any unresolved issue from your past such as grief, guilt, anger or fear is still being stored within you, and is therefore continually affecting your emotional state by continually heating your pot.
So even though there may be nothing bothering you right now, your body may still be experiencing a low level background internal stress from those unresolved issues.
This stress will only become obvious to you when something (either in the present or future) reactivates the memories of those unresolved issues.
When this occurs, your pot will begin to boil and you will experience the emotional pain and discomfort of stress.
How this stress affects you, is dependant on your ?weakest link? which we talked about in the previous article.
The Heat Of The Future
The final fuel source which can affect your current emotional state is the future. For example, if you are worried about something that is going to happen in the future, or could happen, then this worry will add more fuel to your future flame causing your pot to heat up.
This is why people can feel nervous or suffer from anxiety simply by thinking about what might happen to them in the future. The more they worry, the hotter their pot gets and the more stress they create for themselves.
Some people experience this anxiety all the time, as they are continually worried about their future and what might happen to them.
This type of chronic anxiety can be especially harmful, as it puts the body in a constant state of stress which can cause it to age prematurely, and make it more vulnerable to disease.
A Constant State Of Internal Fear
One of the major contributing factors of stress driven by anticipation of the future, is the negative information we hear reported in the news.
This can make people feel insecure about their future and fearful of things which may happen to them, thereby keeping them in a constant state of stress.
Concern about the global economy and terrorism are two good examples of this.
This anxiety we experience from hearing negative information in the news, also affects us subconsciously.
Since in most cases you are unable to remove the source of your anxiety (i.e., solve terrorism so it is no long a threat to you) the fear you experience from this will remain unresolved, and will therefore continually heat your pot as it is stored in the subconscious and unconscious mind as an unresolved issue.
However it is important to remember that anxiety is different for everyone, and so we will all react to things we find threatening in different ways.
So just because you don?t go and hide under your bed everytime you see Al-Qaeda on the news, doesn?t necessarily mean you experienced no anxiety from that threat.
It will still be stored in your subconscious and unconscious mind, which you will only be aware of when something triggers that memory again.
For example, lets say there has been a terrorist attack in one country and you hear about it on the news. Even though you watch with interest what happened, you don?t really feel it has affected you in any way.
Then a few months later you get a call from one of your friends, asking if you would like to go on holiday to the country that had previously been attacked.
At this point you are likely to experience some degree of anxiety, the level of which will influence your decision of whether or not to go.
So even though at the time you thought the news had no affect on you, in reality it was constantly affecting you because it was stored in your subconscious and unconscious mind.
The moment something triggered that stored memory, your pot began to boil and you experienced emotional pain and discomfort as a result.
Living In The Present
As you can see from the previous examples your past, present and future experiences can cause your emotional pot to boil and result in you experiencing stress.
The key to overcoming this stress is to eliminate or reduce the negative emotions from your past, and the worry you have about the future. This article series is designed to assist you in doing this.
The good news is that you only really have to work on the unresolved issues from your past, as most worry about the future comes as a direct result of having similar events/experiences that have occurred to you in the past.
For example, if you had a bad experience with spiders when you were younger, you are likely to have developed a fear of spiders.
So should you start thinking about coming into contact with a spider sometime in the future, you are then likely to experience anxiety as a result of those thoughts.
However if we examine what has really happened here, we can see that our worry about the future is not actually caused by the future at all. It is caused as a result of our past experiences.
Therefore a person who can overcome their past unresolved issues, will automatically experience less anxiety from thinking about future events, whilst also removing the background low level stress that issue had been causing them.
Summary
Your current emotional state is determined by the things that have happened to you in the past, what you experience in the present and what you think you are going to experience in the future.
All of these sources act like fuel, which can cause your emotional pot to boil, or cool down.
Unresolved issues from the past can create a low level of background internal stress, which you usually don?t notice until something triggers the memory and emotion of that past experience.
These triggers may come from what happens to you in the present, or what you think will happen to you in the future.
The hotter your pot gets, the more stress and anxiety you will experience. If the pot continues to boil, it will eventually boil over.
When this occurs you will have a strong emotional outburst, which will vary depending on the associated emotion. Some examples could include, rage, depression or panic attacks.
By removing or reducing the fuel sources from your past (negative emotions) and your future (worry) your pot will primarily be heated or cooled by your present.
This will result in you feeling more relaxed and in control of your life, as it will now take a lot more for your pot to boil and for you to get you upset.
An added benefit is that your health will also improve, as you will no longer be under a constant state of background stress.I found this on the web hope it helps.
Your ?Emotional Pot?
To help you better understand each of these influences, imagine for a moment a pot of water which is heated by three fuel sources: your past, the present and your future.
This pot represents your current emotional state at any one time. When the pot heats up and the water starts to boil, you will begin to experience the emotional pressure and discomfort known as stress.
When the pot begins to cool down this emotional pressure and discomfort will be reduced, and you will start to feel more relaxed and at ease.
All three of these fuel sources (past, present & future) are able to heat your emotional pot, as they are all capable of generating emotion within you.
The Heat Of The Past
As was discussed in the previous article, all of the experiences and emotions you have had in the past are stored within your subconscious and unconscious mind.
If something triggers these stored memories, you will experience the feelings associated with that memory again.
What this means is that any unresolved issue from your past such as grief, guilt, anger or fear is still being stored within you, and is therefore continually affecting your emotional state by continually heating your pot.
So even though there may be nothing bothering you right now, your body may still be experiencing a low level background internal stress from those unresolved issues.
This stress will only become obvious to you when something (either in the present or future) reactivates the memories of those unresolved issues.
When this occurs, your pot will begin to boil and you will experience the emotional pain and discomfort of stress.
How this stress affects you, is dependant on your ?weakest link? which we talked about in the previous article.
The Heat Of The Future
The final fuel source which can affect your current emotional state is the future. For example, if you are worried about something that is going to happen in the future, or could happen, then this worry will add more fuel to your future flame causing your pot to heat up.
This is why people can feel nervous or suffer from anxiety simply by thinking about what might happen to them in the future. The more they worry, the hotter their pot gets and the more stress they create for themselves.
Some people experience this anxiety all the time, as they are continually worried about their future and what might happen to them.
This type of chronic anxiety can be especially harmful, as it puts the body in a constant state of stress which can cause it to age prematurely, and make it more vulnerable to disease.
A Constant State Of Internal Fear
One of the major contributing factors of stress driven by anticipation of the future, is the negative information we hear reported in the news.
This can make people feel insecure about their future and fearful of things which may happen to them, thereby keeping them in a constant state of stress.
Concern about the global economy and terrorism are two good examples of this.
This anxiety we experience from hearing negative information in the news, also affects us subconsciously.
Since in most cases you are unable to remove the source of your anxiety (i.e., solve terrorism so it is no long a threat to you) the fear you experience from this will remain unresolved, and will therefore continually heat your pot as it is stored in the subconscious and unconscious mind as an unresolved issue.
However it is important to remember that anxiety is different for everyone, and so we will all react to things we find threatening in different ways.
So just because you don?t go and hide under your bed everytime you see Al-Qaeda on the news, doesn?t necessarily mean you experienced no anxiety from that threat.
It will still be stored in your subconscious and unconscious mind, which you will only be aware of when something triggers that memory again.
For example, lets say there has been a terrorist attack in one country and you hear about it on the news. Even though you watch with interest what happened, you don?t really feel it has affected you in any way.
Then a few months later you get a call from one of your friends, asking if you would like to go on holiday to the country that had previously been attacked.
At this point you are likely to experience some degree of anxiety, the level of which will influence your decision of whether or not to go.
So even though at the time you thought the news had no affect on you, in reality it was constantly affecting you because it was stored in your subconscious and unconscious mind.
The moment something triggered that stored memory, your pot began to boil and you experienced emotional pain and discomfort as a result.
Living In The Present
As you can see from the previous examples your past, present and future experiences can cause your emotional pot to boil and result in you experiencing stress.
The key to overcoming this stress is to eliminate or reduce the negative emotions from your past, and the worry you have about the future. This article series is designed to assist you in doing this.
The good news is that you only really have to work on the unresolved issues from your past, as most worry about the future comes as a direct result of having similar events/experiences that have occurred to you in the past.
For example, if you had a bad experience with spiders when you were younger, you are likely to have developed a fear of spiders.
So should you start thinking about coming into contact with a spider sometime in the future, you are then likely to experience anxiety as a result of those thoughts.
However if we examine what has really happened here, we can see that our worry about the future is not actually caused by the future at all. It is caused as a result of our past experiences.
Therefore a person who can overcome their past unresolved issues, will automatically experience less anxiety from thinking about future events, whilst also removing the background low level stress that issue had been causing them.
Summary
Your current emotional state is determined by the things that have happened to you in the past, what you experience in the present and what you think you are going to experience in the future.
All of these sources act like fuel, which can cause your emotional pot to boil, or cool down.
Unresolved issues from the past can create a low level of background internal stress, which you usually don?t notice until something triggers the memory and emotion of that past experience.
These triggers may come from what happens to you in the present, or what you think will happen to you in the future.
The hotter your pot gets, the more stress and anxiety you will experience. If the pot continues to boil, it will eventually boil over.
When this occurs you will have a strong emotional outburst, which will vary depending on the associated emotion. Some examples could include, rage, depression or panic attacks.
By removing or reducing the fuel sources from your past (negative emotions) and your future (worry) your pot will primarily be heated or cooled by your present.
This will result in you feeling more relaxed and in control of your life, as it will now take a lot more for your pot to boil and for you to get you upset.
An added benefit is that your health will also improve, as you will no longer be under a constant state of background stress.I found this on the web hope it helps.
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