Here are David Reynolds' Five Principles for Constructive Living from his great book, Constructive Living:
"Feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will.
Feelings must be recognized and accepted as they are.
Every feeling, however unpleasant, has its uses.
Feelings fade in time unless they are restimulated.
Feelings can be directly influenced by behavior."
Ah. Love it.
So, let's start with Principle #1: "Feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will." Whether we choose to admit it or not, we cannot directly control our feelings with our will. (You'll notice, however, in Principle #5, that we can INFLUENCE our feelings through our BEHAVIOR. Important distinction we'll discuss in a moment.)
So, we can't directly control our feelings by our will. The fact is that feelings come and they go--kinda like clouds in the sky and weather patterns in our daily lives. Try as we may to control them, we'll have waves of anger thoughts or other such emotions. That's just how it is.
With Principle #1 in place, Reynolds brings us to Principle #2: "Feelings must be recognized and accepted as they are." Simple point here: if you can't control it, just accept it.
Which leads us to #3: "Every feeling, however unpleasant, has its uses." This one's really cool. Let's say you're feeling pain or anger or frustration. See if you can step outside the immediate experience of that emotion and see how that feeling might be able to help you understand yourself better.
Your pain--whether it's your headache or your relationship turmoil--is pointing to an area of your life that needs an adjustment. That's useful. To ignore the feeling or be upset with it is kinda like being upset with your fire alarm going off because you have a fire. It's a GOOD thing the alarm is going off so you can take ACTION! (Right?!?) Same with all your feelings. They ALL have their uses. Trick is to step back and see them rather than getting caught up in wishing you weren't experiencing them. :)
Alright. Now to #4: "Feelings fade in time unless they are restimulated."
Think about it: if we'd just quit recalling our negative feelings and re-telling our painful stories to everyone we meet, those feelings would fade. So, quit restimulating them every moment of your life and let them fade already!! :)
How about you: Can you think of an area of your life where the feeling would fade if you'd just stop restimulating it?!?
OK. We're on a roll now. Time for #5: "Feelings can be directly influenced by behavior."
Aha! So, although feelings CANNOT be directly controlled by our will, they CAN be INFLUENCED by our behavior. So, what's that mean?
In short, it means when you take action consistent with your highest self, you'll experience feelings of confidence and satisfaction consistent with the knowing that you're being your highest self. Make sense?
I like to think of negative emotions like anxiety and depression and frustration as God's way of politely slapping us into shape. It's basically a gift--giving us a reminder that we're off.
Juxtapose that with the gift we get when we help people for example.
Did you know that when you do something kind for someone, serotonin--the drug pharmaceuticals make billions from by pumping into those little pills so many take like candy these days!!--is released in your brain--giving you the wonderful feeling of calm happiness. Ahhhh... Not only that, but the person receiving your act of kindness also has serotonin released. Ahhhh... AND (!) anyone watching you perform your kind act also has serotonin released.
Amazing.
THAT may just be the coolest example of action influencing feelings that I can think of. Good stuff.
So, to re-cap: feelings come and they go (if we let them...and we should definitely let them!). Although we can't directly control our feelings through our will (that is, we can't MAKE ourselves feel blissful ALL the time), we CAN influence our feelings by taking positive action.
Powerful stuff.
As Reynolds says: "Our behavior is controllable in a way that our feelings are not. There is a very special satisfaction for the Artist of Living who works within life's limits to produce a fine self-portrait. The more control we develop over our actions, the more chance we have of producing a self we can be proud of."
