People often don't realize that we get addicted to feeling certain emotions, emotions that we've become used to feeling. Maybe emotions that we felt frequently during childhood. And yes, you are addicted to your feelings... even to the negative ones.
Someone who often experiences anxiety has actually chosen to feel that way. It doesn't matter which emotion it is, every single one of them is a choice.
Feelings arise and we believe them. We give them names. We blame them on mental illness. We expect the feeling to return so we say things like "I have depression" or "I have anxiety." We even go so far as to say someone else made us feel that way.
We unconsciously choose to experience each emotion that we feel. We even attract situations into our lives that will allow us to feel certain emotions, without realizing that we have a choice.
Don't worry, because there is a way to alleviate those negative feelings. Change them!
Spend more time feeling grateful. Gratefulness is a wonderful feeling that you can experience at any time. I don't suggest that you "just be grateful" all the time but I do believe that gratitude is the best place to start when you begin to change unwanted emotions by replacing them. Negative emotions can be exchanged for gratitude just by thinking new thoughts.
For example:
You are on your way to work when you get into a car accident. You and the other driver are fine, but you notice that your car is badly damaged and now you're going to be late for work. You'll probably miss that meeting your boss reminded you of yesterday. You begin to feel anxiety and maybe even anger towards the driver who hit your car. This whole situation is an inconvenience.
All it takes is one simple thought to change those feelings to gratitude.
You say to yourself, "I am grateful that no one was hurt."
All other thoughts melt away once you consciously choose a different feeling. When you choose to feel grateful, you begin to attract situations that inspire feelings of gratitude. When you choose to feel happiness rather than frustration, just by changing your thoughts, you attract situations into your life that promote happiness.
Your life is strung together by all that you experience between the day you are born and the day that you die. The needless suffering you experience isn't something that just happens to you, it's something you choose. And once you realize that, you can take your power back and change those feelings. Thoughts feel immediate and convincing, often appearing as self-evident truths rather than mere mental interpretations. Don't believe everything you think, especially if your thoughts cause you to feel unwanted emotions.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
-Carl Jung
(Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, founder of Analytical Psychology)
