Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by phyzix5761 76 days ago
Emotions are not controllable or choosable but our reactions to them are trainable. One good technique for this is mindfully observing and labelling the emotion until it goes away; not trying to change it but also not acting on it. With practice one can observe the emotion subsiding within a minute or so. This, eventually, leads to less emotional reaction overall because we're taking away the habitual pattern of the mind to constantly react to everything it likes or dislikes.
1 comments

You are controlling your emotions with that technique, accepting and waiting emotions out is just not the only option.

Getting indoors from a cold rain is an obvious choice. I can't really decide to stop shivering, but changing my clothes and grabbing a hot chocolate helps. It still takes a while to warm back up, meanwhile I can actively choose not to open windows or go right back in the rain.

Yeah, this is what I meant. I used to let anger sit with me for hours and derail most of my day.

But now I'm better at deciding to let negative emotions go and feel happy or calm.

Making choices to change your situation will change your feelings so I do believe feelings are a choice to be made in most situations.

Yes, you can try to set up the right conditions for the emotions to subside which is non reaction but you can't choose when they subside or when they arise. I read OP as saying that you can directly choose which emotion you experience and when you experience it.