Developing the ability to focus demands self-discipline. Remember, your emotional experience of life is determined by the thoughts you hold in your conscious mind. Your focus determines the thoughts in your mind at any given time.

Self-discipline is basically only letting your mind think about the thoughts that will lead you to the emotional experience of life that you want to have. Your mind will want to wander, it will want to think about the things that make you feel bad. It’s up to you to maintain constant vigilance with regard to your thoughts.

When you notice you are experiencing a negative or unpleasant emotion, stop and take a close look at the thoughts running through your mind. I guarantee you will find that they are negative thoughts. All that is required for you to begin to experience positive emotions is to change your focus.

I know, easier said than done. The human mind has a way of gravitating towards the sources of worry and fear in life. Part of this is a simple defence mechanism. No one likes to be blindsided, so we imagine the worst case scenario for any situation in order to be prepared for it.

The truth is, these worst case scenarios rarely happen. Think about it for a moment. How many times have your worst fears actually become reality? Probably not very often. What’s more, if they do come to pass, your worrying about it will not have prepared you to deal with it much at all. Worry only serves to create negative emotions.

Always remember that you are in command of your thoughts. You are in total control through the power of your free will. You are able to manage your thoughts if you choose to do so. Ultimately you decide how you will experience your life by where you choose to place your focus.

In order to do this reliably you need tools and techniques you can use to reliably change the thought patterns you are having. To that end I want to introduce a concept called emotional association.

Any given thought pattern will evoke a set of emotional responses. If you associate into those emotions you will feel them fully. Emotions are powerful. They can take on a life of their own. One emotion will lead to a thought that will lead to another emotion. Before you know it you are in a vicious circle of negativity and emotional pain.

What most people don’t know, is that you have it within yourself to turn off your emotions. You can disassociate from your emotions and not feel them if you choose to do so.

So here’s an exercise you can use to learn this ability.

Imagine a conflict situation. See it vividly and allow the negative feelings to build inside you. Notice how you feel. Now close your eyes and see yourself as an observer to the situation. A witness without any involvement. See the situation in the same vivid detail, only from a point of view that is not involved.

When you do this correctly you will notice that you no longer have the same feelings about the situation. You will have become detached and disassociated from the feelings simply because you changed your point of view to that of an observer rather than a participant.

With practice you can learn to associate into positive emotional experiences while dissociating from negative emotional experiences. You will be able to fully enjoy all of the positive experiences in life while avoiding the emotional pain of emotional experiences.

Since negative experiences are often the result of adverse situations, you gain the added benefit of clear, rational thinking when dealing with these problems. If you teach yourself to disassociate from the negative you will deal with the problems in life dispassionately which usually leads to a better resolution than if you allow your emotions to drive you.

Practice this often. When you are watching TV and notice an emotional response to the story, stop for a moment and disassociate from your emotions. Step back and be the witness. Notice how your feelings change. Then deliberately associate into the story again and allow yourself to feel the emotions related to the plight of the characters again.

In time this ability will become like flipping a switch. You will be able to reliably and predictably enjoy all of the wonderful emotions in life while holding the negative emotions at arms length so you can deal with life’s problems using reason and clear judgement.

Discover the power of true mind control at Superior Mind.

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