Bruce Lee

“Emotional content,” Bruce Lee tells a student practicing a side kick in Enter the Dragon. Martial artists strive to re-channel emotions, like anger, fear and frustration, to amplify the power of a strike or kick, or when breaking a brick or throwing an attacker. The kiai or “spirit shout,” for example, is a way of focusing the breath to direct primal emotions into fighting techniques.

However, when the young student angrily kicks out, Lee admonishes, “emotional content – not anger.”  Unleashing power is only the first stage on the martial path. The next less traveled stage, is the challenge to control the power. This demands meditation and deep contemplation of the consequences of our actions. There are mental techniques that help control emotions. These are practical and can be used by everyone of us as a tool for emotional outbursts in daily situations. Here’s some helpful information and techniques:

White Bears

A well known study on the consequences of suppressing emotions was done by Dr. Daniel Wegner. One group of people was instructed to push away thoughts of a white bear, while another group was allowed any thoughts, including thoughts about a white bear. He found that the group who had suppressed thoughts of a white bear actually ended up having more white bear thoughts than the group that had been allowed to thinking about anything.

What it means is that if you accept your thoughts and feelings and learn to regulate emotions, you are less likely to rely on their suppression. Don’t bottle them up– detach, let them come — and then — let them go.

Triggers

Learn to detect the small signs of emotional discomfort before anger or damaging reactive/ impulsive outbursts erupt. Think about exactly why you have these feelings or have the urge to act. Identify the triggers. Consider healthy solutions. Shift your attention. Consciously re-channel the emotional energy into your work, or other activities.

No Blinders

Your ego creates a self- referencing focus and reaction to life’s challenges and changes. It also creates feelings of anger, resentment, fear, even helplessness. You may see your emotional reactions to people and events as information about the situation. Take off the blinders, work on developing your peripheral vision — the wider and further past yourself, the better. Objectivity allows you to look at the thing itself and not at your subjective, emotional feelings. Practice mindfulness and compassion. A healthier ego helps you turn on a light in life’s dark moments.

Techniques

If you feel overwhelmed, angry or upset, stop for a few minutes. Don’t reply to that email or phone message. Don’t engage the other person is an angry dialog. It will get you nowhere fast. Take a break, or a walk. Calm down before you respond or react. We have seen this in the news this past week with Senator Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West the results of  impulsive or reactive actions.

Move and breathe – use breathing and relaxation techniques to calm you. Give meditation a try. We recommend our Energy Snacks to show you how to breath rhythmically and deeply, and learn to center.

For many of us, emotional control can enhance our every day communications and overall well being. For some of us, it is breaking out of dangerous patterns that cause overwhelming pain for ourselves and those we interact with. If all of  this is especially tough for you – try writing down your thoughts, consider assertiveness training, anger management or counseling. Don’t be discouraged if there’s no immediate change in your behavior.  Remember, just as learning a kick or joint lock requires repetition and practice, these emotional control techniques require practice –- keep practicing.

Toni Josephson & Lawrence Tan

Emotional Mastery: Watch The Master’s 3 Sons

NEW!!! Take us with you…our videos are now available as podcasts.

Subscribe on our video pages for Martial Arts & for Wellness.

Download our free Shaolin Crane ebook

“There’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you…“ ~ Charles Bukowski

Chains

We are all vulnerable to life and all of its cruelties, experiencing a range of emotions: fear, anger, sadness, shame. Even tough guys, and maybe especially tough guys: we learn how to hide our emotions – from the world, and even from ourselves. They become our blocks, and our chains.

The beat poet Charles Bukowski ‘s childhood was difficult. He was beaten at the hand of a brutal father and also by his peers. Girls rejected him. He learned to  soothe the negative emotions with booze. Lots of it. Alcoholic from the tender age of 13, he said drinking was akin too killing yourself, and experiencing rebirth the next day. In this resurrection, however, there is no healing.

Wounds

When we are emotionally wounded and left unhealed, consequences result, from the subtle to the dramatic. We flood ourselves with fear – and this blocks our ability to make rational decisions. It also blocks our well being and we may harm ourselves with subsequent inappropriate behavior – substance abuse, alcohol, and a range of disorders. Or, we may harm others, expressing anger with violence. When we suppress our emotions, they will create a downward spiral. We have to deal…without control of our emotions, no matter how tough or how strong, we are powerless.

Playing Dead

In the sixties, psychologist Stanley Schachter proposed his theory that our thought processes (and environment) contribute to what we experience on an emotional/physical level in any situation. This seems substantiated by documentation in real life disaster situations and studies in laboratory settings that show one of the most common reactions to an extreme threat is not to fight or flight, but to shut down or stop moving. Animals tested that felt frightened or trapped, shut down, became limp, like “playing dead”. Unfamiliar surroundings or situations (where there has been no training) intensified the likelihood of this reaction. But with awareness, practice and experience we can also learn better responses to our emotions and our fears.

Control

What does it have to do with martial arts? Martial arts is as much about cultivation of character as it is about controlled action and reaction. It is about becoming a fully integrated being. This is the path of the Evolving Martial Artist. We are not disciplined, truly, unless we work towards emotional mastery. This is fully developing and incorporating the way of the monk into our holisitic self. The more we understand, and learn to deal with our emotions, the more rational and effective our responses will be to a situation. Are you a reactive or a proactive person? We cannot control what happens – but we can learn conscious control of our behavior.

We will look at healthier ways to regulate our emotions in Part 2.

Toni Josephson

Emotional Mastery: Watch The Master’s 3 Sons