With one exception, all human beings are dysfunctional.This is why it is normal to suffer (to be unhappy or discontent or dissatisfied). If you are suffering, please do not conclude that there is something inherently wrong with you. There isn’t. You are normal.

Sages are the important exception. Sages are few and far between. Everyone understands    this. When I mention becoming a sage to most people, they become incredulous. Who? Me?

We are dysfunctional to the extent that we suffer from ego delusion.

To suffer from a delusion is to think that something is real when there is nothing there at all. So they are more serious than illusions, which occur when something real is miscategorized such as when someone who is colorblind misperceives something’s color. What, though, is ego?

If you ask yourself seriously the critically important question “Who am I?”, you are likely to answer by pointing to your ego. Whatever you identify with becomes ego. Unless you are already a sage, you typically identify with such things as your body, your mind, and your emotions, in other words, with your experiences. More abstractly, you may identify with your family, school, sex, race, economic group, social rank, or nation.

Notice that all such identifications separate: your body from my body, your thoughts from my thoughts, your emotions from my emotions, your family from my family, and so on.

The separation is between what may be thought of as the “content” of our lives. The content of your life is your experiences, behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and so on and they are different from the content of my life.

Here’s a critical question to ask yourself: are you really the content of your life?

You may think that you are. Unfortunately, most people live their whole lives under that insidious delusion.

That is unfortunate because separation is the cause of suffering. To suffer from that conceptual chimera is to condemn yourself to perpetual suffering. Since suffering is optional, that is foolish.

Winston Churchill: “Remember the story of the Spanish prisoner. For many years he was confined in a dungeon . . . One day it occurred to him to push the door of his cell. It was open; and it had never been locked.”

Yi-ch’ao: “People lock themselves inside a house of delusions. But they’re only delusions. They can leave anytime. Actually there is no house to leave. There’s not even any leaving.”

Whenever you identify with some content, you are separating it from everything else and withholding it from the world. Eckhard Tolle: “Whenever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”

How can you determine the extent of your ego delusion? The more you experience infatuation (greed, acquisitiveness, grasping) and hostility (anger) in thought, speech, and action, the more deluded you are.

What’s the way out? It’s through present-moment awareness, which fosters clarity and insight.

Sages have gone beyond the content of their lives and live without separation.

You are free to change trajectories in an instant at any time. You are the only obstacle to your becoming a sage.

When you get sick enough of suffering and being dysfunctional, why not decide to liberate yourself?

What’s so important about a positive attitude? Also, why is it difficult to sustain?

Contrary to what many people believe, we do not perceive what we perceive. We perceive what we think we perceive. In other words, we perceive only an interpretation of reality rather than reality itself.

We are conscious of only a selection of what we sense. In other words, we experience only a fraction of what we sense. Our senses take in far more information than we attend to consciously. At least if we are to believe the scientists who investigate these matters, our consciously lived experience, our individual surreality, is, at best, only a selection from reality.

If so, it’s easy to see how our attitudes might affect the selection, what we consciously attend to.

It’s imperative to note that our brains evolved for survival. If, in a given situation, your attitude is negative, if you feel threatened or fearful or angry, what you attend to in your surroundings will be different than if your attitude had been positive in those same surroundings. Examples of this abound in everyday life. Experience feeds on itself. Your brain is excellent at finding what you are looking for. If you are looking for danger, your brain will find signs of danger. If you are looking for goodwill, your brain will find signs of goodwill.

At least if you want positive experiences in your life, this is why having a positive attitude is important. Having one fosters having positive experiences, which reinforce the positive attitude. It’s a feedback loop.

Since positive experiences are preferable to negative ones, why is maintaining a positive attitude so difficult? Why isn’t it automatic?

To understand the answer, ask yourself this question: “Do I usually think about what I am able to figure out?”

Of course not! Why would you think about something you have already figured out?

What you usually think about is what you have not figured out, perhaps even what you cannot figure out. You are typically much more conscious of what you don’t understand than what you do understand.

(Some researchers have speculated that our default condition, what we think about when we are not forced to think about other issues, is to think about interpersonal relationships. Because they are always difficult, they always provide fodder for our minds to chew.)

Though it’s rewarding to have figured out solutions to our problems, it’s no fun figuring out those solutions. Problem solving, consciously thinking, is hard work. We most enjoy our lives when we simply act without having to think about what we are doing.

So there’s a kind of built in imbalance that explains our tendency to be negative, which is why we have to work at developing and sustaining a positive attitude.

When we are really enjoying life, we are not stuck trying to solve problems about breathing, finding shelter, providing food, finding a sex partner, combatting illness, dealing with aging, worrying about dying and death, and so on. When we are not enjoying life, it’s solving important issues like those just mentioned that are exactly what we are thinking about.

Since issues like those confront us all regularly, we have to deal with them regularly whether we want to or not. It’s having to deal with them regularly that threatens to erode maintaining a positive attitude. That’s why, if you want one, it’s important to work regularly at creating a positive attitude.

Negative emotions are normal. There’s nothing wrong with you if you sometimes find yourself overwhelmed by grief, anger, fear, lust, or other powerful passions.

What’s not normal is being able to dissolve them effectively. If you learn how to do that, you’ll have learned one of the most important skills required for living well (mastering life, being wise). That learning requires understanding and practice. You can gain the understanding reading this right now, but the practicing will be up to you.

Suppose that one of the many powerful negative emotions is troubling you. What should you do? I recommend that you follow the following 7 steps for dealing with negative emotions.

First, accept full responsibility for your situation. No event or no other person is able to affect you emotionally without your consent. It’s impossible. Even though it was not intentional, you have put yourself in this position. That’s the bad news.

The reason for this comes from the nature of emotions, which have three parts. (1) There is a judgment about some situation, for example, my lover left me or my child died. (2) There is an evaluation in which you relate the situation to yourself either positively or negatively. You think either “this is bad for me” or “this is good for me.” Of course, it’s only the former ones that cause suffering from negative emotions. (3) There are bodily changes that occur as a result; you experience various sensations or feelings such as a burning sensation in your stomach or a feeling of tightness in your throat. (For more on the nature of negative emotions, see my HOW TO SURVIVE COLLEGE EMOTIONALLY.)

The good news is that, since you got yourself into it, you have the potential to get yourself out of it.

Second, identify the most troubling emotion.

This is not always easy to do. Frequently, two emotions can become linked. For example, fear often precedes and follows anger. In fact, emotions only infrequently occur one at a time. Passions can alternate in rapid sequence, and they can even blend together. Furthermore, one can stimulate another as when you become angry at yourself for, say, becoming afraid.

Third, identify what triggered that emotion.

This, too, is not always easy to do. Emotional responses that you learned during your life become involuntary. They can be so automatic that they are very difficult to notice. This is why the next step is important.

Fourth, keep a written log about the negative emotions that are most troubling you.

With respect to the most troublesome one, what, exactly, was the judgment that you made? Which evaluation did you make? Exactly how did you feel as a result? What exactly are you saying to yourself about it right now?

Fifth, question the evaluation.

The fact is that, like the rest of us, you don’t know the future. The future consequences of the event that triggered your response are unknown.

How many times in the past has something happened that, although you thought at the time was good, turned out later to have very bad consequences? How many times in the past has something happened that, although you thought at the time was bad, turned out later to have very good consequences?

Questioning your evaluation in this way automatically weakens it. If the passion isn’t too powerful, just this improved understanding may be sufficient to enable you to let it go. If not, go on to the next step.

Sixth, attack negative emotions indirectly.

There are three ways to do this.

(i) The first is simply to use a breathing exercise. I have elsewhere (both on line at my free, lasting-weight-loss website and off line) explained exactly how to do this. I recommend practicing it twice daily. Each session can be as short as 90 seconds! Believe it or not, if you have developed that habit, 90 seconds may be all it takes to let a troubling emotion go! This is an easy, surprisingly helpful habit. However, by itself, it won’t work for the most troublesome negative emotions.

(ii) The second is to go for a brisk walk for half an hour or so. I have explained (on line at my free, lasting-weight-loss website) exactly how to do this. Of course, some people may not be able to do it, while others may prefer to substitute some other fitness exercise. Of course, regular fitness exercise is a very beneficial habit for a host of reasons. Still, it won’t work for the most troublesome passions.

(iii) The third way is by using zazen meditation (or some similar spiritual practice). Three great advantages that zazen meditation has over any other kind of spiritual practice is that it is the simplest, it is the easiest to learn, and it requires that you belief nothing except that it might work. (In other words, you don’t have to buy into a whole creed to use it.) If you master zazen meditation sufficiently, it will work for any troublesome passion–and it will work quickly, within hours or, at most, days. I have elsewhere (both on line at my free, lasting-weight-loss website and off line) explained exactly how to do it.

This is the middle way of dealing with emotions. It’s between the two counter-productive extremes of venting and ignoring. It involves acknowledging the reality of a passion, which is wise because it avoids trying to ignore something that is an important part of your life, and it involves failing to act with that passion as a motivation, which is wise because it avoids perpetuating and possibly strengthening the passion.

If (i) or (ii) don’t work for you in a particular case and you have yet to get very far with zazen meditation, go on to the next step.

Seventh, seek counsel from a sage.

Sadly, because sages are few and far between, this is not easy to do.

Though it’s rather popular and does help some people to some degree, in my judgment psychotherapy is of limited value. You might try behavior therapy or neurolinguistic programming.

You might know a wise person willing to befriend you. Perhaps there is a qualified zen master or other spiritual leader willing to help.

Avoid thinking, though, that there is a quick, magical cure. There isn’t. Before you despair, however, I remind you of the first step: since you created your own suffering, you have the potential to end it. Furthermore, once you teach yourself how to end it, you have the opportunity to make the practice that worked for you a habit. Once you make it a habit, from an emotional perspective, the rest of your life will be better than your life has been until now!

That hope itself may enable you to survive some very dark nights.

I wish you well.

When confronted with negative emotions or passions, your first concern should be not to make them worse. It’s like the saying about holes: “When you are in one, stop digging.”

If you happen to be gripped by a powerful one right now, realize that it is temporarily making clear thinking much more difficult. So, after reading this article, you might want to print it out and reread it later.

There are 3 chief ways that, unintentionally, people make them worse. Whether or not you try to heal or cure them, it’s a good tactic to avoid making them worse in the following three ways:

First, avoid adopting a bad attitude. What’s a bad attitude?

It is one that attempts to avoid responsibility. The truth you must realize is this: “I am solely responsible for the quality of my emotional life.” Nothing external to you, nothing outside you, can ever make you feel anything–unless you decide to let it. Something happens (whether or not it’s in your control), you notice it, and then you decide whether to react at all and, if so, how to react.

You may, in fact, put yourself through terrible suffering for a long time–never realizing that you are doing it to yourself!

The reason this is true is because every significant passion is composed of three parts: (1) a judgment about some state of affairs, (ii) an egocentric evaluation of that state of affairs, and (iii) a physiological feeling or set of bodily reactions. (For more details, see my HOW TO SURVIVE COLLEGE EMOTIONALLY). For example, (i) you learn that your mother has just been killed, (ii) you instantly think “this is bad for me,” and (iii) you begin crying from sadness. Without the second element, without thinking either “this is bad for me” or “this is good for me,” there would be no passion.

Even assuming that your judgment is correct, this immediately yields a possible way out of a negative emotion, namely, by revising the evaluation. After all, sometimes events that are initially negative turn out in the long run to have important positive consequences that outweigh the initial suffering.

So, accept full responsibility for the quality of your own life.

Second, avoid trying to ignore negative passions. This only postpones the inevitable and often makes suffering worse.

A negative emotion won’t disappear just because you distract yourself from attending to it. It will still be there leaking poison into your life. Ignoring a negative passion can be as foolish as ignoring a diagnosis of cancer.

When you have a big problem, admit it. You may be able to solve it, but big problems almost never get solved accidentally or by magic. Dealing effectively with a major problem requires admitting that the problem is real.

Besides, why lie to yourself? That’s all you are doing if you pretend not to notice a problem. In order to pretend that it isn’t real, you must think of its reality!

Third, avoid venting.

Venting is acting on the basis of a negative passion. For example, you get fired from your job and then punch a wall or get into a fist fight.

As a cure for negative passions, venting fails because it violates a fundamental psychological law, namely, whatever we think about expands in importance. The more you vent, the more you are thinking about your negative emotion; the more you are thinking about your negative emotion, the more important it becomes. Because it makes the emotion more powerful, venting merely increases your suffering.

Right actions diminish suffering while wrong actions increase suffering. Venting is a paradigmatic example of a wrong action.

If so, assume full responsibility for your emotional life. It’s normal to suffer emotionally! Elbert Hubbard: “If you suffer, thank God!–it is a sure sign that you are alive.”

An important negative emotion can seem like a huge obstacle to living well, but it is also an opportunity for learning better how to live well. If you will seize the opportunity and use it to teach yourself how to do better emotionally, there is no reason that, from an emotional perspective, your life cannot keep getting better and better. That’s really good news.

Before curing negative emotions, at least avoid making them worse by either trying to ignore them or venting them.

Don’t fight them. Instead, accept them. They are an important part of your life. On the other hand, don’t use them as motivations for wrong actions. Instead, adopt a middle way.

It’s important to avoid poor anger management. What is it? What’s the right way of dealing with anger?

There’s a wonderful old story from Japan that’s been retold by, among others, Daniel Goleman.

Once upon a time there was a belligerent samurai who challenged a Zen master to explain heaven and hell. The monk said, “You’re nothing but a lout–I won’t waste my time with the likes of you!”

With his honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage, pulled his sword from its scabbard, and yelled, “I could kill you for your impertinence.”

“That,” the monk calmly replied, “is hell.”

Startled at the truth in the Zen master’s response about being gripped by fury, the samurai calmed down, sheathed his sword, and bowed respectfully to the monk while thanking him for his insight.

“And that,” said the monk, “is heaven.”

Anger is natural. Let’s think about dealing with anger. Let’s begin by identifying it.

Based on cross-cultural studies of facial expressions, Paul Ekman argues that anger is a core emotion (see, for example, his EMOTIONS REVEALED, especially chapter 6).

At least etymologically, an emotion is an impulse to act or move. Our word ‘anger’ comes from the Latin verb ‘motere‘ that means ‘(to) move’ and the prefix ‘e‘ connotes ‘move away.’ Evolution has equipped you with emotions that enhance your ability to survive and reproduce. (Neuroscientists have discovered that emotions are rooted in the amygdala, which is a part of the brain. Removing the amygdala creates “affective blindness,” a wholesale inability to gauge the emotional significance of what is happening.)

When you become angry, blood flows into your hands, which makes it easier to strike out or to grasp a weapon; your heart rate increases; and a rush of hormones (including adrenaline) generates a burst of energy that prepares you to move (either fighting or fleeing).

Your life experiences as well as your culture have shaped how your biological propensities manifest themselves. It’s not just a physical threat that can trigger your anger, but also it could be, as in the case of the samurai, a threat to your dignity or self-esteem. Emotions can hijack your reactions. If so, your options for dealing with anger are limited.

The word ‘anger’ actually covers a whole family of endangering emotions. There is not just a range of intensity from mild annoyance to rage, but also there are different kinds of anger (for example, there is the self-righteous anger of indignation, the passive anger of sulking, and the anger of having one’s patience excessively tried of exasperation). Typically, fear frequently both precedes and follows anger.

So the question is not whether or not to become angry. The question is what to do about anger.

My thesis here is simple: avoid venting anger.

The justification for this recommendation is simple: venting anger only increases or prolongs anger. Anger stimulates more anger. The more you focus on being angry, the angrier you’ll become. It’s a psychological law that whatever we think about expands in importance.

Catharsis, venting anger, simply does not work to reduce or eliminate anger. There’s no better tactic of poor anger management than catharsis. Want evidence? Consul your own experience.

There are many differences about how different people experience anger and other emotions, and there are different responses available to us. However, what’s common about responses is that venting anger (or other emotions) doesn’t work.

Anger is hell. It doesn’t feel good. You may feel pressure or tension. You may feel hot. Your heart and respiration rates increase. Your blood pressure increases. Your face may redden. You may clench your teeth and feel impelled toward moving forward toward whatever you take to be the guilty party.

If you decide to avoid poor anger management, the next question to ask is, “What is good anger management?”

I encourage you to think seriously about that. If you are able to figure out an effective plan and execute it, your life will go better. Helping you to do that is what this blog is all about.