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The ten emotions of Power...Learning and Using



4. Learning and Using..If you want to make your life really work, you must make your emotions work for you.You can't run from them; you can't tune them out; you can't trivialize them or delude yourself about what they mean. Nor can you allow them to run your life. Emotions, even those that seem painful in the short term, are truly like an internal compass that points you toward the actions you must take to arrive at your goals. Without knowing how to use this compass,s you'll be forever at the mercy of any psychic tempest that blows your way.

Many therapeutic disciplines begin with the mistaken presuppositon that emotions are our enemies or that our emotional well-being is rooted in our past. The truth is that you and I can go from crying to laughing in a heartbeat if the pattern of our mental focus and physiology is merely interrupted strongly enough. Freudian psychoanalysis, for example, searches for those "deep dark secrets" in our past to explain our present difficulties. Yet we all know that whatever you continually look for, you will surely find. If you constantly look for the reasons why your past has hamstrung your present, or why you're so "screwed up," then your brain will comply by providing references to back up your request and generate the appropriate negative emotions. 

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