The Heliotropic Mind and 7 Emotions to Cultivate in Life

If you’ve heard of a Heliotropic plant you’ll know that its stem grows in the direction of the sun so it can take full advantage of the photosynthesis process. I believe we have a Heliotropic Mind as well, we want to have positive emotions in our life and if we grow these positive emotions and cultivate them it will put the negative emotions into the shade.

We never want to get rid of negative emotions because they are a useful learning tool, and it is only natural that negativity is experienced throughout our lives. However, if we can cultivate and grow our positive emotions them we can shade the negative emotions when they arise.

I’d like to discuss seven emotions to cultivate in life to put negative emotions in the shade. If you are feeling one emotion you can’t feel another particular emotion at the same time. Hence, if you are feeling a positive emotion you can’t feel a negative emotion at the same time. So the more positive emotions you have the less negative emotions you have.

Seven emotions to cultivate

1 - Gratitude

Gratitude is an extremely powerful emotion to cultivate in your life. First thing in the morning I get up and I always acknowledge that I feel grateful for the people in my life; my wife, my two boys, my mum and dad, my sisters, my father in law, my mother in law and all the family round about me.

This acknowledgment only takes a couple of seconds and I say thanks, not to anyone really other than them, although I acknowledge that we each have different beliefs and I respect that, but for me I thank the people. I’m also thankful for the inanimate objects in my life; car, computer etc. I know they aren’t people or living entities but they do help to enrich my life.

I acknowledge every day that I’m blessed, not only to myself but to those around me, and for what I have and I’m really grateful of everything. Now I’m a silent gratitude person, I say it inwardly, my wife on the other hand is more external. She appreciates everyone outwardly, when she is feeling a particular emotion, she actually verbalises it to whoever it may be, she also expresses it by non-verbal communication. I show it by my actions as well as by acknowledging it internally. Some people keep a gratitude journal, one of my blogging friends Zeenat Syal keeps a gratitude journal and has blogged about this.

2. Passion

The second emotion to cultivate is passion. Without passion there is no way I would have been able to write 450 articles on this blog. But, ultimately I really believed that I could help people to change their lives if they want to . It might not be in this fashion, it might be in book form or on my blog which has been established for years, but what I knew was that if I had the passion, drive and knowledge then I would succeed.

The cultivation of passion keeps us interested and encourages us to experience the emotions that life has to bring. Writing for the blog puts me on a natural high and low, it’s really taken me through on an emotional journey. But, the passion and drive has never left me, and this has what has encouraged me to keep writing.

So cultivate passion in your life, find something that you are interested in, that you believe in or love. It could be your children, husband, friends, yourself, business, your work, really anything that you can invest in.

3 - Confidence

The next emotion we could try and cultivate is one of confidence. If you don’t have confidence in yourself then you really won’t have confidence in the world around you.

The way to start that is to reflect on your past success. Every single person in the world has a past success no matter how small let that small success drive you forward. That small success could be the next step to a bigger success and then another and another etc. So cultivate confidence in your life by looking at past experiences and getting yourself into a state of confidence.

4 - Love

The next emotion to cultivate is one of love. This is a big one for me; I’ve changed my world literally through finding my wife and my kids etc. It’s expressing that emotion of love and I do it every single day. I’m not saying that just to be ‘cheesy’ , I genuinely feel this way and express it every single day because I adore my wife and my kids, and my life and my family round about me as well. So try and express and cultivate the feeling of love within your life and that’s looking at who’s in your life, which can extend to work colleagues and friends as well.

5 - Positivity

The next emotion for cultivation is positivity. I know a lot of people say positivity doesn’t really work. It’s unrealistic to expect the feeling of positivity to last throughout the day, especially in this day and age when there are so many pressures on everyone and it’s only natural to feel negative. How else can you truly appreciate the positive emotions in our lives?

Try and look for the good things in people, stop reading newspapers and listening to the news because that instils an emotion of fear and negativity. We’ve spoken about the sensationalising of negativity that sells newspapers. It’s crucial to balance negative emotions with positive emotions but it’s much easier to find positivity if you are looking for it, negativity needs no assistance to feed your fears.

So look at yourself and cultivate that feeling of positive emotion.

6 - Energy

The next emotion is one of energy, maybe when you have felt energised in the past you probably all felt elation, excitement, pleasure etc. Try and cultivate that by looking at what excites you and elicits energy. Obviously if your body has really slowed down it’s an indication that you need to change something about your lifestyle to give you more energy in your life. So try and look at that and the feeling of cultivating the emotion energy in your life as well.

7 - Giving

The last emotion is the gift of giving. What I mean is doing good for people without expecting anything in return at all just do something nice for someone just for the sake of it, don’t expect anything in return that includes even a thank you.

Just do it and don’t tell anyone about it either. So if you’ve given money to charity don’t tell anyone about it just do it and guaranteed you’ll feel good about yourself and the world around you. And even if you don’t get anything in return you will get noticed, but that is not the aim, it’s about noticing yourself and feeling good about yourself that you have given something back to the world. Hopefully this is what I am doing here, I’m giving something back to the world.

I notice a lot of marketers doing this, they are adopting the emotion of giving, or the feeling of giving, with the clients. So they are saying ‘how can I help you?’ instead of saying to clients ‘you need to give me so much money so you can help me make money’. The world is turning just now and everybody is turning outward and the new phrases in the outward world are 'how can I help you?’ What is it that I can do for you? Without expecting anything in return.

Learning to Control Your Emotions

How many times have emotional outbursts destroyed a life or career? Our emotions can either work for us or against us depending on how we handle them. Gaining control of your emotions is a practice which requires maturity and experience. We have to learn to recognize the emotions which seek to propel us into action and respond accordingly rather than to react as they tell us which is often not good. We can’t prevent emotions but we can choose to not allow them to cause us to perform negative behaviors. Yes we will be affected by emotions and initial reactions but learn how to exercise control over your mind.

We have to learn not to be ruled by our emotions. Once we master this we will do better in every aspect of life. For example, the grifter or scam artist uses your own greed against you when they scam you. They have no weapon against you so they stir up the greed that is present in all of us in order to get us to take the bait that they place in front of our eyes. If you are not ruled by greed, or if you can control your greed and be objective about the situation you will never be scammed.

The pimp makes his workers feel insecure and dependant on him. If they ever realize that they can become self serving they will no longer fall for his tricks. People who like to manipulate others usually do so by attacking weaknesses in their self esteem. Have you ever seen people who thought that they knew everything? Knowledge is power so if they can appear to be more intelligent they can use feelings of low self esteem against the people that they control. When you are knowledgeable and aware you can’t be intimidated by these people.

The first thing that we need to learn to do is to avoid negative triggers. For example avoid that person who knows how to make you feel bad. Whether you realize it or not that is their way of subjecting you to their will because they can successfully cause you to react to an emotion rather than to truth.

Avoid negative situations, and places. When I was young I hung out with the wrong crowds only because my self esteem was low and I wanted to be seen as a cool person. This did absolutely nothing to help me in life because I did not use those years wisely. I wasted so much of my valuable time with the wrong endeavors until I got so far behind in life I could never catch up.

Don’t dwell on bad situations. It is what it is so you just have to deal with it. Just thinking about the bad thing in your past won’t do a thing to make it any better. Dwelling on past issues is just a waste of time.

Learn to do the opposite of what the situation dictates if you have to. When a person, place, or thing makes you feel like crying do the opposite and laugh instead. When you feel small around others look them directly in the eyes as you address them. You don’t have to challenge them nonverbally just show confidence, even if you have to fake it until you get it right.

One very important thing which we all need to learn is to be inner directed. Don’t allow the actions of others to control the way that you think and act. You must take direct control for your own actions. Remember the person who seems to have it all together has just as many doubts as you. They are better at not showing them.

Last but not least of all you need to learn to take time to think before you react. There are many people in prison now because they didn’t do just this. Many careers have been ruined and so have lives. If we all took the time to think first before we give in to our emotions the world would be a much better place. Riceland Enterprises

Cedric Rice is the founder of Riceland Enterprises, which is composed of several different business ventures. This company is currently located in Georgia.
Riceland Enterprisesof several web sites that Mr. Rice owns and operates which is oriented towards consumers along with Military Ring Express, and Fragrance Oil Express

Learning to Control Your Emotions

How many times have emotional outbursts destroyed a life or career? Our emotions can either work for us or against us depending on how we handle them. Gaining control of your emotions is a practice which requires maturity and experience. We have to learn to recognize the emotions which seek to propel us into action and respond accordingly rather than to react as they tell us which is often not good. We can’t prevent emotions but we can choose to not allow them to cause us to perform negative behaviors. Yes we will be affected by emotions and initial reactions but learn how to exercise control over your mind.

We have to learn not to be ruled by our emotions. Once we master this we will do better in every aspect of life. For example, the grifter or scam artist uses your own greed against you when they scam you. They have no weapon against you so they stir up the greed that is present in all of us in order to get us to take the bait that they place in front of our eyes. If you are not ruled by greed, or if you can control your greed and be objective about the situation you will never be scammed.

The pimp makes his workers feel insecure and dependant on him. If they ever realize that they can become self serving they will no longer fall for his tricks. People who like to manipulate others usually do so by attacking weaknesses in their self esteem. Have you ever seen people who thought that they knew everything? Knowledge is power so if they can appear to be more intelligent they can use feelings of low self esteem against the people that they control. When you are knowledgeable and aware you can’t be intimidated by these people.

The first thing that we need to learn to do is to avoid negative triggers. For example avoid that person who knows how to make you feel bad. Whether you realize it or not that is their way of subjecting you to their will because they can successfully cause you to react to an emotion rather than to truth.

Avoid negative situations, and places. When I was young I hung out with the wrong crowds only because my self esteem was low and I wanted to be seen as a cool person. This did absolutely nothing to help me in life because I did not use those years wisely. I wasted so much of my valuable time with the wrong endeavors until I got so far behind in life I could never catch up.

Don’t dwell on bad situations. It is what it is so you just have to deal with it. Just thinking about the bad thing in your past won’t do a thing to make it any better. Dwelling on past issues is just a waste of time.

Learn to do the opposite of what the situation dictates if you have to. When a person, place, or thing makes you feel like crying do the opposite and laugh instead. When you feel small around others look them directly in the eyes as you address them. You don’t have to challenge them nonverbally just show confidence, even if you have to fake it until you get it right.

One very important thing which we all need to learn is to be inner directed. Don’t allow the actions of others to control the way that you think and act. You must take direct control for your own actions. Remember the person who seems to have it all together has just as many doubts as you. They are better at not showing them.

Last but not least of all you need to learn to take time to think before you react. There are many people in prison now because they didn’t do just this. Many careers have been ruined and so have lives. If we all took the time to think first before we give in to our emotions the world would be a much better place. Riceland Enterprises