On this episode, taking the reins of your feelings to put you back in control. This is the holistic alpha male optimization podcast where we help you unleash your true power as a man. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I'm Stephen Mathis. Thanks for being a part of the TRIBE. Let's talk about our feelings. There's a fundamental flaw in the way that I know I approached feelings for a very long time and I think the way that frankly, most people do because
it is the natural way. But there is a a better way. There is a way that is much more powerful, but it does take some learning, some perspective shifts and some practice for sure as it relates to how we can get more out of our feelings and that is to take the reins of our feelings back. See, most of the time, most people do not take control of their feelings. Their feelings are a result of what they do or what happens, right?
So for most of my life, I would live my life and stuff would happen and I would feel certain ways as a consequence of whatever happened, however the day was going or whatever it may be. However, the truth is equally there. It is equally present that we can control our feelings, that we can guide them, and that we can in fact get better results and get more out of our life by looking at it feelings first. So let's talk about that a
little bit more. There's a quote by a guy named Rick Rubin. I know a few of you may be familiar with Rick Rubin. If you're not, he's a music producer. Very, very brilliant guy, helps people get the most out of themselves is the way that I would describe it. And there's a quote from him. He said the better you feel, the better things go, the better you feel the better things go. And there's a couple of different ways to take that and to look at that.
One is to prioritize our feelings, right? To recognize that how we feel actually matters, right? It's not just this side note. It's not like we can go about our day and our lives and be productive and thrive and all the things if our feelings are just a side note, a footnote, right? Our feelings are important when we drive positive feelings, when we guide our choices and our habits and the way that we live based on what makes us feel good in a deep and fundamental way, things go better.
When we feel better, things go better. However, the other part of that is that if we recognize that as a truth, which Can you agree with me on that? Would you say that when we feel better, things go better? I, I found that to be true. If you found that to be true as well, then what we can do is we can also say, you know what if I want things to go better, I can intentionally feel better.
I can intentionally feel better. And that doesn't just mean doing particular habits or whatever that typically make you feel good. It does mean that too, right? So if your workout, your meditation, getting outside, doing whatever those things that you know kind of lead to you feeling good, by all means do those. But the next step is we can choose our feelings. We can choose what we are going to feel and engage with. We can practice feeling certain ways.
We can be OK with feelings that maybe aren't as fun instead of resisting them. And thus we get back to taking the reins of our feelings. Let's talk about that part a little bit more. When we resist feelings that we don't like. If you're feeling stressed or depressed or lonely or whatever other feelings that people often resist that I know I have and still do at times, if we resist those, we give our power to the feeling.
We give control of our being to that feeling, and the more that we resist it, the more it tends to stick around. So if we're going to take control and take the reins back, take the reins of our life back from our feelings, one part of that is actually being OK with feelings that suck, but just be OK with it. So you're lonely, OK, Be OK with it. Decide to be OK with that. You're depressed. OK, I'm down. I'm down right now. That's OK, right?
It seems kind of trite. Maybe it would be a way to put it. It seems a little too simple. But truthfully, there is such tremendous power in just having feelings that come up, whether it's anger or depression or sadness or loneliness or any of these other more challenging kind of feelings, having them come up and just deciding, you know what, that's OK. It's OK. As soon as you do that, you immediately take power back. You take the reins back, you let that thing go to a large degree.
And what you'll find is that actually by being OK with something, it kind of just wanders off. It's like if you engage with it and you get all freaked out and you get all upset, it's going to get all upset and it's going to want to stay around and, and engage with you, right? But if you just kind of ignore it, like, OK, I see you depression, it's OK. You know, that's OK. I'm kind of down today. That's OK. Then it kind of just gets bored and wanders off.
And then all the sudden you might find that you're not actually not all that depressed anymore when we stop resisting it so much. Another key part of this, and this is a part that is very uncommon, I don't think there's a lot of people who even realize that we can really do this, and even fewer that actually practice it on a regular basis. And that is that we can create experiences and outcomes and ways of being in our life by practicing emotions, by practicing feeling a certain way.
One of my favorite studies about the power of imagination practice is they took a group of high school students, they divided them up into three groups, just random high school students, right? They divided them up into three groups. They tested them shooting free throws with a basketball and one group, they tested them all in the first day, right? One group practiced every day for three weeks with a ball. Another group didn't practice at
all. The third group practiced every day for three weeks, but they practiced only in their imagination, and at the end of three weeks they test all three groups again. The group that didn't practice at all, 0% improvement almost precisely the same. The group that practiced with the ball improved 24%. The group that practiced only in their imagination, Only in their imagination, zero practice with a ball whatsoever for three weeks improved 23%, almost the same as the group that practice
with the ball. So that's a very physical skill. Obviously shooting a basketball, shooting a free throw, that's a very, very physical skill. The beautiful thing about emotions is that the same power of imagination practice applies, but it works even better because emotions are completely within us. We don't have this kind of, you know, with a physical skill like shooting a free throw.
There's the physical skill part of it, the muscle memory part of it. There's all of that kind of physical world stuff where is with our emotions, they are entirely within us. So when we practice them within us in our imagination, it is even more powerful. So a practical way to do this because I know it might seem like kind of an out there concept that you can practice emotions, but you absolutely can.
And not only will it help you bring more of that emotion into your life and be more of that emotion. So for example, you might actually practice being patient with your kids and imagining that, and it not only will help you be more patient, but it will guide you automatically towards that. Because when you practice stuff in your imagination, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between that and a real experience. And so when we experience stuff repeatedly, it becomes kind of
automatic. So if you practice a particular feeling in your imagination, that feelings going to start to become kind of automatic. So if you go into your imagination and you practice feeling confident, or you practice feeling how you're going to feel when you achieve that certain goal or whatever it is. When you practice those positive feelings that you want to bring into your life, you will automatically be pulled more
towards that thing. You will automatically draw it towards you more, and maybe most importantly, you will automatically act in accordance with that feeling. That's the most important thing to wrap up on here is that when you practice emotions, you will automatically act in ways that are in accordance with that emotion. That goes for negative emotions that you in essence practice by
dwelling on them, right? So if, for example, you dwell on an emotion of being lonely and you focus on that and you resist it and you think about it, what you will actually do is you will find yourself taking the actions automatically that lead towards more of that because that's what you're practicing.
Conversely, when you practice a positive, when you practice a positive emotion, when you practice the emotions that will come from a positive outcome, you will likewise find yourself automatically taking the actions that lead toward those outcome, those outcomes, and those emotions. I hope this makes sense. The practical way to apply that apply it is this meditate meaning very simply close your eyes, just sit still, lay down, close your eyes, that's it.
You can turn on some non music or non word kind of music, it's some meditation music or something like that if you like. Or you can just sit in in stillness, but close your eyes either laying down or sitting down and breathe, maybe focus on your breath for a minute or two and then just play around in your imagination. Don't take it too seriously. And you don't not need to try to become that thing right now.
You don't need to try to come out of your imagination where after my imagination, I'm going to feel this way for the rest of the day. You don't need to worry about that. Just practice in your imagination for right now, feeling that way right now. It's it's much more simple actually than than it then it sounds, I think, or then it can be, it can come across kind of complex and weird, but literally just close your eyes, practice feeling a certain way and then go about your day.
And the more you do that, the more you're going to draw that thing into your life. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being part of the tribe. If you're watching video, sorry for the little my dog hit the tripod. So there you go. Life happens, imperfection happens. Sending you guys good vibes. Have an amazing rest of your day. Talk to you soon.