Body Signals Pave Emotional Mastery

Emotions are pivotal to our experience of life. Our emotions, our description of experience, are life itself. Emotional mastery, the ability to shift and sculpt the direction your experiences take you, is one of the most powerful skills in improving the quality of your life. A low amount of emotional control and even minor events can leave you depressed and desperate whereas, a high degree of mastery can literally transform your behavior, thoughts and experience of life.

Well-known motivator Scott H Young says that most people have no idea how big an impact the physiology or body posture, gestures and breathing rate has on the emotions they experience. Many incorrectly assume that your emotions are completely based on mental reactions to external events. So when you are feeling nervous and not excited when going to speak in public, that is because public speaking is scary not because of your physiology.

It has been scientifically shown that the physiology of your body influences your emotional state just as your emotional state influences your physiology. These two things are not on a one-way street. Just as feeling enthusiastic causes you to move faster, make more excited gestures and smile, doing all those things when you are feeling nervous or neutral can create the feeling of enthusiasm.