Picture a depressed person. What do they look like?
* Is their posture straight or are they slouching? Is their head up or down?
* Do they speak loudly and quickly or slowly and quietly?
* Is their voice expressive or monotone? Is their breathing deep or shallow?
* Are their facial muscles tight or slack?
Compare this picture now with a person who is really excited and go through the list of questions again. It is obvious what the differences in their bodies between the people are.
When I speak of physiology, it includes the following:
* Posture
* Breathing rate and depth
* Gestures
* Facial expressions
* Muscular relaxation or tension
* Movements
* Voice tone, volume, expressiveness, speed
Clearly, when the way you feel changes, your physiology changes. However, most people don't realize that when your physiology changes, the way you feel changes.
The second way to change your emotional state quickly is to change your focus. You can do this by changing what you focus or how you focus on it. This is something that people do naturally when they try to escape or distract themselves. Once you understand this tool, you will be able to use it in a way that is more empowering.
You can choose to feel bad right now if you wanted to just by shifting your focus. It's easy. You could choose to think about all the suffering that is going on in the world. A child dies of starvation every 2.3 seconds. People are losing their loved ones right now to cancer. Or you could think about the events in your life that you still feel bad about. The time you felt rejected and alone. The time you felt like a failure and believed you wouldn't amount to anything. The time you felt not good enough, not smart enough or not attractive enough.
It's pretty easy to get into a negative emotional state.
