*As originally seen on Forbes.com

We’ve all felt how draining fear-based emotions can be. Nothing saps our life force more than panic, overreaction, and upset.

What if you could choose how you felt with ease? It starts with shifting from resistance to consent. Thankfully there’s a proven process called Maneuvers of Consciousness that walks you through each step of the way.

Help your team be more productive – and happier – by becoming emotionally resilient.

Whatever we focus on, we fuel. When we resist an emotion, we make it stronger. But if we consent, we shift our relationship to the experience and loosen up our emotional experience. We have added more options to our menu of emotional choices.

We can maneuver, or change, our consciousness (that is, our current conscious emotional experience) quite easily. Human beings are inherently resilient. But some of us just haven’t realized it yet.

Maneuvers of Consciousness is a powerful, neuroscience-based tool to increase emotional agility.

Maneuvers of Consciousness: Feel Better In 12 Minutes Or Less

First, think of something you are resisting. Pick something meaty, like a painful belief, a belittling, angry, or unpleasant person, or a situation you really don’t want in your life. Be sure to have your Emotion Wheel and a timer handy because you’ll be doing four segments of three minutes in a row. Ideally, you’ll do this exercise with a buddy who will sit silently with you and ensure that you use all three minutes for each step below:

Understanding your emotions is key to improving how you feel.

Step 1. Negative Evaluation State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. During those three minutes, say out loud all the things you don’t like about what you’re resisting: what’s bad about it, what you can’t stand about it, how painful it is, how it makes you feel, why it’s wrong. Really trash it. As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Negative Evaluation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non-sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many stripes does a zebra have?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.

Step 2. Curiosity State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Now get really curious about this situation. How did it come to be? What is interesting about it? What is familiar about it? What good things come from it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Curiosity. Then, have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non-sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many spots does a cheetah have?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.

Step 3. Amazement State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes, and now become amazed that this situation came to be. Wow! This is fascinating! What’s amazing about it? How do you feel about it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Amazement. Then, have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non-sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many grains of sand are on the perfect beach?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.

Step 4. Full Appreciation State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Ahhhh . . . now honor everything about this situation: “Yes! This has been so very helpful in bringing me to the next level. Wow.” So much gratitude and appreciation. How do you feel about it as you’re honoring it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Full Appreciation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non-sequitur question involving a number, such as “What’s your favorite number?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.

Not only does this process help release resistance, it allows us to have a choice and to increase our productivity. The quicker we can shift out of resistance, the faster we can focus on what moves the needle. Let me know how Maneuvers of Consciousness works for you!

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Featuring case studies and proven techniques, Power Your Tribe provides a set of powerful neuroscience-based tools to help managers identify emotions, release resistance, end isolation, focus on outcomes, and course-correct for continued success.

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