In my recent post Doubt I had trouble combining the concepts of passive observation of the conscious experience vs. being your own master. In a later post Fear I was confused about how one decides how to respond to a situation if not driven by emotion.
I think I may have misunderstood the principle of being your own master. It was brought to my attention in the book The Light Shall Set You Free and I interpreted it as actively choosing your experience. So when I felt down, I forcefully chose happy feelings. Now I think that was incorrect, because then you’re trying to change your experience into something that it’s not. Being your own master is more likely to mean that the (re)action you manifest in a certain situation is not determined by the emotions of that situation but is directed from this place of neutral observation , the place that sees these emotions flow. So in that case your emotions are not the master, but Awareness is. This answers the questions in both previous posts.
I noticed recently that observing emotions as energyflows works well for me and there were situations where it enabled me to stay centered where I would normally have reacted unskillfully. I have to keep training this ‘muscle’ though because if emotions become stronger or rise very quickly I still get overwhelmed.