Did you know there's a very strong link between your feelings and emotions and your self confidence levels. As your senses pick up everything that happens around you, you automatically and immediately create feelings and emotions that you link to each situation.
When you eat something that tastes absolutely divine, you immediately feel pleasure and joy and want to enjoy continuing eating it. When your nose picks up a really bad smell, you immediately express revulsion and want to get away from the smell as quickly as possible.
In every situation you encounter, your feelings are immediately brought into play and then determine how you react to everything that happens to you. Let's quickly cover the different types and groups of feelings, because it's important to recognise them so you know how to deal with them and manage them in a positive way.
The first group we'll look at are commonly referred to in NLP and painful feelings.
Imagine for a moment that you're having a relaxing hot shower. You've been stood there for a while and really starting to unwind. Suddenly the hot water runs out, and you're left standing under icy cold water. You yell out in shock and immediately try to get away from the water. This is classed as a "painful feeling" (though it doesn't actually cause you any serious harm - more a shock than anything), and you immediately try to get away from the cause of it.
The first type of painful feelings is anxiety. Anxiety can be a very debilitating emotion, and is also non-specific. By that I mean that you can be feeling very anxious about something, but not really know exactly what is causing your anxiety symptoms. You're feeling apprehension, dread, uneasiness and distress, but not sure why.
Anxiety attack symptoms can be very strong and can have a very negative impact on your self confidence levels. It can be very demoralising to constantly be under the threat of panic attacks, which can also lead to inability to make decisions and take action with your life. So it's vital we learn how to control these negative feelings and turn them round into positive emotions that empower us.
How Pleasurable Feelings Affect Us
Imagine you're going to meet someone you love very much, but haven't seen for some time. As soon as you meet, you feel compelled to rush over and hug them really hard. Doing this would make you feel extremely happy and joyful. These emotions cause us to feel pleasure and want to move towards them.
As human beings we have been programmed by evolution to constantly be looking for pleasurable feelings and emotions. That's why almost every commercial you see on the TV is aimed at showing us the a link between the product being advertised, and some form of pleasurable experience such as fulfilment, winning, happiness, joy, laughter, success, independence, being loved, inner peace and being in love.
I know it seems like I'm stating the obvious, but pleasurable feelings make us feel good inside and out, and when we feel that way, it naturally helps us in building self confidence levels and self esteem. You feel in control of your life and surroundings, and there's no better way to improve confidence levels than by feeling good about yourself.
About the Author
Lorna Luck is an NLP and personal development coach . Here she explains some simple techniques about how to build confidence levels. She offers a free program teaching how to build confidence at http://magic-hats.com
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