How are you feeling today? Are you happy or sad, empowered or frustrated, peaceful or angry, exhilarated or exhausted, love filled or hurt, secure or scared? We all have experiences in our lives that throw us into a negative state from time to time - and often the emotions we feel during and immediately after the event serve us in some way. If someone is threatening us for example, the fight or flight response will occur within us and that can be quite helpful. The way we often torture ourselves for months or years after a negative experience, however, is not so helpful.

Regardless of what someone has done to you, or you imagine they might do to you in the future - those people do not have control over how you feel now unless you give them that control. If someone hurt you in the past, what they did to you is in the past. They are not doing anything right now to hurt you - you are hurting you by taking the pain they caused in the past and prolonging it.

Many of us find it hard to stop feeling angry or hurt when you have been horribly wronged by someone, believe me I know. However, holding on to that anger or hurt only serves to hurt you further and it wastes your time, energy and joy. Your anger and hurt do nothing to correct the situation, they do not punish the person who hurt you, they only punish you. Why would you want to do that to yourself? I understand the victim mentality, having existed in it for a very, very, very long time myself. Living that way did absolutely nothing to help my situation, it did absolutely nothing to further my goals and wasted a ton of my time and energy. Do not give other people that power.

Your emotions and thoughts are within you - just as other people’s emotions and thoughts are within them. You cannot control what other people are going to do, say, think or feel no matter how hard you try. You only have control over yourself. While it is important to allow yourself to feel and express your emotions during and after an event, it is also important to let those emotions go at some point. Letting the emotions go does not mean that you no longer care or that you have been defeated in some way, it just means that you decide at some point that regardless of what is going on in your life that feeling awful all the time isn’t doing you any good. Letting go is a decision to not let other people take away your happiness. Regardless of what you have gained or lost, did or didn’t do or had happen in your life, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to be positive and attract positive things into your life. You deserve to have the energy you were wasting on worry or negativity put to better and more productive use.

How you feel is your choice - you are responsible for how you feel regardless of what is going on in your life. Make the decision to be happy - no matter what. Anger doesn’t serve you, neither does fear, worry, hate, envy, sorrow, frustration or guilt. Make the choice to let it all go. Let it all go because there is no point to feeling bad, feeling bad about something accomplishes nothing. Let it all go so you can shine!

Start feeling happy now because you deserve to be happy! I wish for all of you the best that life has to offer, may all your hopes and dreams come true for you!

Disclaimer: this article is intended for inspirational purposes only and the techniques and ideas described herein are not to be used as a substitute for professional medical or psychological treatment or without prior consultation with, approval of, and under the supervision of your physician or therapist. Application of the information, techniques and ideas in this article is at the sole risk and discretion of the reader.