I really like this topic because I think this is a cornerstone issue for us, as we as co-dependents have been so stringent on our emotions in an effort to not deal with them, manipulate them, etc......so we can focus on everything else but them.

In my opinion (not like I have studied anything about it, just from being a human being in the world), I think emotions are out of our control, I think they come from combinations of childhood or adulthood triggers, traumas, previous relationships, whatever experiences we have lived through, whatever is good and bad....

I think the only thing we have control over is how we act while and after we have those feelings and as well, in how long we are going to hang on to them......

I have been working really hard on letting go of oooooolllllldddddd negative emotions....I am really weak in that area. I will hold onto stuff for YEARS.....so that is my continuous work, changing my mind about how long I want to suffer over something. I can't control the initial feelings, I can't control that those feelings happened or what ever caused me to have those feelings.....but I certainly get to dictation how long I am going to allow it to poison my being and soul. I do find that the easiest way for me to let go of feelings, it tackling the issues surrounding them head on, not skirting or beating around the bush about it. If I have to talk to the source, or write, or pray, or whatever to get there.....it means feeling the feelings all the way thru. It can be ugly crying all night, it can be jumping up and down to loud music in a mosh pit with anger, or whatever....but I gotta feel it! That is what I always bypassed before-feeling my feelings, then it would rear its ugly head in some really messed up way later down the road and I didn't even connect the dots of why I was doing it-which was really out of control feeling.

Anyway, that is my two cents......(your post made me a bit hungry now for some cake, that is for sure!)

Thanks for the share of this topic, can't wait to read some additional feedback!

I see that as a great question because it is so important to recovery.

My short answer is that yes we can control everything about our self including the control of our feelings and emotions and our actions and we can control every aspect of our self.

The problem or trick is that it takes a lots of practice and effort and takes time to learn how to control our self, and when we do not learn to control our self then we become or remain out-of-control.

It is like learning to ride a bicycle, so at first we feel fear and excitement and drama and etc, but after learning and a little experience then all the original feelings disappear. The same with first driving a car, going out on a first date, first time sex, but as we learn from experience then we start to control our feelings and emotions and THAT is what we call as maturity or as being mature.

Now for me (after a lot of training) then when I feel anger then I can now shut the anger down quickly and then deal with the issue like an adult because I can control my own feelings. Also getting shame seems easy but now I have learned healthy ways of controlling any shame and that is the healthy recovery.

That seems like all negative stuff but it works to control our positive or happy feelings and emotions too, as like things are going well and having fun and some other person says or does something to mess up the fun and now I know how to brush off offenses and keep myself feeling happy or comfortable.

In my old immature ways (my younger days) then I could not do that and instead my out-of-control feelings and emotions would control me and that was not healthy.

As to love then I say now that I find choosing to love is far better than the old "falling in love" because now I get to pick and choose my romantic relationships instead of just falling into them.

As to the taste of chocolate or different type of cake then I see those as being our senses and not feelings, and to control our senses is a totally different challenge. As like I once had to stop smoking cigarettes and I loved the taste of those cigarettes, and then in a couple years after stopping then the cigarettes became stinky nasty things to me.

It is far easier to stop eating chocolate then it is to stop being angry - IMO - and that is because our inner feelings are much stronger then are our senses.

It is a mistake to think that I can touch and feel things with my hands and on my skin so the sense-of-feel is the same as our feelings because those are not the same things.

This is all just my understanding based on my own study and research.

First, we have to separate emotions from needs. Feeling hungry is a need. Feeling angry is an emotion.
Neither is under our control. They come to us regardless of how we might try to pretend that we can refuse to feel them. How we react is always under our control.

For instance:
Feeling angry look at what caused the anger. Was it a violation of some boundary of mine? Am I jealous of another person? Is this a replay of some childhood event? Am I actually in danger and this anger is my bodys way of marshaling adrenalin to give me energy to fight or flight to preserve life? Once I realize why this feeling is coming up, I get to choose how I react.

Stuffing feelings just gives them more and more power. Experiencing them gives us room to accept that they are part of being human. That eventually allows them to dissipate more readily and lessen their control over us.

Trying to ignore the feelings, pretending that we have control over feeling them is changing the subject. That only stuffs the feelings so they come out with more power and energy the next time that feeling is triggered.

Feeling hungry wanting cake is a need. We need to eat. What we choose to eat is always up to us. Even choosing to NOT eat is a choice. IN my case, with Celiac disease, wanting cake is always problematic. I have to choose to satisfy that want with something that is life preserving rather than simply follow the desire. IN point of fact, I no longer want cake at all. But that is partly because it will kill me.

The difference to me is that feelings continue to come to us. Anger, hate, joy all come over us regardless of how we think we can control those emotions. But each time we choose carefully how we will react, we disarm their control over us.

The next time someone violates my boundary, I will still feel angry. I may not let that anger propel me into actions with consequences that I have no desire to endure. Eventually that anger is short lived with appropriate response so instinctual that we think we no longer feel the anger. But what really happens is that the spilt second experience of the feeling and reaction is so much a part of us that it seems to be gone.

Awesome topic.

I think all thoughts and feelings are just chemicals and we get trained to manufacture them according to our associations with stimulus.

I "love" chocolate cake, but I also know that if I eat too much of it, I'll get fat. Also, if I ate a ton of it and then got the flu and threw it all up, I may start to look at that cake with different emotions for a while.

So I think to a point, we CAN learn how to retrain how we feel regarding something. You can indulge one pattern of thinking, or you can learn to start thinking/feeling a certain way if you focus on the negatives...

As far as actions, we are humans, not animals; we have free will.

And relationships are not cake... Just because I feel a certain way towards a person does not mean I have to act out.

From my personal experience, I think it is possible to control feelings/emotions, but it is not long-term nor is it healthy. For example, in the past, when I've felt sadness, my mind would say "No. You shouldn't feel like that. Stop being sad now." If I was able to control the feeling, I would stop feeling sad, but feel other emotions in its place (anger, hurt, resentment, etc.) and they would spiral until the sadness came back, bigger and badder later on. I would choose not to feel the sadness for the moment, but feel it much worse when I could not choose to control it anymore. I don't personally feel like I'm able to choose to feel any feeling ("I want to be happy, so now I feel happy!"), but I know in the past I've chosen NOT to feel any feeling that came my way if I didn't want to in that moment.

I learned that I had to feel whatever I was feeling for the moment, regardless of if I felt like I shouldn't, couldn't, or it wasn't appropriate. I've been using a little mental model for myself as a reminder to feel when I actually have the feeling! I say (either aloud or in my head) "I feel_______ because _________." Sometimes I need to say it once for one feeling, other times I have to say it multiple times for multiple feelings. I've found I've cut down on the amount of times a day that I try to control or choose a feeling. I end up letting them happen, and while it doesn't feel great initially, it usually feels better after some time has passed after the acknowledgement.