10-Second Emotions - See it - Feel it - Breathe it - Write it

The idea behind 10-Second Feelings was to mimic a philosophy that has resonated through Samurai warriors, philosophers, deep thinkers and athletes for literally thousands of years. The basic concept is to be able to control your emotions - whether they are good or bad - in the space of 10 seconds.

I prepared some very interesting research that helps to support this concept. I have provided a variety of breathing techniques that will help you gain your mental focus in a very short period of time.

I want you to imagine yourself standing at the side of a river. To your left the river disappears into a forest. The river stretches across the horizon in front of you, continuing to your right, off into the forest. It's a calm and serene day. The water is flowing peacefully by from your left side to your right.

In the water you notice pieces of floating wood of various sizes. There are little pieces, and large pieces. Some of them are bright, while others are dark and stained. No matter which color they are, though, they continue to float on by. If you close your eyes for just 10 seconds and open them, the river will not look the same. Every few seconds you can look up and see a completely different river in front of you with a different collection of wood bits just floating on by.
The wood that was floating in front of you a few seconds ago is gone, no longer a part of your reality. In a few days, who knows, the wood might have made it to the ocean, or be sitting on the floor of the river. The one certainty is that the river keeps flowing and the wood appears on your left, and disappears on your right.

Now imagine each of those pieces of wood floating by you as your emotions relating to the various ups and downs we all experience during the day. You're standing at the edge of the riverbank, as the water crosses from left to right, your emotions float on by.

The river is Time. It's continuous from left to right, always ticking and moving. Time never stops. The river never stops flowing by. The water that you see right now will be thousands of miles away by this time tomorrow. The bits and pieces of wood in the water that float by are your emotions coming and going in an orderly (natural) process. To focus too long on any one piece of wood (any one emotion or situation) starts to create a damn (impasse) in your ability to tackle oncoming issues. The more you dwell on any one piece of wood, the more they stack and gather up behind, creating an emotional logjam. If you're not careful, pretty soon all of the wood in the river has gummed up and nothing is passing by. The river water (time) keeps flowing by, but the wood (emotions) is going nowhere.

Your ability or inability to let emotions (good or bad) come and go quickly can define your current emotional happiness or discontent. Sadness can be measured in a variety of ways, but it becomes dangerous when it manifests itself physically and starts to take a toll on your health. Enjoying a moment too long is just as dangerous as feeling sad. You have to let go of your emotions because they aren't real. Feelings and emotions are a side effect of circumstances that occur in your life. Some of these circumstances are within your control to change and affect, but most of them are not.

We are human. We are born and we learn both from nurturing and from nature. We get guidance on how we should act and feel from those around us. We also learn from trial and error as we make decisions. The physical actions that take place, and their repercussions are real. But our emotions related to those physical actions are not. Emotions are lies in a sense because they affect our physical existence, and that's not rational.

Let's make a change, right now!

About the Author: My name is Nicholas Black.

I am a nonfiction and fiction writer, and have written about 25 books (mostly under the name Nicholas Black), two television pilot scripts, two reality shows in pre-production, several short story and poetry anthologies, and for a while I even dabbled in art. But none of those things are reason for you to pay any attention to what I have to say. That's all noise. And I don't want you to focus on the noise!

I was also a member of the US Navy, I was a bodyguard for several years, I operated as a Security Consultant, and even spent time in the French Foreign Legion-as a diver and eventually an interrogator.

These things don't define me, but they're a good canvas so that you know where my techniques and ideas come from. I've had about 5 professional MMA fights, dozens of amateur fights, as well as over a hundred actual street fights (working in the capacity of a bouncer/security consultant/bodyguard/counter-terrorism, etc.). Fighting is something I know and I've learned what you do and don't need to learn, so I'll hopefully make it easy on you.

I spent a good amount of time researching this book. I read research reports from Carnegie Mellon, studies of athletes, the writings of physicians and much more. While the book itself is short and sweet, the lessons learned were not so easy to distill. I researched mental training, sports psychology, abnormal psychology, counseling, therapy (both personal and family), the Way of the Samurai, the Fighter's Mindset, and a variety of other tools and techniques for mental toughness and stability. I also studied the physiology and brain chemistry behind life or death decision-making-fairly profound stuff.

I feel that this book is a wonderful tool for all of us, and I use the techniques each and every day. I think you're really going to find immediate value in what 10-Second Feelings offers you. It's simple, elegant and makes an instant change to your mental well-being from day 1.