What are negative emotions, why do they make us so uncomfortable and why are they so important?

Negative emotions are really important!

Needless to say, most people hate feeling bad, they hate feeling sad, angry, anxious, lonely (how many negative emotions can you list?) Most people think if they don’t focus on the bad feelings they will just go away. Just think good thoughts! Talk about magical thinking! Truth be told the more we ignore our negative feelings the bigger and longer the hold they have on us. Truth be told when we acknowledge our negative emotions, when we let them in, they will go away or at least the shorter they stay. Contrary to what most people think when we acknowledge our bad feelings they don’t overstay their welcome, acknowledging them allows us to process them and move on. The process of acknowledging our negative feelings is akin to opening the door to let them out. Pretending they are not there robs us of this opportunity, granting the negative emotions more time to rule our lives.

Negative emotions are important because they serve a purpose. They are data, they tell us something about what is going on in our lives. Negative emotions are like those yellow warning lights, telling us something is wrong. If you are anxious in your relationship, unhappy at work, jealous of a friend, angry at your children. All of these negative emotions are telling you something is happening. We don’t need to act out on our negative emotions, but we do need to heed them and do something about them.

Starting today what can you do differently? Challenge yourself to see negative emotions in a new light. Start by expanding your negative emotions vocabulary. There are so many negative emotions, we tend to stick to just a few. Next, when you are feeling bad, name the emotion. Naming the emotion will help you process it. Next, instead of trying to push the emotion away, ask yourself, “What is this feeling (use the name of the emotion) trying to tell me?” Asking yourself this question will give you a different way to react to the negative emotion and maybe motivate you to do something about it as opposed to acting out on it or ignoring it. Be curious about the negative emotion, instead of letting it take over.