We all carry around our negative emotions in a secret bag. And we are always facing situations making us open that bag to pull out an emotion.
There’s a lot in this world to trigger us into opening that bag: personal trauma, work stress, emotional abuse, losing a close person, family conditions, poverty, job loss.
But whenever we open it, it’s never one emotion, but many that tumble out together. And each brings its own bit of hurt.
Negative emotions hurt us, of course, but even happiness can hurt. In the USA, more than 22 million people have anger issues. In the UK, 65% of people express anger over the phone, 26% in writing, and 9% on face-to-face interaction. And that’s just one negative emotion – anger – we’re talking about.
What Are Negative Emotions
Negative emotions are feelings that make us miserable, uncomfortable, and unhappy. They can damage our self-esteem and self-love, generate envy and grudge, and lower our optimism and life satisfaction. They serve a vital purpose in our survival. However, we cannot choose the exact single emotion we want to feel.
How To Embrace Your Negative Emotions
Embracing negative emotions is about opening up ourselves to accept them. It means — • we can clearly see where they are signaling us; • we can grasp the messages they are trying to convey; • we are able to take reasonable, relevant action; and • we can let them go after they have served us.
We can learn to address our negative feelings in a positive way. There are proven helpful coping strategies to deal with them. Here are 7 step-by-step strategies to deal with negative emotions:
- Become aware of the negative emotions rising
- Remodel the negative emotions as uneasy feelings
- Accept their existence and importance, and feel them fully
- Separate the objective experience from the subjective interpretation
- Explore the experience with curiosity, and find out the reason for their presence
- Be non-judgmental and mindful of the various ways it evokes changes in the body
- Raise the threshold of discomfort and frustration tolerance, and make friends with them
1. Become aware of the negative emotions rising
Once we learn to recognize their presence early on, we can take some proactive steps to let them play havoc with our mental and physical states. It’s like being warned about a storm coming and getting ourselves to a safe place before it can harm us at will.
2. Remodel the negative emotions as uneasy feelings
After we have changed our perspective of the negative emotions as feeling that are out to destroy us, we can handle them better. If we were to remodel them as merely uncomfortable feelings, we can deal with them better as we know they’ll pass away in time.
3. Accept their existence and importance, and feel them fully
To feel the emotions fully means to let them wash over us. If it’s a feeling of shame or embarrassment over a past mistake that just came by, we could let it make us feel completely ashamed. If we whisk it away, it will come back to upset us time and again. They have a reason to exist, so we have to let them be when they appear.
4. Separate the objective experience from the subjective interpretation
Our negative experiences come with memories of prejudice gathered from the past events. When those mistakes happened, we interpreted them in a castigating way, and stored them in our memories. It’s these interpretations that cause us more distress than the feelings themselves. Learning to set aside past judgments linked to negative emotions is a helpful way to deal with them.
5. Explore the experience with curiosity, and find out the reason for their presence
Curiosity is often an understated quality in adulthood. As children, we examine nearly everything with unbounded curiosity, but lose it as we grow. Once we start to explore the necessity of a negative emotion to present itself, with childlike curiosity, we can find out its motive. And then fulfill their needs.
6. Be non-judgmental and mindful of the various ways it evokes changes in the body
Mindfulness is a powerful tool to help us deal with negative emotions. It makes us see them just as they are, without any past or present judgments. Knowing them, and releasing them is one thing mindfulness teaches us to do well.
A regular practice of mindfulness meditation is easy to learn, and here is a compact guide (with PDF) to Mindfulness in 7 Steps.
7. Raise the threshold of discomfort and frustration tolerance, and make friends with them
In time, when we regularly practice dealing with the negative emotions in the ways above, we grow a natural strength against handling those in the future. Our threshold for becoming uncomfortable in their presence gets raised. We learn to be friends with them, however difficult they may seem to behave. After all, they are not going to be there for long unless we hang on to them.
Unhealthy Ways To Handle Negative Emotions
Many of us find it hard to deal with negative emotions like fear, grief, and stress. The reason is it is often seen as a social stigma to acknowledge we suffer from our “unhappy” emotions.
First of all, managing the negative emotions requires we do not do these things — • we do not deny having them; • we do not avoid feeling them; • we do not get buried by them; and • we do not keep holding them.
Often, those who admit they’re suffering from negative emotions, often get the following two wrong pieces of advice:
- Just become happier
- Avoid negative feelings
1. “Just Become Happier” Doesn’t Work
It is wrong to ignore the dark sides of human experience and only promote positivity, as this could lead to the “tyranny of the positive attitude.”
Held, who gave the above theory, speculated asking a person to work only on their positive emotions can make them feel guilty if they could not pull off a positive attitude.
2. “Avoid Negative Feelings” Doesn’t Work
Avoiding negative states is an advice fraught with dangers. A key message within psychotherapy since the time of Freud (1961) is that distress and illness can stem from suppressing the difficult emotions.
Recent research by Gross and John showed suppressing negative emotions can lead to more negative emotions. The study also found those who suppress their negative feelings felt less satisfied with life, had lower self-esteem, and were less optimistic.
Here we take up some of what you need to know about your negative emotions, and how to handle them in a positive way.
How Useful Are Our Negative Emotions
We know our negative emotions can take us on a downward spiral when we cling on to them for long. So, if we were to hold on to our blues or sadness, it could spiral us down into severe depression.
And when negative emotions overrun us, we tend to see and remember only the negative sides around our life. This stretches those emotions and stops us from seeing the happier side of life.
So, where’s the usefulness of our negative emotions?
It’s this: We start with the idea that a negative emotion, above all, isn’t negative. Then it gets easier to let it sink in that they are just pointers to things happening under-surface.
- Jealousy could be tipping us we’re wasting much of our time comparing ourselves with others.
- Anxiety could be telling us we need a strong and far-reaching change in our behavior.
- Rage might be pointing out the wellbeing of ours or our close ones is under grave threat.
- Fear in our mind could be letting us know we need to move to a place of greater safety.
- Frustration or resentment might be asking us to change our stance in a relationship.
The negative emotions act as signals, just as positive emotions do.
They try to tell us something in our system or our surroundings is chafing us. The next time you get agitated or sad, remember you are experiencing that emotion to your benefit.
The truth is our negative emotions are wholesome part of our lives. We can’t survive long and in full health without them.
In fact, research on ageing and longevity shows psychological elements that verge on emotions are more important predictors of a long and healthy life than other factors as diet and activeness.
- Research makes it clear our feelings and emotions are not directly responsible for our health disorders and sicknesses. Rather, it is our prolonged repression of emotions and feelings that creates a tension for the diseases to appear.
- On the flip side, however, the free and unbroken expression of emotion has clear and long-lasting benefits for physical and mental health, and general wellbeing.
Remember, the difficult emotions are just transient phases that will sooner or later give way to better moments in time. So, we must not give in or get around them, but rather embrace them.
And the more we choose to accept them, the better we become at handling them.
Do Negative Emotions Have A Positive Side
To tell you the truth, there is no such thing as a negative emotion. Emotions are not born good or bad.
Though they affect us both psychologically and biologically, in fact, they are natural and neutral. What emotions do to us depends on how we let them affect us, and how we choose to express them. Emotions exist to put us into motion.
• Emotion = E + motion
Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation.
— Paul Ekman, PhD
Our so-called negative emotions, in themselves, aren’t actually negative. Rather, they point to some negative or not-so-happy events happening around us.
Emotions appear as a fleeting state that grabs one of our fingers and points it to the event causing it. And when it points to a negative event, we call it a negative emotion.
All our emotions, including the negative ones, exist for a reason. They arrive to get us motivated to either indulge more in or move away from, a certain experience. They are useful for our survival and growth. So, negative emotions indeed have positive sides.
3 Scientific Models To Handle Negative Emotions
Now, let’s dive into how to handle our negative emotions using 3 science-backed models here:
- Awareness & Acceptance
- The CESS Method
- TEARS of HOPE Model
1. Awareness & Acceptance
We can’t choose the emotions we experience. But if we’re aware of their motive and accept their existence, we can receive our negative emotions with grace.
We can choose the ways we respond to them through awareness. And then embrace them through non-judgmental acceptance.
• Awareness
Emotions often have triggers. Mark those triggers early on when you know an emotion may flare up. Stay sharp to spot them as soon as they start to rise in you. This is emotional awareness.
Awareness of emotional impulses doesn’t come naturally to us. Because of the way we evolved, we find it easier to react to a trigger, rather than respond after a space of wait.
Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich found 95% of people think they’re self-aware, but only 10-15% truly are. She quotes the three reasons behind this:
- we operate on autopilot, unaware of why and how we’re behaving
- we’re happier when we see ourselves in a more positive light
- we’ve got absorbed into a “cult of self” in these times of social media
Paul Ekman, topmost expert on micro expressions, says we need hard and consistent practice to become aware of any emotion-driven impulse before we take actions.
But once we start to recognize and anticipate the hot triggers that push our buttons, you’re one step ahead of them. The impulses do not control you, but you control them now.
Mindfulness is one great way to learn this emotional awareness. Mindfulness can change our relationship with negative emotions, by letting us to experience them without judgement, guilt, or shame.
• Acceptance
When bad things happen, it is better to let the negative emotions have their run. Accepting their presence, instead of trying to avoid them, is the best way to handle them.
It turns out that how we approach our own negative emotional reactions is really important for our overall well-being. People who accept these emotions without judging or trying to change them are able to cope with their stress more successfully.
— Prof. Brett Ford
Research shows, people who accept their negative emotions get fewer negative emotions. And this effect lasted till 6 months later. But those who avoid their negative emotions, end up having more negative emotions, anxiety and depression.
So, the one right way to embrace the negative emotions is to be aware of them. And accept them as they are, with gentle attention, but without judging them.
2. The CESS Method
This is a simple 4-step process to help you embrace your negative emotions you can use by yourself.
- C — Call it
- E — Ease it
- S — Study it
- S — Stand it
• C — Call It. Call your emotion by its name, invite it inside, give it space. For example, say, “Hey stress!” Actually, it is already a part of who you are, so why not allow it to be here? Just say hello to its presence and give it a free pass to flow through you.
• E — Ease It. Make it easy for the negative feeling to bring about physical changes in you. Let it move around your body. Follow its path of exploration through your body. Let it hurt you wherever it wants to. Then find the places where it hurts the most, put your hand on each spot, and ease its agony with compassion.
• S — Study It. Ask yourself why is this emotion here and what is it trying to tell you. Try to put into words how does it feel, look, and sound. Is it one feeling, or are there others in the layers underneath? Try to study it intimately, and know all about it.
• S — Stand (Up To) It. Finally, after you’ve understood it’s motive, show boldness and take the action. Does it want you to show more self-compassion? Does it want you to forgive yourself? Does it want you to do some joyful activity? Do the activity that you judge the most rational. This will release it. After all, emotions are temporary, fleeting passions.
3. TEARS of HOPE Model
In 2017, Ceri Sims, Coaching Psychologist and University Lecturer, introduced the TEARS of HOPE. It is a mnemonic and model for coaching the difficult emotions through PP2.0 (Wong, 2011).
It summarizes the 9 different ways the coaches can use to approach handling the negative emotions. This needs a coach.
- T — Teach and Learn
- E — Express and Enable
- A — Accept and Befriend
- R — Re-appraise and Re-frame
- S — Social-support
- H — Hedonic Wellbeing or Happiness
- O — Observe and Attend To
- P — Physiology and Behavioral Changes
- E — Eudaimonia
• T — Teach and Learn: This asks us to enhance self-awareness and knowledge of our body and mind. It helps us to comprehend why we have a panic attack, or why we get depressed.
• E — Express and Enable: It encourages us to stay open and curious, and remain mindful of what is happening in our body. It also asks us to increase the acceptance level of what is yet to come. Storytelling and expressive writing can be a part of it.
• A — Accept and Befriend: This asks to raise self-compassion and tolerance for frustration and discomfort. It’s about encouraging self-acceptance and being friends with the challenging emotions.
• R — Re-appraise and Re-frame: Here, the client is to positively re-frame their experiences. One can use the CBT approaches as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Multimodal Therapy (MMT).
• S — Social-support: This involves the practice of loving-kindness meditation. This can expand the feelings of connection to others and their self-compassion.
• H — Hedonic Wellbeing or Happiness: This asks to focus on the positive aspects of your life, like happy memories and success stories. This uses the broaden-and-build theory of ‘positive’ emotions.
• O — Observe and Attend To: This suggests we practice mindfulness meditation, and try to be non-judgmental in life.
• P — Physiology and Behavioral Changes: It asks to practice breathing techniques, relaxation and self-care exercises.
• E — Eudaimonia: It is a term that comes from Greek philosophy. It is more than “happiness,” and recommends we strive for meaningful goals in life, and be a good and authentic person.
Final Words
Life is not always about positivity, a positive attitude, and all the good emotions. Expressing our true emotions, both positive and negative, is crucial to our physical and mental health, and general wellbeing.
Researchers from Olin University showed experiencing happiness alongside sadness was a predictor of improvements in psychological well-being.
It seems that there is something to be gained for your mental health in taking both the good and the bad together.
— Jonathan M. Adler, PhD
While owning our dark emotions takes boldness and practice, each time we practice embracing our dark emotions, we grow our inner resources, and we build trust and resilience for handling life’s challenges.
Embracing our negative emotions helps us start on a journey to pursue what truly matters to us, what’s really meaningful in our existence. The first step is always an ability to recognize and be aware of those emotions rising within us. With practice, it gets easier.
Now, find out how can you pick one of these 20 activities and raise your happiness levels!
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Author Bio: Written and reviewed by Sandip Roy – a medical doctor, psychology writer, happiness researcher. Founder of Happiness India Project, chief editor of its blog. Writes popular-science articles on happiness, positive psychology, and related topics.
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