Sometimes I talk to mothers and they say that they feel bad that they still experience negative emotions in their lives. It seems like the media and social media posts sometimes give us the wrong idea of what life is really like. We think that others somehow are immune to experiencing any sort of discomfort and never feel any negative emotions. Then we start to think that our goal in life should be to be happy ALL THE TIME.
We start to think that if we are not happy all the time that something is wrong.
That is where we make the mistake.
It is just not possible to be happy all the time. Would you even want to be happy about things that cause grief like an accident or a diagnosis?
Life is always filled with negative emotions and problems.
This is really great to know because without the negative emotions we would not know the positive ones. We would not know joy if we did not have pain. We would not know happy if there was no sadness.
Life is a contrast of all the emotions.
Once you accept this then you will feel relief because you will not expect yourself to be happy all the time.
So let’s talk about what a negative emotion even is and how to really process it and move on.
What is a negative emotion?
Emotions are the result of many different hormones creating an effect to other parts of your body. But they are mainly just vibrations in your body caused by your thoughts.
Negative emotions may feel uncomfortable in the body.
Either way, they are always caused by our thinking. Sometimes we notice the vibration of that negative emotion first and then notice the thought driving it. Sometimes we notice the thought first. This really varies.
Here are some examples of how your thinking causes a negative emotion:
- The stress from your work and the pressure is due to your thinking.
- The guilt and shame you feel about not being a good enough mom is about what you think makes a good mom.
- The loneliness you feel as a stay at home mom is due to your thoughts about how it is so lonely.
A good way to see this more clearly is to think about one circumstance, bonus points if its something that everyone in your family agrees on, and see if 100 more people would see if the same way. Chances are a lot of them would have different emotions about it based on their own thinking.
The goal really should not be happiness all the time. Because the truth is, you will want to feel those negative emotions in appropriate circumstances. We are not robots walking around with no emotions.
The difference here is in how you process that negative emotion. If you want to feel a a negative emotion, even in those appropriate circumstances, you allow it to be there. Instead of resisting it or fighting with it which will make it worse. This does not mean that you remain passive and not do anything. I think a lot of misconception comes from people when they think that they can allow the negative emotion.
They think that they are giving up.
But there is a difference in allowing it and resisting it.
So here is how to actually process that negative emotion.
How to process a negative emotion
A lot of people want to avoid the emotion or resist the emotion. But when we resist it we make it worse. When you are angry at your kids during a breakfast explosion, most moms think that they have to push the anger down in order to control it. But what I am saying is, you can still be angry, allow the emotion and process it.
This is a skill that you can get really good at.
With a lot of negative emotions, we then end up doing other things to escape feeling them like:
-Scrolling social media
Overeating
Overdrinking
Overworking
So when you have an intense negative emotion next time…
First, notice the vibration in your body. This starts getting you out of your thinking and into your body. It starts creating that separation. You can even close your eyes if you can in the moment.
Second, name the feeling with one word (anger, shame, guilt, doubt, anxiety, loneliness, frustration, overwhelm etc.) Sometimes when I am unclear about which emotion, I take a guess or just stay with the emotion and how it feels without naming it. Some people need to name an emotion. It helps to say “I feel____” instead of “I am ___” to separate yourself from that emotion. I focus on this separation a lot with my clients because they think that they are just part of their emotions.
Third, start to describe it in details. You need to do this part because it help to stay in the body. If you feel the intensity of the emotion come then that is normal. Research shows that it takes about 90 sec to process an emotion fully. A lot of the time we just keep going back up in our thinking, that is why it keeps sticking around. So for example, you might say “This is anger, I feel it in my chest, it is heavy, it moves, it goes to my head, the color is dark red.” Notice how that is describing the emotion instead of explaining it which might sounds like “I am angry because I have to deal with breakfast and my kids always make a huge mess and demand things from me.” When you try to explain your negative emotion, you are not taking responsibility for your own negative emotion.
In the beginning it is easier to take a step back and star to write down all your thoughts, the feeling in the body and the emotion.
This doesn’t have to be with the BIG negative emotions either. It can be with the small instances where you are feeling a little bit of frustration towards your spouse when he is choosing golf over you. We can feel negative emotions about the small stuff too and they can be built up over time and cause suffering.
Fourth, identify the though that you are thinking that is causing the emotion. Do not try to skip the part of actually processing the emotion. It is tempting to think that we can find the thought really fast to replace a negative one and start to feel better. But if you start layering positive thoughts on top of a negative emotion, it won’t help.
There is always a thought behind that negative emotion.
You will need to write things down in the beginning, because it is hard to catch thoughts that are causing the emotions. Write them all down. Take a look at them. Sometimes I write down my thoughts on paper and think “no wonder I am feeling___” by reading some thoughts we are having, its easy to see why we feel certain emotions.
Take responsibility for those emotions and thoughts. Yes a lot of times, thoughts come to us automatically and we have made a habit out of thinking certain thoughts fo so long we think that life is just happening to us. But that is never the case. We can always take a look at our thinking with curiosity without judging ourselves for falling into the thinking loop and then take responsibility for those emotions.
Fifth, decide what you want to feel. Once you name the emotion and process it, you can decide if you want to keep it.
You may decide that you want to feel that emotion for a bit. Or it might compel you to action of a different sorts like setting up consequences. Thats what I dissect more with my clients. But know that you have that choice.
It is very easy to blame our emotions to people or circumstances outside of us.
Most of the time we think that others need to change or we need to start to change the circumstances to feel better.
An example of this is when I was blaming my husband for never telling me to take a break during the day or providing support for me. I wanted him to tell me a script of things I have created to make me feel better. AND I wanted him to tell me to take a walk or break because I was not getting one from the kids.
I thought “If only this was different THEN I can be happy.”
No, I had thoughts that made me unhappy like “No one appreciates me. I have to do everything around here. I can’t even take a break.”
Once I gained awareness over this, it was so much better. I said, “This is frustration. This is what frustration feels like. I can do this frustrations right now. It’s all happening because of sentences in my mind.”
Once the frustration was process, I asked myself, “now what do I want to do? What emotion do I want to drive me in this circumstance?”
See the difference there with the negative emotions as just a part of life vs the suffering that’s completely optional?
Let’s be honest, we have never been taught how to handle negative emotions. Some of us have even been taught since were kids that negative emotions should just be ignored and they are bad. This is why this work is so powerful.
So for you, choose one circumstance and one thought. Just try to sit with a negative emotion for a few minutes. Remember, it is just a vibration in you body. Get really good at experiencing that emotion so you allow it without making it mean that something has gone wrong. Without trying escape the emotion by changing any circumstances.
When you do this, something happens. You realize that the worst thing that can happen to you is a negative emotion. When you become unafraid of a negative emotion you become so much more willing to experience your life as it is now and as you start to pursue different goals for yourself.
The biggest misconception that I see a lot is that emotions are just for softies or women to deal with. That is not the case. Emotions are the fuel for why you do or don’t do certain things because they are the ones fueling your actions.
My free course on handling anxiety can really guide further on this part of the journey. I walk you through a step by step process in getting you on your way to taking ownership of your emotional life.
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