Negative Emotions Are Not Bad Emotions

The difference could change your life. Plus, a step by step process on how to move out of negative emotions.

We often look at emotions as being black or white, some are good and some are bad.

However, emotions aren’t really good or bad. Some emotions like sadness, anxiety, and stress make you feel bad but the reason they come up is actually really important and helpful for you.

You see, emotions are signals that our body sends us to get our attention about something, teach us a lesson, and help us learn more about ourselves. When paid attention to, they can be used to help you tune into what feels right and what feels wrong.

They can also reveal things about ourselves, our environment, and the people around us that we wouldn’t have really paid attention to or that we have been pushing aside.

Therefore, all emotions come up for a good reason. You may not want to pay attention to what they are showing you but it’s all in your best interest.

So there really aren’t any “good” or “bad” emotions.

Rather, emotions are better referred to as “positive or negative”. Negative emotions are emotions that make us feel low such as anxiety, sadness, stress, grief, forlorn, guilt, etc. Positive emotions are emotions that make us feel high such as joy, happiness, satisfaction, gratitude, love, etc.

We all strive to feel positive emotions because negative ones make us uncomfortable. That’s why many people try to shut those feelings out and avoid feeling negative at any cost.

However, ignoring negative emotions can distort your reality. By making yourself think you are fine you are lying to yourself to protect your ego. If you attempt to distract yourself, it will only be a distraction, a short-term solution.

These attempts may work for a little bit but the longer you ignore it the bigger your emotional explosion will be. You will never be free from the negative emotion you’ll just be running from it.

I will be blunt with you, I did the distracting and the running a lot. Especially around the months when COVID started. I ended up having that emotional breakdown and finally was forced to open up to the people around me. It was hard but that’s because my ego didn’t want to let it go.

It was one of the toughest things to get through but I wouldn’t take any of it back. Why am I okay having felt all of that negative emotion? Being on the other side of it I can see what running from it did, I missed out on a lot and my relationships were struggling. I was fooling myself if I thought everything was picture perfect.

Now, I am so grateful for the experience because I can use that to write this article for you. I still have a lot to learn but I try to process my emotions in a different way now. It is still a work in progress, but so far it has worked a lot better for me and made me feel much happier and less stressed when those negative emotions come up.

So when these negative emotions come up how can you process them more efficiently?

Step 1: Observe the emotion(s). For example, “okay let’s pause. I’m feeling really sad right now. I’m also feeling a little angry.”

Step 2: Let yourself feel it. In my example letting myself feel the sadness and anger might be to blast sad music in my ears and just cry, yell in a pillow, or squeeze a stress ball.

Step 3: Once you feel like you have felt most of the emotion, interrogate yourself a little. For example, “why am I feeling sad and angry? What happened when I started feeling this way? What was I thinking about?”

If you aren’t sure that’s okay too, the answers will come to you when you are ready to know but you don’t need to push it. You might not be ready to understand the feeling yet because you haven’t felt it enough. So cry a little more and come back to them when you are ready.

Step 4: Ask yourself “what is this emotion trying to tell me?”. If you feel stressed maybe it’s telling you to slow down, take something off your plate, manage your time better. If you feel anxious you may need to ground yourself, remove yourself from a situation, or calm your thoughts.

Step 5: Brainstorm ways to begin moving out of your negative emotions. For example, the reason I was sad and angry was that I felt trapped at home because of COVID. Ways I could try to move out of it is to plan to take walks every morning, go to the park, or just drive around somewhere.

Step 6: Thank the emotion for what it showed and taught you. Then release it and invite something else you want to bring more into your life. For example, “Thank you sadness and anger for showing up and teaching me that I need to reflect on my circumstances and stop hiding from my feelings. I am ready to let it go and invite gratitude and joy into my life.”

It is important to keep in mind that this 6-step process will be different for everyone. It may take you a day to move through it or it may take you a month. However much time is needed for you as long as you don’t fall back into trying to push it aside.

If you have any questions on this topic please feel free to reach out by writing a private or public comment or you can message me on Instagram @skylarraeblog.

I also want to thank Missy Fowler for helping me learn how to work through and release my emotions in a healthy way! She is truly a life changer!

Sincerely,

Skylar Sustin