Dealing with negative emotions is often a problem, because we feel they cause us pain and block us in life. Is this you? Can you identify unwanted, chronic emotions in your life that prevent you from moving forward and keep you in a state of almost permanent discomfort?

Yet negative emotions are useful to us too (for the most part): they tell us something about ourselves, about our deepest selves – and they enable us to experience life to the full. Which of us would want to be joyful when someone dear to us dies? Isn’t it anger that sometimes spurs us into action?

Very often, the term “managing negative emotions” is associated with the idea of getting rid of them… But no! The purpose of life is not to get rid of negative emotions, or even to free ourselves from them. It’s simply to accept them, learn to feel them and put them to good use in our lives.

DO WE NEED TO MANAGE OUR NEGATIVE EMOTIONS?
Managing means “administering”, i.e. taking charge, assuming direction, impetus, control and responsibility. And that’s right up our alley… But we haven’t learned that at all. We think we’re at the mercy of our emotions, that they come and go as they please. We believe, wrongly, that their cause lies outside us.

We sail on the sea of emotions (or even in the depths of the waves) as if we were in a ship without a captain! But we have the rudder at our fingertips, and all we have to do is grab it! Well, it’s true. We’d have to grab it AND learn how to use it. Anyone who has sailed will know that you can’t handle a ship’s helm like the handlebars of a bicycle, that you’ll always have trouble going against the current, and that you have to change course gently, because one sudden turn of the helm will send everyone overboard. But you have to learn.

THE ONLY MASTERS ON BOARD
To begin with, we have to get rid of the idea that our emotions are things that just happen to us. We have to accept the possibility that we have our part to play, that all these emotions we feel are ones we choose, voluntarily or not, consciously or unconsciously. It’s an intellectual effort to make, because it goes against what we’ve been taught since childhood.

We think we experience our emotions “because” of what’s happening outside us, “because” of what others say, do, don’t say, don’t do, “because” of circumstances – outside us – the economic crisis, floods, a birth, a flower opening, or “because” of our past, which is however… in the past (= it’s not happening now, how can it affect us right now?).

So, of course, it’s a little unsettling to think that our emotions are the result of our choices, even guilt-inducing. We feel like saying “OK, Virginie, believe me, if I could choose to feel good, I’d do it right now!” But how? Without blaming ourselves for not doing it sooner, and without doubting our abilities. Without fearing what we’ll find. Feeling guilty for not knowing what we didn’t know is a bit pointless, let’s agree. It’s a bit like blaming ourselves for forgetting what we forgot…

But, objectively speaking, what’s the risk? Is it better to continue living with our emotions than to take responsibility for them? Thinking we’re not responsible for them is one of the most demotivating things there is. If we can’t change anything… we might as well pick 4 daisies and lie down in a hole in the ground right now! Or jump ship, if you don’t want to mix metaphors…

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
When we understand – and accept – that we are responsible for our emotions, we regain power over our lives. We’re then able to take full ownership of them, and observe the role they play in our lives: in the positive as well as the negative. Then we’ll notice that, very often, we don’t feel them. What we do feel, particularly in the case of negative emotions, but not exclusively, is resistance to our emotions. And for this we use 3 techniques:

resistance: we resist with every cell in our body (this is the right place, since our emotions don’t happen in our heads, but in our bodies),
reaction: we express our unhappiness through behaviors which, unfortunately, very often do not serve our long-term interests
avoidance: we take refuge in actions that give us immediate pleasure, but also run counter to the achievement of our goals.

To regain control over all the behaviors that are harmful to us, we need to understand our emotions, and learn to recognize, accept and feel them. Learn to manage your negative emotions… and all the others!

LEARN TO RECOGNIZE AND FEEL YOUR EMOTIONS
Emotions are the changes that take place in our bodies (or “vibrations”) when we emit a thought. No thought, no emotion.

To identify them, we need to learn how to feel them. Physically: what happens in my body when I feel the emotion: fear, love, anxiety, joy, confidence? By learning to recognize them, we can let ourselves go into this change, breathe, let ourselves go into its current and realize that, in the end, it’s temporary. From a few seconds to twenty minutes. It may come back, in waves, is not always pleasant, but it doesn’t hurt us, and it doesn’t kill us. That’s what our primitive brain thinks.
That’s why it wants to protect us at all costs… But in the long run, this protection is at our expense, because the primitive brain is only interested in the present moment.

We must learn to manage our emotions with our prefrontal cortex, the evolved part of our brain. The part that understands that public speaking isn’t a sure death sentence.

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM AND WHERE DO THEY GO?
When we give ourselves permission to feel fully, we acquire an important key. Because we get information in two directions.

UPSTREAM: THOUGHTS
We can look upstream: what triggered this emotion? To be more precise: what thought generated the emotion. Because it’s never the circumstances that trigger our emotions: circumstances are neutral: it’s always the thoughts through which we interpret what’s happening or has happened, that create our emotions.

And that’s really good news, because all our thoughts are optional. We can choose to think whatever we want. We can choose thoughts that make us feel good and move us towards our goals. This possibility is available to us at any time.

DOWNSTREAM: ACTIONS
When we observe what follows from our emotions, we become aware of their impact. A negative emotion will never produce a positive result in our lives. And our “result”, what we have, what we are, what we have built – or not – is the sum of all our actions. Our thoughts, emotions and actions must always be in alignment to produce the results we want. Our thoughts create our results.

That’s why a person who arrives in a new environment and thinks: “I don’t know anyone, they’re all friends”, will feel an emotion of loneliness, withdraw and continue to be alone. On the other hand, someone who thinks “That’s great, they seem like a nice group” will feed on an emotion of curiosity, open up to discussion with others and integrate.

Learning to manage negative emotions is part of a whole. By recognizing and fully experiencing all our emotions, positive and negative, our lives become intentional. We no longer let our primitive brain lead us into pitfalls. We grasp the rudder and steer ourselves safely into port, trusting that we can choose any destination, we’ll always be there. Present to – and for – ourselves.