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Abstract

elf has no intrinsic value, allowing yourself to feel it does. If I hate something, burying that hate behind a wall of positivity doesn’t make it go away. It hides an issue that I should be looking at and trying to understand. Not only that, it can cause it to grow. It can grow so large that the wall we’ve erected won’t always be able to contain it.Really though, for all the value that just allowing ourselves to feel these emotions provides, that isn’t the crux of why we need to experience them. People have this foolish notion that humanity is embodied by positive emotions. What makes us human is only our good qualities. Why ever would we think that?Human beings aren’t some embodiment of purity and goodness, being wrongfully corrupted by outside forces of negativity. Those negative feelings, just as the positive ones, are a part of us. To ignore them is to fail to understand ourselves. We are beings of balance.<h2 id="0132">Why should we allow ourselves to feel bad?</h2>The single most important reason, I’ve already mentioned. So many negative emotions will only grow if we don’t address them. If we simply shove them to the side and continue, they will become rotten, multiply and thrive. They make new friends of negativity that weren’t there before. We end up not actually being happy, merely pretending.In that way, to actually be happy, we sometimes have to be sad or mad, or hateful. We have to open that door and let them out. Better yet, we should get rid of that locked room altogether. There are times when we need to set our negative emotions to the side so that we can continue in this moment. That’s fine. Escort them to the side and give them a number. You will get to them, soon enough.You see, you don’t just deal with negative emotions so that you can be mostly free of them. You also deal with them because they’re tremendously good at sapping away at the good ones as well. If you feel sad but simply push it to the side, it is absolutely desperate to be felt. When this happens, it will take some of your positive emotions hostage.You could be sad for any number of reasons. Let’s say that you’ve lost someone important to you. You should be grieving but you’ve pushed it away. Your grief, it knows it needs to be felt. If it isn’t felt, other emotions and thoughts will come into play. Before long, fear has shown up. You’re afraid to open up, to make new relationships, because it would hurt.Anger is here, looking for people to lash out at. After all, why was that person taken from you? It’s unfair! You unintentionally lash out at friends and family, pushing them away. There are a number of negative emotions that come with grief. If you allowed yourself to deal with your grief though, they would stay nebulous, merely a part of the package. It can be dealt with all at once.When you sidestep grief,

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all these other emotions become stronger. They don’t like being ignored. They’ll cause problems in your life long after you should have given them their due. After all, that’s all they want. They want to be acknowledged and they’ll go on their way.You can learn a lot about who you are, what makes you tick, by acknowledging and dealing with your negative emotions. Not only that but you will become a more balanced, happier person. As you learn why these emotions are showing up, you can make real changes that will give them less power.Dealing with your emotions, just like so many other things, improves with practice. It is better to embrace them when they show up so that they’ll move on in a timely manner. Far better that, than to allow them to be unwelcome guests, trashing the house that is your mind and wellbeing.<h2 id="025c">Why are people so afraid of negative emotions?</h2>Why do we push the idea of constant positivity? Why do we struggle so much with not only our own negative emotions but others as well? Well, that’s pretty simple. They hurt.Most people don’t enjoy pain and pretty much nobody enjoys emotional pain. We’re happy to push them away because it feels easier than dealing with them. We suggest, nay, we push constant positivity on others as well because we don’t want to empathize with them. Empathizing with a person in pain will cause you pain as well.We don’t want to feel any of that pain. What we don’t realize is that by doing this, we’re only delaying the pain. With that delay comes a cost. Over time, flowers will stop smelling as good, beauty will dull, love will dwindle. Not only do all of the good things in life become less good, but our negative emotions only get stronger. They become harder to deal with when we finally are forced to do so.<h2 id="44b9">What should we do?</h2>Stop hiding from negative emotions. Allow yourself to experience them and do your best to understand why they’ve shown up. Give them their due and they will lose their power. Every emotion, good or bad, has a home in your mind. Every one of them is valid and true.When they come out and make themselves known, they do so for a reason. The balance has been put out of wack and they’ve presented themselves precisely so that you can restore that balance.We also need to stop telling people that constant positivity is an answer. We need to lend our shoulders to be cried on, allow someone in pain to share their pain with us. It isn’t pleasant but if you care for them, this is truly the best way to help them.Just like your own emotions, if you help someone else deal with theirs, this will pass. Things will get better. As they say, sometimes things have to get really bad before they can get better. That’s fine. That’s life. Feel bad so that you can get back to feeling good.</article></body>

You Should Think Positively

You should also allow yourself to be sad

This sign is a perfect example of how we’ve lost our way. It’s well-intended, I don’t doubt that. Nobody wants to be brought down by other people’s negative emotions after all. That right there is the problem though, isn’t it? We don’t like letting people feel sad, even when it’s perfectly justified.

People talk about a toxic positivity culture or as I prefer to call it, positivity porn. We’re constantly inundated with the message that whatever we’re going through, we’ll get through it if we’re just positive enough. While I don’t hate the idea, it completely glosses over the human experience.

Not only that, but it makes letting people see your negative emotions a social no-no. If we must suffer, we should suffer quietly, alone, and out of the way. After all, we wouldn’t want to infect other people with our negative emotions, would we?

Never mind that it is in our darkest moments that we often need a shoulder to cry on. We want to be heard and loved when all we feel is pain. Instead, we’re taught that these emotions are for behind closed doors. Keep your pain to yourself, I don’t want to catch your sadness!

We’ve reached a point where even the people we love the most, and who love us the most, should not be reached out to. We’ve been taught that we shouldn’t be sad in the first place, but if we “choose” to be sad, we should go in a corner like naughty children.

Negative feelings are part of the human experience.

There is undoubtedly value in teaching people to not dwell in the darkness. Having said that, sometimes the darkness is where we must spend some of our time. Being sad, angry, frustrated, jealous, all of these things are as natural to us as joy, love, pride, and contentment.

There are lots of benefits, at least potentially, to allowing ourselves to experience negative emotions. Righteous anger can cause us to lift a standard and battle against things that are wrong and unfair. Allowing ourselves to be sad is how we are able to process grief. It also allows us to empathize with people who are hurt or suffering.

Frustration allows us to process our emotions when things are difficult. It allows us to remove the lid off of the pot and allow some steam out, to let us cool down. Jealousy can show us what we want and allow us to strive for it.

Every negative emotion you can think of has some value. Even if the feeling itself has no intrinsic value, allowing yourself to feel it does. If I hate something, burying that hate behind a wall of positivity doesn’t make it go away. It hides an issue that I should be looking at and trying to understand. Not only that, it can cause it to grow. It can grow so large that the wall we’ve erected won’t always be able to contain it.

Really though, for all the value that just allowing ourselves to feel these emotions provides, that isn’t the crux of why we need to experience them. People have this foolish notion that humanity is embodied by positive emotions. What makes us human is only our good qualities. Why ever would we think that?

Human beings aren’t some embodiment of purity and goodness, being wrongfully corrupted by outside forces of negativity. Those negative feelings, just as the positive ones, are a part of us. To ignore them is to fail to understand ourselves. We are beings of balance.

Why should we allow ourselves to feel bad?

The single most important reason, I’ve already mentioned. So many negative emotions will only grow if we don’t address them. If we simply shove them to the side and continue, they will become rotten, multiply and thrive. They make new friends of negativity that weren’t there before. We end up not actually being happy, merely pretending.

In that way, to actually be happy, we sometimes have to be sad or mad, or hateful. We have to open that door and let them out. Better yet, we should get rid of that locked room altogether. There are times when we need to set our negative emotions to the side so that we can continue in this moment. That’s fine. Escort them to the side and give them a number. You will get to them, soon enough.

You see, you don’t just deal with negative emotions so that you can be mostly free of them. You also deal with them because they’re tremendously good at sapping away at the good ones as well. If you feel sad but simply push it to the side, it is absolutely desperate to be felt. When this happens, it will take some of your positive emotions hostage.

You could be sad for any number of reasons. Let’s say that you’ve lost someone important to you. You should be grieving but you’ve pushed it away. Your grief, it knows it needs to be felt. If it isn’t felt, other emotions and thoughts will come into play. Before long, fear has shown up. You’re afraid to open up, to make new relationships, because it would hurt.

Anger is here, looking for people to lash out at. After all, why was that person taken from you? It’s unfair! You unintentionally lash out at friends and family, pushing them away. There are a number of negative emotions that come with grief. If you allowed yourself to deal with your grief though, they would stay nebulous, merely a part of the package. It can be dealt with all at once.

When you sidestep grief, all these other emotions become stronger. They don’t like being ignored. They’ll cause problems in your life long after you should have given them their due. After all, that’s all they want. They want to be acknowledged and they’ll go on their way.

You can learn a lot about who you are, what makes you tick, by acknowledging and dealing with your negative emotions. Not only that but you will become a more balanced, happier person. As you learn why these emotions are showing up, you can make real changes that will give them less power.

Dealing with your emotions, just like so many other things, improves with practice. It is better to embrace them when they show up so that they’ll move on in a timely manner. Far better that, than to allow them to be unwelcome guests, trashing the house that is your mind and wellbeing.

Why are people so afraid of negative emotions?

Why do we push the idea of constant positivity? Why do we struggle so much with not only our own negative emotions but others as well? Well, that’s pretty simple. They hurt.

Most people don’t enjoy pain and pretty much nobody enjoys emotional pain. We’re happy to push them away because it feels easier than dealing with them. We suggest, nay, we push constant positivity on others as well because we don’t want to empathize with them. Empathizing with a person in pain will cause you pain as well.

We don’t want to feel any of that pain. What we don’t realize is that by doing this, we’re only delaying the pain. With that delay comes a cost. Over time, flowers will stop smelling as good, beauty will dull, love will dwindle. Not only do all of the good things in life become less good, but our negative emotions only get stronger. They become harder to deal with when we finally are forced to do so.

What should we do?

Stop hiding from negative emotions. Allow yourself to experience them and do your best to understand why they’ve shown up. Give them their due and they will lose their power. Every emotion, good or bad, has a home in your mind. Every one of them is valid and true.

When they come out and make themselves known, they do so for a reason. The balance has been put out of wack and they’ve presented themselves precisely so that you can restore that balance.

We also need to stop telling people that constant positivity is an answer. We need to lend our shoulders to be cried on, allow someone in pain to share their pain with us. It isn’t pleasant but if you care for them, this is truly the best way to help them.

Just like your own emotions, if you help someone else deal with theirs, this will pass. Things will get better. As they say, sometimes things have to get really bad before they can get better. That’s fine. That’s life. Feel bad so that you can get back to feeling good.