How to Handle Negative Emotions
Negative emotions, we all have them. How should one view them? How should one handle them?
Negative emotions are valuable, and the information that they provide is very important to your well-being. The worst thing that you can do to a negative emotion is suppress it and prevent its expression. If an emotion is suppressed then it can resurface repeatedly, sometimes returning even more powerfully the second time. Negative emotions are valuable because, as Anthony Robbins describes them, emotions are “action signals”. Robbins says that emotions are valuable indicators that identify when you should change your “perceptions or procedures”. Your perceptions are how you interpret your reality and your procedures are the actions that you perform.
How should you handle your emotions? First, experience the emotion fully, then get curious about it and try to understand what message it is trying to convey. Second, immediately take action; perform the necessary perception or procedure changes that are required. Third, after your actions have been completed then remind yourself that you can stop feeling the negative emotions and once again focus on positive thoughts. See the list below for a chronological summary of this process:
1. Initiating Event, the apparent “cause” of your negative emotions.
2. Negative emotions arise
3. Fully experience your negative emotions
4. Get curious about your negative emotions and identify what they are trying to communicate to you
5. Immediately take massive action to change your perceptions or procedures
6. After actions are complete, recognize that it is no longer necessary to feel the negative emotions. Remind yourself that you can now stop feeling the negative emotions.
7. Focus on the positive aspects of your external environment
Below are some admittedly simplistic examples of how this method works. These examples will help you get the gist of the concepts described above.
- The emotion of anger means that one of your standards has been violated. Take steps to verify that this standard is still valid for you. If you do not meet your standard then change your behavior until you do meet your standard. If you cannot meet your standard then revise it, or motivate yourself to meet it. Do not feel negative emotions any longer than you have too. Now think happy thoughts.
- The emotion of fear means that you need to prepare for some event. Take steps to prepare for the event that you are anticipating. After you have sufficiently prepared, remind yourself to stop feeling fear. Now think happy thoughts.
- The emotion of sadness means that you have lost something. Take time to understand what you have lost; determine if what you have lost really matters to you. Take steps to replace that which was lost by identifying substitutes. Re-frame the loss as a gain. After you have sufficiently replaced/reframed the loss, remind yourself that you can stop feeling sadness. Now think happy thoughts.
