3 Ways to Deal With Negative Emotions
3 Ways to Deal With Negative Emotions
How to catch our subconscious mind when giving us bad feelings and do something about it before getting lost in the negativity spiral
We all know that emotions can either ruin our day within one second or make it the best day ever. Very often, this happens within a few seconds. Just because of a tiny incident during the day that triggers a certain emotion within us, and we’re all at the mercy of our feelings, go like a wrecking ball. Even if we know that the arising emotion is unjustified, it’s hard to escape, still. Especially the “ruin our day within a second” issue has caused me headaches for a long time. After uncountable hours of consuming mindfulness and meditation training, online courses, seminars, books, podcasts, and videos, I’ve made myself a list with the most helpful suggestions I could find on how to deal with negative and unpleasant emotions. This has helped me so many times already to turn around some (very) unbearable days full of negativity.
But first, I’d like to give you an introduction to the topic, to clarify what we’re talking about.
About emotions
Emotions are a very ancient thing. Earlier days they were the major tool for making us survive as a species. They are much quicker than our conscious mind (our thoughts and active thinking) because they come from the subconscious. The subconscious has priority and always comes first.
Emotion always beats logic.
That’s especially important when we had to deal with predators and other serious life-threatening hazards throughout the day in earlier days. When a saber-toothed tiger surprised us, it was crucial to react immediately, aka our subconscious detects danger and instantly creates the emotion fear which makes us run like hell or give us unexpected superpowers to fight the tiger, to have a chance to survive. If we had waited for our conscious mind to first see the tiger, then slowly get the rack-wheels moving in our brains to interpret the situation and understand “oh, there’s a tiger that wants to eat me” and then conclude that it would be better to fight or … — well, too late. See, emotions (even the bad ones) are not that bad after all. They’ve helped us to survive for all those years. Unfortunately, that’s also the case why we tend to focus on the negative and often oversee the positive. Of course, that’s also evolutionary as it was more beneficial for our health to first react to the predator standing in front of us and not prioritize rejoicing in the beauty of the flower we’ve just spotted. Nowadays, this ancient behavior can be frustrating and even harming our health, as we often get lost in negativity, and can’t see the positive anymore.
Limiting beliefs acquired during childhood, unpleasant happenings in the past, and social imprints complete the negative emotion bundle that easily puts us in a position of feeling helpless and a victim of our own lives.
That’s why we need techniques to become conscious when this negativity arises and then do something about it.
A few general remarks before we start: The first step here is to become the observer of our mind to recognize when the negativity loop starts (catch thoughts and feelings in the first place). This can be done by practicing mindfulness and integrating it in our everyday life (there are lots of articles about this topic on Medium and elsewhere). Remember: Emotions are not bad — they make us aware of things that sneaked past our consciousness and once saved our survival. We should be grateful for that, our subconscious is our friend, it only wants our health and survival — that’s a good thing!
(1) The analytical approach
When the conscious and subconscious don’t agree, a conflict arises aka an unpleasant feeling. This means some old imprints within us contradict what our conscious thoughts are telling us. We know for sure that something is wrong then, similar to an error in a computing system. But we need to find out where the error comes from (brain, heart — conscious or subconscious, or both) to gain advantage and wisdom out of it. Emotions are not always right, they can be leftovers from earlier days, or actually, make us aware of something important. To do so, we need to step one level above our thoughts and feelings to become the observer and draw conclusions.
So, when a negative emotion arises, don’t try to kill it right away. It’s trying to assist you. Feel it, let it expand, let it flow through you, and write down the answers to the following questions:
(1) Clearly describe your current emotion and say exactly how you feel. Name it, attach a label to it.
(2) Why do you feel like that, what is the source/trigger, what has happened? Explain the current situation.
(3) As emotions are always a hint for something your conscious mind couldn’t get: What is this emotion trying to tell you or make you aware of?
(4) What are your limiting beliefs, what are your dogmas and imprints from earlier days related to the trigger of the emotion you’ve stated in (2)? Has anything similar happened to you in the past, when you were a child that is still impacting you?
(5) Does this emotion in the current context because of the current trigger make sense? Is it legitimate, does it make you aware of an actual problem that needs to be considered right now? Or is it just a harming fantasy made out of negative beliefs and unpleasant happenings in the past? Can you find any arguments that contradict or disprove your limiting beliefs? You’ve changed since that negative incident in the past, you’re not the same person anymore — should it still bother you? Be aware of the emotion, the situation, the trigger, the limiting belief and take everything into account for analyzing your situation.
(6) What can you do to release this emotion or solve the problem (activities, practices, thinking, making a change) — right now? There is no reason to let yourself be dragged down today by situations or incidences that happened a long time ago.
Then, acknowledge the emotion, be grateful for it. Say thank you for making you aware of what you would have overseen in this situation otherwise. It shows you again, who you are, what you believe, and what you can do, work on, and improve. Say thank you to your heart and your brain for always doing their best to assist you with navigating you through life. If you realize that the emotion makes no sense (just a leftover from the past), gently let it go, let it fade away. Bring your brain and heart back to harmony.
Feel → analyze → acknowledge → let it fade away and recover the harmony
(2) Breathing exercise
Slowly and deeply breathe in through your nose. Let the air fill your belly and your lungs. Hold your breath for a few moments. Show your teeth, like a gentle smile. Make a very long exhalation by gently letting the air stream through your teeth when you make a lightly hearable “ssssssssssssss” sound. Fully empty your belly and lungs by doing this. Hold the emptiness for a few moments. Repeat for some minutes. This will calm down your body and make you feel much more relaxed and peaceful.
(3) Focus on your body sensations
Focus solely on your body sensations, not on your thoughts, doubts, worries, or memories. E.g. when having a heartbreak: Don’t get lost in desperation and sadness and go reckless with your thoughts. Instead, feel where this sadness is sitting in your body and what it feels like. Is it pressure in your chest, a sick feeling in your stomach? Can you localize and name the body sensation? Can you even define the color or shape of this feeling in your physical body? By focusing solely on these physical sensations, the actual sadness (the emotion) goes away automatically because you shift your attention from thoughts and memories to the current physical sensations.
Additional suggestions and thoughts
In general, it’s helpful to make a list of activities and strategies that help you to overcome your bad days and down feelings. You could list frequently arising negative emotions with possible solutions, so you can quickly refer to that list in an emergency case. Here are some additional suggestions for that list:
Journal about your emotions and simply write down everything that comes to your mind at the moment. Writing helps you to shift your attention and get it away from the actual feeling. If you like, you can then take those pages and burn them. You’ve now moved the negativity out of your body, brought it down on paper, and then released it into the open space.
Workout. This can be a quick relief but won’t solve the problem. Probably, it will come back to you in the future.
Go for a walk in the woods (barefoot works best :) ) and bath in nature. Use all your senses, smell, hear, feel, touch, taste. Reconnect with nature, it will give you all the power, confidence, and peace you need. You are welcome in this world.
Do a (guided) meditation of your choice. E.g. on self-love, self-actualization, inner peace, or whatever is suitable for your situation. I love the ones from Marisa Peer on YouTube.
Find and save some inspirational and uplifting videos you can watch when feeling down.
Call or meet a friend and talk about your problem. Often, it’s helpful to get another perspective and find some laughter.
Be kind to yourself and also let your inner voice kindly speak to yourself. Beating yourself up for making mistakes doesn’t make you any more likely to change your behavior. The opposite is the case. If you’re kind to yourself, you are more likely to be able to commit and follow through. You are doing and trying your best every day, each moment, also right now! You are a human being, not a machine, so don’t be too hard and critical with yourself. Life comes and goes in waves anyways. That’s all natural.
If you are upset by something, it is not the thing itself that is upsetting you. It’s your assessment of the thing. And this you have the power to revoke at any time. A thing itself is neutral. You give meaning to it. It is just your limiting beliefs and worn-out dogmas from earlier days that are holding you back and making you assign negative meanings to neutral things. Use this incident as an opportunity and find a way to use it for your advantage — to learn and grow.
Mind travel to one of your favorite places. This can be somewhere you’ve been to in the past or some fantasy place. Somewhere, you can simply be and feel joy, peace, and contentment, where you truly belong and feel most alive in. Visualize every detail of this place: What can you see, hear, smell, feel, touch, sense? What colors do you see? What feelings arise in you when being in this place? Fully sink into the environment and the arising feelings. Stay there for a couple of minutes until you’ve adopted the positivity of this place.
Conclusion
Emotions come from the subconscious and have made us survive as a species. As these days where we had to fight for our lives daily (real fight against predators) are not so far in the past, nowadays the arising emotions are quite often inappropriate for the modern age and put unnecessary weight on our lives. Therefore, we need to use our conscious mind to overcome these issues. Practicing mindfulness, and being conscious throughout the day are the major tools for detecting these emotions in the first place. Then, we can use techniques that are individually suitable for overcoming the negativity and not letting it keep us from playing full out and being the best possible version of ourselves.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Which strategies do you use to overcome your bad days and negative thoughts? Let’s share!