How to reduce the impact of negative emotions in your life
Posted on June 07, 2021 by Fulvia Sechi, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
We all experience unpleasant emotions, this is part of the life of every human being.
Yet, with many of my clients, I have noticed the tendency to deny these emotions, trying to push them away, sometimes even masking them with a forced positivity. This attitude, although it is very normal (no one loves these emotions), is actually harmful and makes our situation worse.
In fact, Pistorello, Hayes and Levin have suggested that attempts to control uncomfortable thoughts and feelings through deliberate avoidance or suppression may be associated with many psychological problems.
So you may be wondering now, “what should we do?” The advice I give my clients is to accept these emotions!
DON’T DENY THEM
1. As already mentioned, it is not only damaging to try to deny them but, in doing so, they can come back amplified (if you have experienced this, you know what I am talking about);
THEY WILL NOT LAST FOREVER
2. All that emotions are fleeting and even negative ones will not last forever;.
WE NEVER STOP LEARNING
3. Even unpleasant emotions can have value. We are always learning and even these emotions can help us to progress;
If you want, you can do a short exercise.
It is to read ‘The Guest House Poem’ which is nothing but a metaphor to explain the fleetingness of unpleasant emotions and the importance of recognising and accepting them.
In the poem, you are a home while negative emotions are personified as unwanted but TEMPORARY guests who come to visit you and that you welcome even if they are unpleasant. Kind of like that relative or neighbour who shows up at the least opportune time. Has this ever happened to you? So, in order to reducing the intensity and impact of these emotions is to welcome them as if they were transient visitors who may stay for a while, and then leave.
The guest house of Jelaluddin Rumi
This human being is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, a momentary awareness arrives like an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, violently sweeping your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest with honour. Perhaps he is freeing you for some new pleasure.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
For each one has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Self-reflection questions for you:
- What emotions visit you most often?
- How do you usually deal with them?
- How could you apply this exercise to your daily life?
- Could you identify what benefits unpleasant emotions have brought into your life?
Whenever you experience sorrow, suffering, any negative feeling or thought remember that they are not permanent residents and that they will go away!
