Posted on June 30, 2011 by Deah Curry PhD, CPC

A therapist friend of mine recently wrote about marinating in negative emotions. She made a great point that when we surround ourselves with anger, bitterness, contempt, resentment, and the like, those energies spill over into everything we say, do, and touch.

When this happens to you, you may be in need of an attitude adjustment. But how can that be done, when the negative emotions are strong, and you feel justified in feeling the way you do?

When I work with clients who struggle with chronic negativity, I often recommend several approaches for lifting negativity and transforming attitude:

1.  Depersonalize the feeling. Emotion is something you have an experience of, rather than something you are.  It’s like the weather – you may not be able to do anything about noticing it in the moment, but it doesn’t have control over you, and it’s certainly not the core of your identity.  You are not the rain.  The lightening is not you.  They are merely happening nearby.

In like fashion, you may be experiencing resentment, but that doesn’t have to be who you are.  To adjust attitude by depersonalizing emotion, practice changing how you speak.  Say I have some resentment, instead of I am resentful. Notice the space that gives you to also have other feelings simultaneously.

When we have something, we’re open and situations are impermanent and fluid.  But when we are something, we’re closed, and situations are inflexible and unchangeable. Depersonalizing gives you the gift of having potential for shifting, rather than being stuck with an erroneous identity.

2. Notice ALL your feelings. When you feel angry, it can totally consume you.  It can become a huge cloud that takes over your whole consciousness if you let it.  But that’s the key- you don’t have to let it.

Whenever you start to feel taken over by one big negative emotion, try this: make a mental list of other feelings you had that day, or that week.  For example, say, “I have a lot of anger right now, AND this morning I had joy when I saw my baby daughter smile”.  Alternatively, “I am feeling bitter over this outcome, AND I also know that I’m loved and cared about and I feel good about that.”

Notice it’s always AND, never but. Get in the habit of replacing the word but in your vocabulary.  But negates by forcing an either/or choice. And embraces the reality of both/and possibilities.  The object of such an adjusting approach is to keep perspective, stay in touch with the positive emotions that balance the negative, and enable you to let go of the negative ones sooner.

3. Switching lenses to making a difference. There’s an old adage that what we focus on, gets bigger.  This is certainly true for negative emotions. So another way to adjust your attitude is to not give feelings of anger, bittterness, contempt, resentment, and such, any more of your life force, than it takes to be in action to shift or problem solve.

Negative emotions can be great motivators to getting to the root of a conflict, or an issue that needs to change.  Another way to deal with them (negative emotions) is with determination, and saying to yourself, `okay, I’m feeling contemptuous towards this, what can I do differently so that my feeling can shift?`

Asking yourself what can I do differently is a powerful attitude adjustment tool that puts the leverage in your hands and mind, rather than waiting for an external situation to change, or for another person to suddenly get a personality transplant.

Bottom line:  you don’t have to wallow in a poor attitude.  Any of these tools can bring your mind and your feelings back to a positive outlook and an increased ability to accentuate the positives in your life.