Many people struggle with negative, even destructive feelings\u2014about themselves, about others; about emotions aroused in their careers or relationships. Feelings such as sadness, frustration, even grief. Trying to stifle negative emotions\u2014or feeling bad about having them to begin with\u2014is pretty common. It causes much distress and struggle.<\/p>\n
The irony, however, is that resisting or trying to push away your \u201cbad\u201d feelings actually intensifies them. Recent research provides empirical evidence for the exact opposite: Psychological\u00a0health\u00a0and well-being both grow\u00a0from embracing these very “bad” feelings. In essence, it shows that you can feel better by allowing yourself to feel bad.<\/p>\n
In a recent study of more than 1,300 adults, researchers found that people who regularly try to resist negative emotions may be more likely to experience symptoms of mood disorders months later, compared with subjects who accept such emotions.<\/p>\n
Such findings underscore that meditative practices enhance your capacity for tolerating the flow of emotions and preoccupations; rather than clinging or attaching oneself to them, which pulls you in their direction. As that capacity builds, you become more able to stay focused and centered internally, in the face of the rise and fall of emotional turmoil, including needs, fears, frustrations, and longings\u2014all of which are part of the ups and downs of life. Meditative practices and yoga diminish the tendencies toward anxiety and depression\u2014as evidenced by studies of\u00a0brain\u00a0activity as well as conscious experience among meditators.<\/p>\n
Our thoughts and our emotions help us to thrive\u00a0in an increasingly complex and fraught world. How? Because how we deal with our inner world drives everything.\u00a0Every aspect of how we love, how we live,\u00a0how we parent and how we lead. The conventional view of emotions as good or bad,\u00a0positive or negative,\u00a0is rigid.\u00a0And rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic.\u00a0We need greater levels of emotional flexibility\u00a0for true resilience and thriving.<\/p>\n
Life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility.\u00a0We are young until we see the wrinkles.\u00a0We believe we are beautiful\u00a0until one day we realize that we are unseen.\u00a0We nag our children and one day realize\u00a0that there is silence where that child once was.\u00a0We are healthy until a diagnosis brings us to our knees.\u00a0The only constant is change,\u00a0and yet, clearly, we are not navigating the changes and challenges of life either successfully or sustainably.\u00a0The World Health Organization tells us that\u00a0depression\u00a0is now the single leading cause of disability globally\u00a0<\/strong>—\u00a0outstripping cancer,\u00a0outstripping heart disease.\u00a0And at a time of greater complexity and immense technological, economic and social change,\u00a0we are seeing how people’s tendency\u00a0is more and more to lock down into rigid responses to their emotions.<\/p>\n On the one hand we might obsessively brood on our feelings.\u00a0Getting stuck inside our heads and hooked on being right.\u00a0On the other, we might bottle our emotions,\u00a0pushing them aside\u00a0and permitting only those emotions deemed legitimate in a world now governed by social media.<\/p>\n Roughly about a third of us, maybe even more–\u00a0either judge ourselves for having so-called “bad emotions,”\u00a0like sadness,\u00a0anger or even grief.\u00a0Or actively try to push aside these feelings.\u00a0We do this not only to ourselves,\u00a0but also to people we love, we may inadvertently shame our loved ones out of emotions seen as negative (why are you feeling bad about such-and -such thing?),\u00a0jump to a solution (buck up and do this-or-that; I think you should….) ,\u00a0and fail to help them\u00a0to see these emotions as inherently valuable.<\/p>\n Normal, natural emotions are now seen as good or bad.\u00a0And being positive has become a new form of moral correctness.\u00a0Happiness and positivity are overrated. People with cancer are automatically told to just stay positive.\u00a0With Depression or anxiety, to just cheer up.\u00a0Someone dealing with a loss is told to ‘just move on”. And so on.\u00a0It’s a tyranny.\u00a0And it’s cruel and unkind, and ridiculous, besides being ineffective.\u00a0And we do it all the time to ourselves,\u00a0as well as to others.<\/p>\n As I mentioned earlier, research on emotional suppression shows\u00a0that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored,\u00a0they get stronger.\u00a0In psychological terms this is called amplification.\u00a0Like that delicious dessert when you’re trying to lose weight –the more you try to ignore it …the greater its hold is on you.\u00a0You might think you’re in control of unwanted emotions when you ignore them,\u00a0but in fact they control you.\u00a0Internal pain always comes out.\u00a0And who pays the price?\u00a0We do.\u00a0Our families,\u00a0our colleagues,\u00a0our spouses and children.<\/p>\n When we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity,\u00a0we lose our capacity to develop skills to deal with the world as it is,\u00a0not as we wish it to be.\u00a0I’ve had many, many people tell me what they don’t want to feel.\u00a0They say things like,\u00a0“I don’t want to feel disappointed.”Or, “I just want this feeling to go away.” I find this strange and unrealistic, because only dead people\u00a0never get unwanted emotions or inconvenienced by their feelings.<\/p>\n Only dead people never get stressed,\u00a0never get broken hearts,\u00a0never experience the disappointment that comes with failure.\u00a0Tough emotions are a part of our contract with life.\u00a0One cannot get to have a meaningful career\u00a0or raise a family\u00a0or leave the world a better place\u00a0without experiencing stress and discomfort. That, my friends, is the price of admission to a meaningful life.<\/p>\n So, how do we begin to break this rigidity\u00a0of “only positive emotions” and embrace emotional flexibility instead? Enough evidence is there now to say that\u00a0the radical acceptance of all of our emotions —\u00a0even the difficult ones —\u00a0is the cornerstone to resilience, and to authentic happiness.<\/strong>\u00a0But emotional agility is more than just an acceptance of emotions.\u00a0Accuracy of the feelings matters.\u00a0Words used to express the emotions are essential.\u00a0We often use quick and easy labels to describe our feelings.\u00a0“I’m stressed” is the most common one I hear.\u00a0But there’s a world of difference between stress and disappointment\u00a0or stress and frustration of being in the wrong career. \u00a0When we label our emotions accurately,\u00a0we are more able to ascertain the underlying cause of our feelings.\u00a0And what scientists call the readiness potential in our brain\u00a0is activated, allowing us to take concrete steps.<\/p>\n But not just any steps — the right steps for us.<\/p>\n Because our emotions are the information that contain flashing lights to things that we care about.\u00a0We don’t usually feel strong emotion\u00a0to stuff that doesn’t mean anything in our worlds.\u00a0For example, if you feel rage when you read the news about someone being treated in an unfair manner,\u00a0that rage is a signal, perhaps, that you value equity and fairness —\u00a0and an opportunity to take active steps\u00a0to shape your life in that direction.\u00a0When we are open to the difficult emotions,\u00a0we are able to generate responses that are values-aligned.<\/p>\n But there’s an important caveat.\u00a0Emotions are data, they are not directives. We own our emotions, they don’t own us.\u00a0We can and must try to align ourselves and our actions to our value system and be able to differentiate it from simply how we are feeling, thereby generating the pathway to our best selves\u00a0via our emotions.<\/p>\n So, what does this look like in practice?\u00a0When you feel a strong, tough emotion,\u00a0don’t look for the emotional exits.\u00a0Don’t find ways to avoid the situation\/person that generates the emotion in you. Try to understand what the emotion is telling you.\u00a0And try not to say “I am,” as in, “I’m angry” or “I’m sad.”\u00a0When you say “I am”\u00a0it makes you sound as if you are the emotion.\u00a0Whereas you are you, the person, the individual who is only experiencing the particular emotion in that particular space, time and context; and the emotion is a data source.\u00a0Instead, try to notice the feeling for what it is:\u00a0“I’m noticing that I’m feeling sad”\u00a0or “I realise that I’m feeling angry.”\u00a0And then try to figure out why you are experiencing the particular emotion and to make your change. These are essential skills for us,\u00a0our families, our communities.\u00a0They’re equally critical in our professional life.<\/p>\n Acceptance of the entire myriad of human emotions, our own as well as others’ is the key to bringing out the best in people. Diversity isn’t just people,\u00a0it’s also what’s inside people.\u00a0Including diversity of emotion.\u00a0The most resilient individuals, organizations, families, and communities\u00a0are built on an openness to the normal human emotions.\u00a0Emotional agility is the ability to connect with your all of your emotions\u00a0with curiosity, compassion,\u00a0and courage, so as to enable you to make values-aligned changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many people struggle with negative, even destructive feelings\u2014about themselves, about others; about emotions aroused in their careers or relationships. Feelings such as sadness, frustration, even grief. Trying to stifle negative emotions\u2014or feeling bad about having them to begin with\u2014is pretty common. It causes much distress and struggle. The irony, however, is that resisting or trying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dr-kukreja"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkukreja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Conclusion<\/h3>\n