How to Move Through Negative Emotions

Sometimes you feel like crap. It may be a temporary bout of sadness – a feeling that the universe is conspiring against you. This could be caused by an undesirable event, such as the end of a relationship or the loss of a job. Other times the feeling is elusive and unexplainable, thus attributed to the alignment of the stars or a chemical imbalance. Regardless, when we are feeling down, all we want is to feel good again. As a result, what do we do? We consciously or subconsciously create a goal to feel better, creating even more stress and adding to our negative feelings.

Goal-Free Living is about living in the present, embracing the moment, and not worrying about how things turn out. Maybe you will not be embracing what you like, but you will make a good start at accepting what is even though it is less than what you desire at the time. The more you deal with the now, the better the future.

I remember back in college, there were moments when I would feel a little melancholy. For me, it was typically due to women problems. Women were more important than grades. Unfortunately, I did not do particularly well with either. For these occasions of sadness, I made this mix tape, aptly titled “The Depression Tape.” It had the sappiest, saddest music you could imagine, containing nearly every song performed by Bread, Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful to Me,” and Elton John’s sadder songs. You get the point.

When I felt “down in the dumps,” I would pop that tape in the stereo, open a bottle of wine, turn off the lights, and allow myself to feel my sadness…deeply. I would cry all night until my eyes were red. I was miserable. Woe is me. Eventually I would fall asleep. When I awoke the next morning, I felt like a new man. Energized and refreshed. The experience was very cathartic.

I have since learned to turn this approach into something a bit more, um, healthy. I have replaced the wine with journaling (better for my liver) and replaced the wallowing with a healthy dose of “embracing the yucky.”

When my wife and I split up many years ago, I was at a loss. The separation was her idea, and I found it difficult to accept. Instead of burying myself in work and creating distractions, I chose to embrace the pain. And man did it hurt. I locked myself in a hotel room, and decided to stay there until the heartache subsided. Although I allowed myself to be miserable, secretly, I was hoping that the pain would go away. It was at this moment that I realized I hadn’t fully embraced the yucky. So I immersed myself deeper in the agony. I took baths and wrote in a journal. It was an incredibly painful period and I fought the instinct to wish it would end.

And then something amazing happened. About two weeks into my complete immersion, my emotions, almost instantly, shifted. Somehow, in the grieving process, I had moved through my negative feeling so much, that all that was left was possibility. I felt like a weight had lifted off of my shoulders. Although the sadness did not disappear 100%, I felt SO much better. I recently re-read my journal and was shocked to see how one day I was at the bottom of the barrel and the next I was excited about what was now possible. I know this shift may be hard to believe, but it is true, it actually happens if you let it.

The next time you feel a negative emotion – misery, anger, sadness – embrace the feeling. In fact, amplify the feeling. Feeling sad? Give yourself permission, for the next 30 minutes, to feel as sad as you have ever felt. If someone is angry with you, acknowledge their anger. In fact, give them permission to be even angrier. Tell them, “Your anger is justified. And I want you to be as mad at me as you can for the next 10 minutes.” It sounds silly. But you may just find that they burst out laughing and are no longer angry.

Being present means being present to everything – the good, the bad, and the crappy. I am not a believer in the power of positive thinking. Sometimes your feelings are just not positive, and you have to be with those negative emotions. Although I am typically an optimistic person, optimism is never a goal. Instead be present to how you really feel. If you feel yucky, embrace the yucky. You might just find that the yuckiness passes quicker than you would ever imagine.

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