Negative emotions have an undeserved bad reputation. They are to be controlled or banned entirely, and preferably replaced by reason. Less than effective because we need negative emotions to better understand how we relate to ourselves and the world. As a communicator, negative feelings are just as important as positive ones. Once we recognize emotions and understand what they try to tell us, we can indeed employ reason to consider what to do next. I often hear the wish of never wanting to feel sad, angry or fearful again. The truth is without these emotions we would be like a broken compass. Emotions help us survive. Fear, for example, tells us to get away from a threating situation. Disgust helps to avoid eating or drinking something that could make us sick. Anger helps in confronting whatever causes us annoyance, and sadness lets others know that we are in need of support.
That means that negative emotions have a clear function and they are not intrinsically bad. They can however be overwhelming and cause distress. This can have various reasons. On the one hand, the level of intensity and longevity of emotions differ from person to person. That means that the same event can trigger stronger feelings which last significantly longer. The person needs more time to recover and can experience an emotional hangover.
The environment we grew up in also plays a role in how we experience emotions. If our caregivers failed to validate negative emotions and were dismissive of feelings, these emotions can come out stronger because controlling them would be like acknowledging that the feelings are indeed not important. Emotional distress can also come from secondary emotions like shame, guilt or rage that we feel in connection to more adaptative primary emotions. This happens for example when we feel guilty about being angry at someone who harmed us because we think that feeling angry is somehow inappropriate. Anger fits the context since there was actual harm yet because it cannot be expressed it comes out as debilitating guilt.
When we feel overwhelmed by negative emotions or are suffering from unwanted emotions we can employ emotion regulation skills.
1. Understand your emotions by identifying them and figuring out what they do for you. You can for example label the emotion (e.g. this is anger) and trace back where it comes from.
2. Limit how often negative emotions occur. Unwanted emotions can't be abolished but you can influence their frequency. For example, if you have a colleague at work who often makes you angry because he/she uses offensive language, you can try to avoid him/her.
3. Judging your emotions as bad is not helpful. Having emotions is part of life and labeling them as bad adds extra stress.
4. Give space to your emotions by expressing them. Suppressing emotions is only a short-term solution when you are in a situation when expressing what you feel is not ideal. Find a later time and circle back to what you were feeling.
5. Recognize when your negative emotions are effective. Does expressing them bring you closer to your goal? Does acting on them serve your own interest? Is your emotion trying to tell you something that you need to listen to?
Understanding your negative feelings will decrease emotional vulnerability and the intensity of how you experience negative emotions.
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