Humans can feel thousands of emotions. Within nanoseconds our brains are responding to multiple stimuli and generating responses in our mind; sometimes as thoughts, sometimes as facial expressions and also as physical response.
We often also consciously acknowledge our feelings that get triggered and we title it as feeling happy or depressed or hurt or something else.
So in a moment if we ask a person what emotion are you okay with to experience or if given a choice between Happiness and Sadness, which one of the two are you comfortable expressing in front of others? – most people select Happiness. We are generally conditioned to choose one from the positive emotions band.
This brings us to an insight that we on an unconscious level might be considering our negative emotions as something bad or inappropriate.
And often times we even shun them because we don’t want ourselves to feel like that or some times even to get to another priority task at hand we park our negative emotions. This might be true for many. Also taking into account the ongoing rise in positivity that has created an apparently non-negotiable demand for a positive mindset, the all happy personality and the social media worthy self-branding and promotion. It has indeed made people to run in the direction opposite to their negative emotions each time.
Now while we all have our phases of positive and negative emotions it is important to note that the negative emotions are part of our mind’s programming as humans. We will continue to feel the negativity because we are humans. Is it bad? Negative emotions considered as something unwanted must be considered as trustworthy messengers instead. Like a prompt that appears when an incorrect command is processed. So what could this prompt be about?
Humans can feel an array of negative emotions; the core 5 of them being Anger, Sadness, Fear, Guilt and Hurt/Betrayal.
- Anger when triggered might inform us about a violation in our surrounding environment (things / people). It tells us that one or the other value of ours that we hold strongly has been challenged. It is an opportunity to reflect on things we want to stay particular about or our need to change our behavior in future.
- Sadness identifies our attachments for us; things that we long for. It is also a state that occurs as a subset of other core negative emotions triggered like (Hurt or Guilt). A great reminder to assess the people and things we need to stay associated / attached with and are they truly beneficial?
- Fear that can often also translate into anxiety as well is an impulse response of our mind because of a potential threat present or increase in uncertainty about the outcome. It immediately triggers in our instinct of survival whose fundamental job is to keep us alive and at peace.
- Guilt results from our understanding of self after an undesired event that we consider ourselves responsible for it. That might eventually require us to ask for forgiveness or forgive ourselves in the process.
- Hurt/Betrayal is considered to be too strong in its roots as it involves a negative behavior of another person we might have expectations from or no sign of potential threat. It informs us about the extent to which we have let another person have control over our mind and existence.
Again it is not such that one must fall in love with their negative emotions but in fact consider them important instead. It’s like maintain the right range. Like deficiency or excess of food intake has its own repercussion same is for negative emotions. It’s okay and healthy to experience them in moderation. Important is to understand how you are processing the experience to your behavioral programming.
Your negative emotions are signs informing you each time when the desired elements are lacking in the environment. They are part of our existence and if a stimulus triggers any one of them and our mind consciously acknowledges the existence of it, we need to process the emotion and not disregard it.
In my recent programs on emotional management I asked my participants which one of the five core negative emotions is a challenge for you lately. One group responded with Fear being the most common and the other mentioned Guilt as the most common one. It helped me facilitate their concerns better and offer relevant techniques to channelize both.
Do let me know which one of the five negative emotions is your concern lately.
Wishing you power and positivity!
Stay blessed.
Author: Naureen Ansari – a certified soft-skills facilitator, consultant and entrepreneur.