How to handle negative emotions
Emotions themselves are neither positive nor negative, they really help us to get to know ourselves better, to understand how we feel in good and bad situations and to identify our limits. Even anger, sadness, rage, despair and distress at a certain point are healthy in our lives according to their usefulness.
For example: sadness can be useful to vent emotionally in the face of a problem that we do not know how to solve and in the case of anger, it can be useful to express our point of view and defend ourselves in the face of some injustice, but when these emotions are extreme and prevent us from achieving our goals by affecting our lives, they become negative.
It is important to understand that emotion is an affective state that is born from within us and is presented by a specific situation, which can be influenced by our experiences, the environment and the previous learning obtained.
The truth is that emotions cannot be avoided, they can only be felt and it is up to us to learn to manage them and not to let them control us. Next we will teach you how to manage negative emotions with these 6 practical and simple tips:
1. Recognizes the emotion
In order to manage our emotions we must not avoid them or cover them up but recognize them and face them because they want to tell us something about us. This can take time and requires practice, as well as focusing on your feelings and your body which can give you certain signs.
For this it is important that you ask yourself: What made me feel this way? Once we know why we feel this way, we must accept it and not be so hard on ourselves. Recognizing the way you feel can help you overcome feelings.
2. Don’t blame anyone
Each of us is responsible for our own actions and emotions, so nothing and no one is to blame for the way you feel. What happens to you comes from within and for one reason appears and is to help you make sense of what is happening.
3. Activate and express your emotions
Once you recognize what you are feeling, you can decide if you need to express your emotions to feel better. You can do this by talking to a family member, friend or the person who made you feel this way, even through sport or art. The idea is to let your emotions flow and allow them to appear without adaptive repression.
4. Responding to emotions
It is not enough to just express your emotions, they require a response because if we are sad we look for a place to feel safe, if we hurt someone we can talk to this person and try to make amends to them among others.
5. Don’t let emotions get the better of you
When emotions stop flowing normally they can become a dominant element in our lives e.g. depression or anxiety.
That is why it is important to know how to manage them so that they are functional and allow us to have a good quality of life, and for that we must know how to listen to them and understand them without getting carried away by negative emotions.
6. Keep track of your emotions
Writing about your emotions and thoughts is very effective on a psychological level. It also allows us to observe which situations make us feel this way, as well as knowing their intensity and how to respond to them. This can be done in a type of journal-
Certainly emotions allow us to face the most difficult situations in our life and these tips help us to be able to train our emotional intelligence.