Agonizing or negative emotions are part of our emotional balance, acting as real weights, able to slow our growth, filling our minds with unfavorable or unperturnable thoughts to train us with dangerous discouragement, something so small and at the same time that it designates these states. can take away their power, which will help us move forward more integrity.
Envy, frustration, anger, bitterness, guilt, disappointment? Most people know what we are talking about, we often live with them, we share our interior space and if we feed them they end up taking up a lot of space.
- Thus.
- As Dr.
- James Gross.
- A psychologist at Stanford University and one of the representatives of the topic of emotional management explains.
- Afflictive or negative emotions are like weeds.
- And grow in the darkest and lightest areas of our being.
Weeds are a type of climbing plant that grows on anything you have at hand, often undesirable, grross says that the more power we give to these emotional states, the more weeds grow around us so that, little by little, we become completely immobilized. It must therefore be said that it is not easy to get rid of it; in fact, the only way is to eliminate them.
Painful or negative emotions will stop growing when we stop feeding them. It’s very simple. However, achieving this is difficult. We need to learn how to manage these kinds of internal processes, and for that we have to plant the seeds of self-regulation within us.
“A rainbow cannot be born without a cloud and a storm. “- John H. Vicent-
We are aware that in the context of emotional psychology it is very common to attribute a negative role to painful emotions, something almost pathological, so, for example, there is no shortage of classic articles and self-help books designed to help us completely. eliminate these emotional states, but is it a good idea and something possible to do?
As we said earlier, these dimensions are part of our emotional record and processing. They cannot be collected as weeds if the land itself, in its magical diversity, is characterized by a place for all kinds of species.
In this way, the basic dimensions of our emotional world, such as sadness, fear, disappointment or anger, are also part of who we are, and something like this cannot be eliminated, we cannot deny those emotions that are even part of the essence. that defines us.
The key is two very fundamental aspects: understanding and regulation; know that they exist, name them; understanding and managing these painful emotions is the best we can do to regulate our behavior.
We all know the story of Sleeping Beauty, in this traditional fairy tale story for children, the protagonist’s parents organized a party to celebrate their birth, in the kingdom there were 13 wise women, 13 characters who possessed magical gifts and great Parents, however, decided to invite only twelve, because there was one marked by a difficult genius and something evil.
She received no invitation and the people of the kingdom thought she would not be angry about it, yet the thirteenth magical entity, very skilled in the dark arts, felt gravely disrespectful and, as punishment, cast a curse on the baby we were already knowing.
The moral conclusion we can draw from this classic Tale of Sleeping Beauty is that while it would be easier for everyone to live with the other twelve fairies, with those sweet, optimistic, loving and cheerful women with which it was so easy to deal, The Thirteenth could not be ignored.
Inviting the last witch, though darker, to give a chair to this complex figure would have been an act of inclusion and responsibility, the way they treated her is very similar to the way we treat ourselves and our painful emotions. We derive that they exist. We claim that they are not there and the result of this act is almost always terrible and very harmful.
We often forget that emotions, good and bad, should always be invited, sometimes they visit us some, sometimes sometimes they arrive without being called, and they can even become very unpleasant, but we must also live with them, receive them with courtesy, however, it is not necessary to give them much power and that their stay is very long or uncomfortable.
Emotions have adaptive value. That is, they exist so that we can and facilitate adaptation to certain circumstances of our daily lives.
A study from the University of Maryland notes that mastering emotional regulation allows us to have very effective development in any context and social situation.
Therefore, it is recommended that we be excellent managers of these complex internal dimensions, move forward with them without pretending to prevent their existence, without denying them or trying to remove them from our emotional record, that is the key to well-being. Here’s how to achieve this goal:
In conclusion, let’s not forget that, without a doubt, the most important recommendation is to remember that agonizing emotions are only requested, as soon as they arrive, many will also leave. Don’t let them create permanent spaces, as they can take up the entire space in no time.