Learn to harness your negative emotions to inspire yourself into action
HAVE you considered how a degree of
negative emotion can be good for you? Anger and envy, for instance, can spur
you on to greater efforts than were likely in the absence of such emotions.
Companies and bosses use this understanding to their advantage, deliberately
creating points of rivalry to nurture a competitive edge that encourages
employees to contribute their best. So do lovers, teachers, and yes, even
parents.
Every lover understands and appreciates the role jealousy can play in fast forwarding a flagging relationship. Faced with a rival and the prospect of losing the lover, the beloved takes steps to cut out competition and firmly establish the tie. Teachers deliberately single out a student to praise and announce as a favourite, thus inspiring envy, competition and a need to excel among others. Parents subtly play off siblings against each other to achieve the desired behaviour among them.
Bosses do the same, by dropping hints of praise for a rival, or throwing two rivals into the same situation, then sitting back to reap the benefits as both employees deal with their negative emotions by working harder and better in an attempt to show each other down.
Literature has always recognised the benefits of the darker emotions. In Wuthering Heights, an uneducated and unkempt Heathcliff is so torn by Catherine’s rejection of him as husband material in favour of Edgar that he disappears for a few years and returns rich and a ‘gentleman’. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes wrongfully condemned to life imprisonment, keeps himself going through tough times by the strength of his anger and vengeance. He, too, returns rich, to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him. However, literature also points to the destruction caused by unresolved negative emotion. Heathcliff and Catherine’s unresolved passion for each other leads to destruction of not just their lives but of the others’ around them. Dantes’ revenge has devastating consequences not just for the guilty, but for the innocent too.
Today, expert studies tell us not to avoid negative emotions or leave them unresolved. Ignoring the darker emotions is just a way of postponing the inevitable and denying reality. Researchers hasten to add that uncontrolled negative emotions such as anger, fear, pain or jealousy are destructive, but it is even more harmful to ignore them. Prof George Vaillant, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, reveals after research, “Negative emotions are often crucial for survival…We all feel anger, but individuals who
learn how to express their anger while avoiding the explosive and self-destructive consequences of unbridled fury, have achieved something incredibly powerful in terms of overall emotional growth and mental health.”
Psychotherapists encourage us to indulge our full range of emotions because each emotion has something to teach us. Each emotion thus plays a critical role in our progress and mind-body healing process. In fact, in one survey, 55 per cent of the participants said a bout of anger had led to a positive result in office.
Accepting rather than rejecting a negative emotion takes the edge off its destructive power. If you live the emotion, you will be relieved of it and it may even help you. Psychotherapist Greenspan suggests we think of emotions as teachers. “Sorrow teaches us about interconnectedness. Fear is a survival instinct. And anger indicates that something’s wrong that must be made right.” To this I would add –– envy teaches us that we need to better ourselves; disappointment tells us our expectations are unrealistic or that we need to increase our own efforts; frustration tells us we are bored with present circumstances and it’s time for a change. Being stressed means we need to list our priorities; loneliness tells us we need to be connected; guilt tells us we have been unjust to someone or something and need to make amends.
This is how the darker emotions help motivate people to action and allow them to heal.
As Leonardo di Caprio says in Inception in praise of the power of negative emotions, “Positive emotion comes from negative emotion all the time. We are all looking for reconciliation, a catharsis.”
Every lover understands and appreciates the role jealousy can play in fast forwarding a flagging relationship. Faced with a rival and the prospect of losing the lover, the beloved takes steps to cut out competition and firmly establish the tie. Teachers deliberately single out a student to praise and announce as a favourite, thus inspiring envy, competition and a need to excel among others. Parents subtly play off siblings against each other to achieve the desired behaviour among them.
Bosses do the same, by dropping hints of praise for a rival, or throwing two rivals into the same situation, then sitting back to reap the benefits as both employees deal with their negative emotions by working harder and better in an attempt to show each other down.
Literature has always recognised the benefits of the darker emotions. In Wuthering Heights, an uneducated and unkempt Heathcliff is so torn by Catherine’s rejection of him as husband material in favour of Edgar that he disappears for a few years and returns rich and a ‘gentleman’. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes wrongfully condemned to life imprisonment, keeps himself going through tough times by the strength of his anger and vengeance. He, too, returns rich, to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him. However, literature also points to the destruction caused by unresolved negative emotion. Heathcliff and Catherine’s unresolved passion for each other leads to destruction of not just their lives but of the others’ around them. Dantes’ revenge has devastating consequences not just for the guilty, but for the innocent too.
Today, expert studies tell us not to avoid negative emotions or leave them unresolved. Ignoring the darker emotions is just a way of postponing the inevitable and denying reality. Researchers hasten to add that uncontrolled negative emotions such as anger, fear, pain or jealousy are destructive, but it is even more harmful to ignore them. Prof George Vaillant, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, reveals after research, “Negative emotions are often crucial for survival…We all feel anger, but individuals who
learn how to express their anger while avoiding the explosive and self-destructive consequences of unbridled fury, have achieved something incredibly powerful in terms of overall emotional growth and mental health.”
Psychotherapists encourage us to indulge our full range of emotions because each emotion has something to teach us. Each emotion thus plays a critical role in our progress and mind-body healing process. In fact, in one survey, 55 per cent of the participants said a bout of anger had led to a positive result in office.
Accepting rather than rejecting a negative emotion takes the edge off its destructive power. If you live the emotion, you will be relieved of it and it may even help you. Psychotherapist Greenspan suggests we think of emotions as teachers. “Sorrow teaches us about interconnectedness. Fear is a survival instinct. And anger indicates that something’s wrong that must be made right.” To this I would add –– envy teaches us that we need to better ourselves; disappointment tells us our expectations are unrealistic or that we need to increase our own efforts; frustration tells us we are bored with present circumstances and it’s time for a change. Being stressed means we need to list our priorities; loneliness tells us we need to be connected; guilt tells us we have been unjust to someone or something and need to make amends.
This is how the darker emotions help motivate people to action and allow them to heal.
As Leonardo di Caprio says in Inception in praise of the power of negative emotions, “Positive emotion comes from negative emotion all the time. We are all looking for reconciliation, a catharsis.”
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