The Upside of Negative Emotions: Warrior Mind Podcast #423
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In this episode of the Warrior Mind Podcast I’m going to talk about the benefits and upside of experiencing negative emotions.
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The Upside to Negative Emotions
Nobody wants to experience negative emotions. As a matter of fact, feeling bad sucks. In this 21st century, we are living in an image-obsessed and social media-driven world where most people are living in a lie and pretend to be positive and happy all the time even when they are not. That way, people view negative emotions as signs of inadequacy and weakness and they tend to internalize their true feelings which create even bigger problems.
Many people fail to understand that sadness and anger are part of life. Experiencing them is one thing and accepting them is another thing. It’s vital to accept such negative emotions as it promotes your mental health but when you try to suppress them, they diminish your sense of contentment. Social scientists and psychologists have put together benefits of negative emotions and if you’re wondering what they’re, keep scrolling.
Negative emotions help you to solve problems
Negative emotions come with a reason and the best thing is that human body has a natural ‘fight or flight’ response that prepares you to either run out of danger or fight against the object of danger. This response is automatic and allows the energy to be metabolized in your body quickly as it implements changes in the nervous system, enhances rapid heartbeat, and feeds your muscles with oxygenated blood to prepare your body to avoid uncomfortable or dangerous situations. This means that negative emotions save you from danger as they help you to discover quick solutions for your safety and those around you.
Enjoy this podcast on how the upside of negative emotions.
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Negative emotions are motivator
It goes without saying that human beings change when they feel there’s something uncomfortable making them unhappy and restless. Therefore, negative emotions inspire people to act according to the situations at hand to generate positive changes. In other words, negative emotions act as a motivator to show people that they are not happy or contented in specific levels of intensity and encourage them to act for better goals. So what should you do when you feel unhappy and discomfort in your current state? Well, you are supposed to listen to those negative emotions as they emerge, regulate their intensity and without delay, start acting towards the changes that will bring a difference in your life.
Negative emotions are natural
Life is full of ups and downs and one minute you can be happy and the next minute anxious, afraid, sad or stressed out. Feeling that way doesn’t make you inferior as any negative emotion is a natural consequence of everything that happens daily. At some point, many people claim that you should smile a lot as it costs nothing, but you can’t force yourself to smile when you don’t want to. For example, when you want to cry but you force yourself to smile, you psychologically mistreat yourself which negatively affects your psychological welfare.
Negative emotions prepare you for anything
After experiencing negative emotions, the first thing is to accept the truth of the situation which saves you the energy you’d have used to push your emotions away. You can use the energy saved in pursuing the behaviors that match your values and goals. Also, accepting the negative emotions give you a chance to learn more about it and how to manage it and when similar emotions reappear in the future, you’ll be in a better position to handle them. When you accept negative emotions, they lose their destructive powers and help you to face life with enthusiasm.
Negative emotions enhance your creativity
As stated, negative emotions suck but what many people fail to understand is that such emotions trigger creativity. Are you wondering how? Well, negative emotions pull people toward future goals and unresolved issues. This means that ideas you never thought would cross your mind start making sense within yourself and you become more focused on newer goals. At the same time, you get the energy to pursue your new goals and this improves your life.
Besides, negative emotions help you to work harder on your goals. Psychologists link hard work to negative emotions precisely jealousy. There are two kinds of envy; benign and malicious. Benign envy is characterized by inspirational and admiration aspect where you figure out that because someone else has done something, you too can do it. On the other hand, malicious envy is characterized by the urge to make things equal and this means that you can tear someone down to achieve your dreams. Either way, it’s the negative emotions that motivate you to work extra harder to achieve your new dreams.
Bottom line
If everybody could be a driver of their own life, they would choose to be happy all their lives. However, as it is, we can do nothing to control everything that happens around us. When nature allows you to be happy, accept that and when you experience negative emotions, accept it as well. Many people associate negative emotions with bad things but according to this article, it’s evident that negative emotions have their upside and experiencing it gives you an opportunity to become stronger and better.
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