Owning Negative Emotion

A full life includes feelings you don’t need to fix.

There is nothing I teach that says you are supposed to be happy 100 percent of the time. Managing your mind does not mean you stop being human.

Yet so many of us feel a negative emotion and immediately decide something has gone wrong. We should be more positive. We should be grateful. We should know better by now.

Then we feel bad about feeling bad. We resist the emotion, try to push it away, or eat something so we don't have to experience it. We spend so much time trying to be happy that we miss the experience of actually being alive.

Negative emotion belongs in your life

I like to consider that we are supposed to feel negative emotion 50 percent of the time. When I think that, I feel an immediate sense of relaxation. I don't have to expect myself, or everyone around me, to be pleasant and happy all the time.

Our world includes contrast. There is happiness and unhappiness, hope and disappointment, success and defeat. Without doubt, there is no reason to have faith. Without the possibility of defeat, accomplishment doesn't mean the same thing.

My favorite definition of happiness is the joy you feel when working toward your potential. That work includes obstacles. It includes things that are difficult. You aren't going to skip through all of it feeling wonderful.

Having children is such a clear example for me. I have never felt as much love as I feel for my children, and I have never felt more pain than I have since having them. Loving them opens me up to both.

I want my sons to be happy. But their ability to deal with negative emotion comes from experiencing it. If I try to arrange their lives so they never feel pain, I am trying to remove half of their experience of being alive.

Contrast and resistance are different

Contrast is the positive and negative that exist in the world. Resistance is our unwillingness to accept that contrast.

We create our emotions with our thoughts. That doesn't mean every negative emotion needs to be changed immediately. Sometimes it is an invitation to become more conscious, connect with ourselves, and notice what we are thinking.

Eating, drinking, and overworking can become ways to escape that experience. We create a whole life around avoiding ourselves. We know how to resist an emotion, but we may not know what it actually feels like to allow one.

Learning to feel is a skill. And I think feeling your feelings is one of the most courageous things you can do. When you are willing to feel any emotion, you become willing to take actions you would otherwise avoid because of the emotion that might accompany them.

What happened when I allowed shame

On a vacation in Mexico, I had what I call a complete shame attack. I could not talk myself out of it. There were plenty of margaritas available, and I noticed that I wanted to drink them so I wouldn't have to feel it.

Instead, I allowed the shame. For me, it felt like someone was gripping the inside of my stomach and sending waves through my body.

When a wave came, I named it: shame. I relaxed my body. I reminded myself that shame was part of being human, rather than treating it as evidence that I should hide.

It came in waves for about 24 hours. Each wave probably lasted about 60 seconds. My thoughts kept bringing it back. I tried different thoughts, but I couldn't think my way out of the feeling. I needed to be with it and see the thinking that was creating it.

I shared what was happening with our graduate community at The Life Coach School. My inclination with shame is to hide, but allowing it made me willing to open up. The first response was a heart from someone telling me they loved me. In that moment, that was everything.

As the shame dissipated, it turned into compassion. I felt a much deeper understanding of anyone else experiencing it. That compassion stayed with me. An emotion I wanted to escape became an experience that helped me connect with my clients.

Feeling an emotion is not reacting to it

During that vacation, I was still with my family. I rode on the back of a jet ski with my son, walked on the beach, and went to restaurants. Nobody would have said I was in a terrible mood. I was present, allowing what was happening inside me.

Allowing negative emotion doesn't mean snarling at people or taking it out on your family. Those reactions often come from the effort to keep the emotion away.

You can let an emotion be there without acting it out. You can notice the vibration in your body without making it someone else's responsibility.

Practice feeling for ten minutes

Give yourself ten minutes today. When you notice the urge to escape, sit down and describe the emotion inside your body. What does it feel like? Where do you feel it? How long does it last when you allow it?

Notice with curiosity, not judgment. If you can't identify an emotion, write down the negative thoughts in your brain. You don't need to pretend they aren't there.

Own the experience: I am feeling this emotion. My thinking is creating it. This is mine to experience.

That doesn't mean it will feel good. Negative emotion is uncomfortable. But the fear of feeling it, and the resistance to feeling it, can become much bigger problems than the emotion itself.

Let yourself be with what is there. You don't have to change it before you can accept yourself. This is part of being alive.