Have you ever had a situation where you were going through something and a colleague or family member just told you to get over it and move on?
Or have you ever received the attitude of - ‘You have to be brave and put a smile on your face, no matter what happens?’
Or the infamous phrase ‘ Oh, but you should be strong!’
Of course, these all have a great deal of good intentions behind them.
At the same time, they create an expectation of emotional perfectionism that in the long run is nothing but perfect.
What’s wrong with feeling positive & braving the bad?
Well, nothing in particular, if you are a cyborg.
But we are humans with emotions. And those emotions are especially important to us in adapting to all sorts of situations. (I wrote here about why it’s good for us to understand negative emotions & what they are good at (spoiler: they are information).
Imagine if you wouldn’t feel anger when you get yelled at. Or you would immediately go about your day after you find out that you lost a project at work?
Those feelings of anger or frustration are useful in managing the situation better.
Or you would feel completely relaxed when doing something difficult & important to you?
I think that would be cause for alarm.
Feeling the feelings does not mean that you will crawl up and die in a pool of your own tears. Most people think that if they give in to how they feel, they will never recover. Or people will think them weak.
This rarely happens (the judgment part, not the dying part. That one never happens).
A particularly negative effect of not allowing yourself to feel the negative (or allowing but just having no idea how to do it) is negative coping mechanisms.
Oh, so you don’t allow yourself to feel the anger at your boss at work, but you yell at your wife in the evening.
Oh, so you cannot tell your kid that you don’t want to play with them, so you do it and then check out of everything and play the computer or binge Netflix all night avoiding connection with your family.
Or, you cannot feel the hopelessness that you are at an impasse professionally - because you were taught that you must always succeed, so you use alcohol to ease into your days.
Or, you are feeling anxious and bored in brainstorming but you don’t want to feel that or think that you cannot function like that, so you just drink a beer to numb your feeling.
See anything familiar?
What’s the alternative?
While it’s actually quite good to cultivate your positive emotions (gratitude, joy, compassion, excitement) the alternative to those is not plain neutrality or excessive negativeness.
The alternative is feeling the negative and seeking information from it.
The short version is: that it’s okay to feel whatever you feel. The fact that I feel anger, guilt, or frustration in a situation is perfectly normal and healthy.
Even if you can do nothing to change the situation.
We cannot feel good all the time - nor should we strive for that. Your aim is to live with purpose. And that means connecting to people or engaging in situations where you could get hurt, or disappointed.
Or maybe you want to change your career. And that’s tough, especially if you always thought of yourself as an expert and a person who has to succeed (yeah, I’m lookin’ at ya overachiever). So you will feel hopeless, frustrated, disappointed, sad, anxious, and so on. But that’s OK.
Remember that you are doing things that move you in your valued direction.
What do you want to stand written on your tombstone?
Your name - never felt anger/ sadness/ guilt. or
Your name - lived.