Are Negative Emotions Bad For You?
Negative Emotions are Not Bad
Some nights when I don’t feel like watching a TV show, I’ll peruse YouTube to learn something new and pickup a few tips on fashion, eating healthy, marketing or spirituality. I also collect videos that my young cat Charlie likes to watch. I know this probably sounds weird, but I discovered he likes watching TV when I stopped on a video that had a big yellow screen filled with little black mice moving around. Next thing I new, Charlie got up from where he was lying on my chest and perched himself on the arm of the sofa, near the TV, just watching black mice darting here and there. He sat there watching it for a good 10 minutes. I found this so surprising and also kind of cute. So I figured what the heck, let’s see if there are other cat friendly videos. And there were, dozens of them in fact. My favorites though are the 8-hour videos of colorful backyard birds eating birdseed on the ground or at feeders. I’ve always been a bird lover and when I lived in NH I had several bird friendly gardens and feeders. My family, friends and I always enjoyed sitting at my kitchen table, chatting and relaxing as we watched an abundance of birds come and go from the feeders outside the widow. So I found the imagery of these cat videos, of birds at feeders with sounds of birds chirping, flying in and out, very soothing and peaceful.
In any case, one night I turned on YouTube with the intention of selecting one of these cat friendly videos to play in the background, while I read a book. Instead a video about how to raise your vibration caught my eye so I watched it. Then I got annoyed. I mean like seriously annoyed. It just totally bugs me when law of attraction videos and social media memes cast negative emotions in such an unhelpful light. So what did she say that aggravated the heck out me? She said that we can gauge our vibrational state by how we feel – if we feel joy, happiness, pleasure, or peace, these are high vibration states. If we feel depressed, anxious, worried, etc, these are low vibration states. She suggested that if you’re feeling at all negative, or any kind of negative emotion, do yourself a favor, stop whatever you’re doing and do whatever it takes to feel calm and relaxed, to bring yourself some relief. Then she moved on to tip number two.
So what’s my problem with all this? What she said is actually true. Everything is made up of light energy vibrating at different frequencies. Negative emotions are denser, while positive emotions are lighter. We all vibrate energetically at a particular frequency. As our vibration rises, our energy fills with more light and we experience greater ease and flow in life. We manifest our heart-felt desires more easily. The lower our frequency the denser our energy, and heavier our problems seem. It takes more effort to make things happen in life. My beef isn’t with what she said, it’s about what she didn’t say. And she’s not alone; many others offer the same brief advice. The problem is that it’s not the whole story, and most importantly in my mind, it portrays negative emotions in very unhelpful manner.
So today we’re going to talk about negative emotions and the fact that negative emotions are not bad. Emotions themselves are neither good nor bad. They are just emotions. The Divine gave us emotions. Emotions have a purpose. So why do we need emotion? There are many reasons but today I’m going to focus two of those reasons as they related to vibration: emotions as energy and emotions as indicators.
Emotions are Energy
The first is that our emotions are meant to get us to take action. We think a thought, which creates a feeling or an emotion, and that emotion has energy. And the energy of that emotion is what propels us to take action to get results in our lives. Even the word emotion itself, if you think of it as “e” hyphen “motion”, it tells us that emotions have energy and that energy is meant to propel us into action to achieve results or the things we’d like to experience in life. It’s also a reminder that emotion, the energy of emotion, needs to move, in order to complete itself. I like to think of emotion as a wave. As we react to a situation, we think thoughts that create emotion. This emotion is energy and much like a wave it starts to build, it gets a little stronger, it reaches its peak and then it dissipates.
The problem is that many of us, try to stop the emotion mid-wave so to speak. This is like taking a big beach ball and trying to stuff it down under water and hold it there. It takes a lot of energy to do that! And it takes a lot of energy for us to stuff our emotions down below the surface as well. This is energy that could be used to propel us towards our dreams and the life we really want to create. Plus, if we chronically stuff down our feelings, it can eventually lead to physical illness and chronic disease.
So remember, emotions are energy and the energy of that emotion wants to either move you or move through you.
Emotions are Indicators
The second purpose of emotions is to act as indicators. What we feel is a result of what we think, and our emotions let us know when we are feeling and thinking things that are, or are not, in alignment with our true divine nature, which is a very high vibration state. The higher vibration emotions of love, gratitude, and joy, let us know we are feeling and thinking things that are alignment with our true divine nature. We know this because these emotions resonate and feel good in our body. The negative emotions or the emotions that we don’t feel comfortable with, like anger, frustration, fear, anxiety, envy, all of those types of emotions, they are low vibration emotions and indications that we are feeling and thinking things that are NOT in alignment with our true divine nature. I imagine emotions to be like the blinker system on your car. When you are feeling at ease, happy, excited, grateful, or any emotion that feels good and resonates well in your body, this indicates that you are in alignment with your true divine nature. These emotions let you know that you are heading in the right direction vibrationally. When you feel sad, angry, anxious, jealous or anything doesn’t feel good in your body, these are indications that you are feeling and thinking things that are not in alignment with your true divine nature, that you’re heading in an unhelpful direction vibrationally.
So what do we do with our emotions, especially the negative ones when they show up? It’s not really surprising that we want to run away or avoid negative emotions. They are uncomfortable, confusing, and sometimes downright overwhelming. It is said that an emotion only takes 5-7 minutes to run its course. Surely we can invest 5-7 minutes to cope with a negative emotion so we don’t have to continue holding that beach ball under water! With that in mind, I’d like to share a process I use that helps me be with an emotion in a very particular way. First I’ll describe what we typically do that’s not helpful and then I’ll share a way that helps me and my clients.
What typically happens is that our thinking mind gets in the way and causes more problems. Let’s use sadness as an example. Say we notice we’re feeling sad. As soon as we do that, our brain starts telling stories about why we’re sad, I’m sad because my boyfriend left me. I’m sad because I’ll never find the right guy. What’s wrong with me that no one loves me? All of these negative thoughts just create more negative emotion and more feelings of sadness. I call this an emotional spin cycle. We feel sad, we think sad thoughts, this creates more sad feelings, and we think more sad thoughts, and so on. Our thoughts are feeding the sadness with more energy. The energy of sadness wants to move through us. But it can’t because we keep feeding it with more energy. So, instead it continues to spin within us.
There is a better way. And that better way is to allow the emotions to move through you while keeping your attention on the emotion and where you feel that emotion in your body. Emotions create sensations in our body. We might feel an emotion in one or more places in our body. And, everyone’s physical experience of an emotion is different. For some us when we feel sad tears well up in our eyes and our throat tightens, while others may feel a heavy weight on their chest. The key here is to notice where you feel that emotion in your body, and to keep your awareness on the sensation of that emotion in your body. In the beginning, you might have trouble finding the sensation of the emotion in your body, if that happens keep your awareness on the feeling itself. Imagine yourself watching the feeling. By focusing on the sensation of the emotion in body or on the emotion itself, it keeps us out of our heads and away from thinking thoughts that would create more sadness and more energy. It gives the emotion the time and space to move through us and dissipate.
Step by Step Guide to Allowing Emotions Move Through You
Let me walk you through this. Say you’re feeling sad. Go some place quiet where you can be alone. As you sit quietly, allow the feelings of sadness to come up. As the feelings of sadness come up, notice where you feel that sadness in your body. All emotions are felt or experienced somewhere in the body. So notice where your sadness is hanging out. Is it in your chest over your heart? Your upper chest? Your throat? Or somewhere else? Where ever you notice the sadness hanging out, place your hand there. Now stay with the sensation of sadness, and as you do so, you might say to the sadness:
I see you…
I hear you….
You matter…
It’s okay…
I’m here for you….
As you do this, and I do hope you try this, you’ll find that the energy of that emotion, the energy of that sadness begins to dissipate. This allows the energy of that emotion to move through you.
The wonderful thing about this process is it doesn’t take very long. I mean, this isn’t a half hour process that I’m suggesting. It only takes five minutes or so, to be with that emotion and allow some of the emotion to move through you and expend itself. If you’re someplace public, you can go to a restroom or your car and do this process. Once there, you can be with your emotions and the sensations of those emotions in your body. Once the emotions dissipate you can go back doing what you were doing.
Again, the key to this process is to be with this sensation of the feeling in your body, not to go up into your head, into your thoughts. Easier said than done, I know. That is until you get the hang of it. And in fact, this is one of the reasons why I like this process so much. It keeps me with the sensation of a feeling rather than allowing my thoughts to tell more stories, which in turn rev up my feelings even more. Our thinking mind isn’t very helpful at this stage. Instead, it’s important to just be with feel the feelings. Staying with the sensations of the feeling for a few moments, watching them, and holding compassionate space for them, even dialoguing with them a little bit, is really helpful for giving your emotions the space to move through you. Because that’s what emotions want to do, they want to move. And if they’re not going to move you to action (which isn’t always the appropriate response), then they want to move through you.
Judging Emotions Creates Resistance
Okay. So now let’s go back and talk a little bit more about negative emotions and the law of attraction. One of the reasons why I don’t like the emphasis on quickly moving to a positive emotion is it creates this dynamic where we start judging ourselves for having negative emotions. We start thinking, “I shouldn’t be sad.” “I shouldn’t be frustrated.” “I shouldn’t be angry.” I shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t. All these awful should’s and judgments. They create resistance and that’s just not helpful at all. What we resist, persists. And the problem with resistance, from a vibrational standpoint, is that the negative energy associated with that negative feeling state never gets to complete itself. And doing this on regular basis is what can keep us in a lower vibrational state. And, because like attracts like, we end up creating or experiencing more low vibration experiences.
I think it’s also important to consider that having emotions, both the negative and the positive, is part of being human. We live in a world of duality and so we experience positive emotions and we experience negative emotions. The negative emotions actually help us in a way because they enable us to appreciate the positive ones a little bit more.
Emotions and Spiritual Bypassing
Another dynamic of labeling negative emotions as bad, is that it encourages spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is defined as a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues.” Rather than feeling our negative feelings, it encourages us to move away from them too quickly. It over emphasizes being in a high vibe and makes us feel like we always have to happy and that we have to project a vibe of perpetual happiness and success to the outside world. This just exacerbates our propensity to avoid, stuff down, or distract ourselves from our negative emotions, which in turn perpetuates the negative emotion!
Another caveat of this is that we sometimes spiritual bypass our friends by offering an unsolicited spiritual perspective or positive upside. We think we’re doing this to be helpful and encouraging, but the real reason we’re doing this is because we are uncomfortable with the negative emotions they are experiencing! I’ll share a personal example of how I unintentionally did this myself. A year or so ago one of my friends experienced a series of job losses, one right after another. We previously had many conversations about how she felt and what she was going through. On this particular day, we were out hiking and she shared some emotional shifts she’d made. I responded by saying something like, “Hey great job, it sounds like you’re coming from a more empowered place today.” She stopped walking and said to me, “I’m not receiving that well because it makes me feel like my earlier feelings were unacceptable.” Her response brought me up short. Oh my god, I thought to myself, she was right. I really appreciate my friend’s honesty because it got me thinking. I realized her experiences was triggering something within ME that needed to be healed. After some self-reflection, I noticed that although I was very good at holding space when my friends were hurt, sad or grieving, I wasn’t as good when they were feeling extremely discouraged or powerless. Their feelings triggered me because I wasn’t comfortable with feeling discouraged or powerless myself! So I unconsciously reacted by trying to make my friends feel better, so I could feel better! Once I recognized this dynamic, it was easy for me to stop doing it.
Short Term versus Long Term
The second reason I feel the brief advice about negative emotions is unhelpful is because it only focuses on a short term fix rather than a long term solution. If you heeded the advice to “do whatever it takes to feel calm and relaxed” and went for walk in nature or listened to a soothing guided meditation, you’d most likely feel a bit better. This is a wonderful first step. However more is needed because you still haven’t addressed the root cause, which are the thoughts that created the negative emotion. Research says that 95% of what we think is repetitive. This means you mostly had the same or similar thought, and its resulting feeling, yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and so on. So if we want to raise our vibration, we need to stop resisting our emotions and let them help us pinpoint the thoughts that are creating those negative emotions. So we can do some thought work to change the thoughts that are creating that negative emotion. Because when we think better, we feel better. When we feel better, our vibration naturally rises.
Conclusion and Summary
Let’s quickly summarize what we’ve covered in today’s talk. The first thing is that negative emotions are not bad. In fact, emotions serve a very important purpose. Emotions are energy that wants to move through us or move us into action. It is the energy of an emotion that propels us to take action, to create results, and manifest things we want in our lives. And two, emotions are indicators. Positive feelings are an indication that we are thinking and feeling things that are in alignment with our true divine. Negative emotions let us know when we are thinking and feeling things that are low vibration and therefore not in alignment with our true divine nature. When we find ourselves repeatedly thinking and feeling things that don’t feel good, tracing the emotion back to the thought that created it, gives us the opportunity to change the thoughts that have created the misalignment. And, since it’s difficult to do thought work when we’re experiencing strong feelings, it’s helpful put our awareness on the sensation of the emotion in our body until we feel the emotion dissipate. Once some of the emotion has moved through us, then we’re in a better state to ask ourselves “What was I thinking that made me feel this way?” Once we’ve pinpointed the negative thought, then we can ask, “How do I really want to feel instead?” And then, “What would I need to think in order to feel that way?” From here we can create affirmations, mantras, and do some scripting (journaling as if you are currently experiencing the way you want to feel) to help reprogram our brain towards more helpful thought patterns, that will in turn create more enjoyable and higher vibration feeling states.
Two of the services I provide, Reiki Release Emotional Healing Method and Hypnosis can help accelerate the process. The Reiki Release helps pinpoint and release old emotional wounds to make space for more elevated feelings and thoughts, and Hypnosis helps accelerate the thought change process. I have lots of information about this on my website, and I’ll include a link to both of these in the show notes. I’ll also include a free PDF with worksheet that will guide you through the affirmation, mantra and scripting process.
In the next episode, we’ll take a closer look at negative thinking. I’ll share practical techniques for how to shift from negative to positive thinking, in a way that your brain actually believes so you can feel better sooner.
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Episode Questions to Ponder:
- What are the hardest emotions for you to sit with?
- What are your predominate feeling states?
- What are you thinking that makes you feel that way?
- How do you really want to feel?
I’d love to know your answers. Please share your thoughts or questions in the Comments section below.
Discover three techniques that will help you reprogram your brain: affirmations, mantras and scripting.
