Do you find that your negative feelings following you around?
I often need to ask myself if I am feeling down because of a situation or social climate, or if I am carrying around negativity with me. Rain clouds can be beautiful things. They bring much needed water back to the earth and make the best days for sitting with a warm cup of tea and reading a book. Plus, the rainbows!
It’s the same with emotional rain clouds. They help you deal with sadness and depression. Plus, after the emotional clouds dissipate, you can appreciate the happiness that follows.
When you have your own rain cloud that follows you around, however, there is always a sense of dread and despair that looms over you. Everything becomes clouded by your own personal rain storm. This is not a healthy way to deal with one’s emotions. When you are stuck feeling down all the time, you miss a lot.
Emotions are the building blocks of our psychological well being.
Emotions help us build a healthy sense of self. When you hold onto a feeling such as sadness or anger, you get emotionally clogged and cannot continue building your emotional health. But, when you feel your emotions in a healthy and honest way, you start to build a better you.
I found that it’s so important to “ride out” your emotions, do the work that is associated with each emotion, and not let your feelings dictate who you are. For example, when you a happy… Do you sit by yourself and pout? NO! When you are happy, you sing, dance, go outside, and enjoy life. The way that you deal with your other emotions shouldn’t be much different.
How do you deal with the “bad” emotions this way?
Sadness might seem, well, sad. But it is an necessary part of grieving and helps you move past the situation that made you sad in the first place. When you allow yourself to feel sad, the feeling doesn’t cling on to you. You feel, you deal, and you are done. But, if you concentrate on that feeling, is holds on to you as well.
Anger is another hard one. Are you the type that lets things build up until you explode or hold everything in until you implode? Either way, you are not allowing yourself to be angry in the moment and it upsets your emotional balance.
So, what should you do with these negative emotions?
First of all, there are no positive or negative emotions. Just emotions. Some may make you feel uncomfortable, but even that can change with time. When you have a healthy sense of self and are letting your feeling come out in natural and organic ways, you will have less feelings of discomfort and the “bad” feelings, won’t feel so bad any more.
There are things that we should be doing on a regular basis to improve out relationship with our emotions and overall wellness. First, I recommend mediation and physical activity. By exercising both your mind and body, you are setting a healthy foundation for your emotional building blocks.
What is mediation and why is it so hard?
I think I can safely say that most of us have either tried mediating or have completely written it off as something you “can’t” do. Meditation is the lack of the busyness in our heads. In order to silence the non-stop thoughts that fly through our heads on a constant basis, we must sit quietly and process.
There are many types of meditation. Mindfulness meditation is my personal favorite. In mindfulness meditation you sit with your thoughts and let them come and go, without judgement or focus. You simply “watch” your thoughts go by, taking note on any patterns that you see. There is also forms of meditation where you focus on a thought, mantra, object, or sound. Choose one that is right for you.
Why do I need to move (my couch is so comfortable)?
Movement and exercise is an often forgotten piece of the well-being foundation. If your body isn’t working properly, then how could you expect your mind to? Exercise might seem like an easy topic, but it leads us into motivation.
You must be motivated to get up and move. So, here we are left with another piece of the puzzle that is our well-being. I find that affirmations and tacky motivation posters help when you are starting off. Heck, I still love my daily affirmations even after doing this for years (check out the link below to see what I am currently using).
Remember that in order to get up and move, you don’t need to train for a triathlon. Five minutes of joyful movement is all you need. Note that I said joyful, exercise shouldn’t be a punishment. Go for a walk (around the mall), dance in your kitchen, or do squats. Whatever it is that gets you moving is a good thing.
My favorite affirmations:
My Happiness Coach 