How To Reduce Negative Emotions

Hi Everyone! I am posting today's article from Miami! I decided to take advantage of Frontier discounts and to do a little traveling :-)

But this is not what I am going to talk about today. Last weekend I posted an article about Emotional Intelligence and I was saying that it is important to manage your emotions, to reduce negative ones and increase positive. And I want to share some tips which help me to manage my negative emotions.

Here is the link to the video for today's article: How To Reduce Negative Emotions.

Negative emotions depend a lot on our way of thinking. And if you want to reduce the amount of negative emotions, you need to take care of your negative thoughts. Of course first of all, you need to be aware of these thoughts, but what's next? What options do you have? I think that the following three ideas can be very helpful!

1. Dispute your negative thoughts. This method is very common in cognitive therapy. A lot of times we have irrational thoughts which are based on our fears and limited experience. And if we use some logic, we can realize that our thoughts are not true, and that there is no need to follow them. I think this method works really well in case of problems with self-esteem. For example, when you have a thought that you are not worthy, you can remind yourself of the times when you helped someone, when someone thanked you, when someone told you that they cared about you. You can write down your strengths and help yourself to see how wonderful you are. Or, if you have some thoughts like, "it will last forever, I always will be sad", you can also dispute it by using logic. Because nothing really last forever, nothing is permanent, and all suffering will come to an end sooner or later.

2. Break the grip of rumination. You can experience one tiny negative event, but it can bring some negative thoughts about your past and create a huge problem. If you don't want to make a big deal out of a small issue, you can just find a healthy distraction. For example, you can work out, or do something that you like. I use sewing as distraction, and it helps me a lot. Just try not to get distracted by something that can have negative impact on your well-being in long run, like alcohol or meaningless sex. It might look like a good idea, but you can get addicted to things like that and make your life even harder.

3. Ignore your negative thoughts. I love, love, love this option! My favorite one! Why would I even waste my energy on some negative thinking? Yes, I can have it, but why do I need to listen to it? Sometimes I can have fears or concerns, but I don't let them control my life. But I want to be honest with you, it took me about 3 years to learn how to ignore my negative thoughts. So even though this option is my favorite and I believe that it is the best in long run, you will have to put efforts in order to get to the point where you just don't care what type of thoughts you have. It is not very easy, but it is possible and this can be your long-term goal! You notice your negative thought and you just move on and do your stuff. So wonderful!

So these are my tips. I hope you will try them. There are a lot of things we cannot control, but you can work on specific things and make your life easier. And if there is a way to make your life more beautiful, why wouldn't you? Please take care of yourself!

Be Strong And Love Yourself!

From Dasha With Love!

Love Wins!