How To Make A Good Use Of Your Emotions

Hello my dear readers! I had an extremely productive week. Sometimes I don’t even understand how am I able to do so much, ha-ha. I am very grateful for the energy that I usually have. I hope you are taking care of yourself and doing what you like.

I must say that even thou I was very happy about my productivity, I had some unpleasant moments. And I want to talk about negative emotions today. 

Here is the link to the video for my today' post: Make Use Of Emotions.

Do you like to have negative thoughts? Do you like to experience emotional pain? You probably would reply ‘no’ to these questions. And what do you do when you feel this pain? It is very important what you do. 

There actually just two options: you either work on it externally or you deal with it internally. By external option I mean either numbing the pain (alcohol, drugs, TV show, etc.) or trying to change the reality so it matches your idea of how the world should be. The internal option means that you first deal with emotion by yourself without numbing anything, you understand it, you can see through it and only after that, when you are calm and focused, you start working on the problem that caused you discomfort.

I am not going to explain in this article why second internal option is better for well-being. But I want to help you to accept your emotions, to build a friendship between you, and the discomfort that they might cause.

And you can do that by understanding the nature of emotions from philosophical point of view. I am not talking right now about biology or neuroscience. But in simple words, your emotions are signals that you are getting from your core values. And if you go against your values, you get these signals, you get discomfort. So negative or positive emotions are very useful. They help you to understand if you are moving towards the right direction. If you remember this simple truth, your emotions will serve you, and you won’t become a slave of them. 

And let me bring you some examples to explain better my idea.

Not long time ago I went to one very beautiful preserve with my friends. It was really amazing place, the weather was nice, we walked for couple of hours and enjoyed the nature. After a while we felt super hungry and decided to have lunch at some restaurant. One of my friends found something on Google, and we drove to the unknown place. And it turned out to be just bad. The food wasn’t good at all. I don’t even remember when I ate anything that bad, ha-ha. We laughed at the situation and left the place without finishing our meals. But not all of us were laughing. One friend got super upset. And all he could think about was this unhealthy lunch. And I must say he is crazy about healthy diet. He is the type of guy who buys veggies on farmers market and eats grass fed beef. So he became so depressed that we had to take him to his favorite restaurant so he can feel better. 

Was it a bad thing that he felt bad because of eating not healthy? Not at all! It was just a signal. He values healthy diet so much, so he got this signal through emotion, kind of “hey, what are you doing? We are not supposed to eat this stuff”. And this type of message actually helps him to stay healthier. But the problem was that instead of just being thankful for this signal, he got too upset and started to blame himself and got moody. 

It happened to me the other day too. I got new skincare products about a month ago and for some reason my skin didn’t like new brand. And I am a little bit crazy about that way I look. If I don’t like my skin condition I can get pretty upset. When I saw a new pimple on my face, I started to cry and part of my day was ruined. But then I reminded myself that I just got a signal, that I need to return these new skincare products and get back to my old routine which worked so well for me. So I did that I felt much better. 

So the idea is not to blame yourself, not to get angry at your own unpleasant feelings, but to be thankful for them. “Oh, my dear negative emotion, thank you for reminding me that I need to take care of myself!”

And when you are grateful for your emotion, it will serve you, and you won’t become it’s slave, you won’t waste your precious time and energy. 

I hope it was helpful. Remember, all of your emotions are your friends. Don’t try to suppress, numb or escape them, try to understand them and see which ones of your values was violated and how you can do better next time! 

Try to practice this approach of emotions being just signals for two week and try to pay attention how your practice goes. Rate yourself every night on scale from 1 to 10, where 10 means that you got the signal, was thankful for painful emotion and made a good use of it! 

Be Strong And Love Yourself! 

From Dasha Besaly with Love!

Love Wins!