Emotions suck. Let’s face it. Negative emotions are never good. Nobody likes them. Everybody is trying to avoid them or at least everyone complains about them. But positive emotions are also only good to a certain extent. The fiercer they are, the less joy they actually bring. There are many ways of dealing with one’s emotions. Next time you’re struggling, try some of the following:
Avoid – prevent an emotion from happening. Lead a quiet, boring life, try not to meet new people, agree with everyone, don’t have any hopes or expectations. You will see, emotions will not bother you so much. Not my way, but seems to work for some people.
Cry out – share your emotion with everyone. Don’t deny or suffer, just tell it like it is to as many people as possible. Use your blog for that too. Along with ‘rationalising’ – one of my favourites.
Deny – declare in front of a large audience that you don’t have the emotion you’re suffering from. Tell this to everybody and repeat this to yourself when there is nobody to talk to. Look for the proof that you don’t have this emotion. I tried this several times, but I never seem to make it to the winning end. I give in and end up experiencing the emotion in it’s full force anyway.
Dismiss – decide for yourself your emotion is not real, not serious, not deep or not an emotion at all. Have to work on this one.
Enjoy – dive in and love every bit of it. It takes training, especially for negative emotions.
Ignore – “Emotion? What emotion?” – and carry on as if nothing has changed. I know some people who are very good at it. I would love to master this technique!
Observe – watch yourself having the emotion. The whole process is quite amusing. Works well for fighting material jealousy.
Rationalise – dismantle the emotion and find good reasons why you are experiencing it at this very moment. I am very good at it. I call it ‘understanding’.
Suffer – give yourself hostage to the emotion. Don’t try to fight! Again, some people are very good at it. You most probably know someone who is good at suffering, even from something that seems like a positive emotion. I admire the skill those people have.
Suppress – whenever an emotion evolves – do your best not to show your emotion and engage in all kinds of activities leaving no room for the emotion in question. Fanatically cleaning your house may help for a couple of hours. Filling your diary with appointments and social matters works better for the long term.
Got more? Shout!
Friday 25 September 2009
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interesting topic you bring up here. but as you didn't mention this, just need to check, that you do realise that suppressing, denying and ignoring your emotions does not prevent them from affecting you on a deeper level and in the long term causing much more trouble...
ReplyDeletei always observe my emotions, while living through them (positive) or rationalising them (negative) and letting them go... i can tell you a lot about my emotions and how we live a happy life, but not sure this is what you're looking for :)
have you read "emotional intelligence"? helps a lot with understanding where they come from and how to handle the part we can hadle :)
Rissana
Rissana, I am of course aware of the notion called "emotional intelligence", but are you referring to a certain book about it?
ReplyDeleteI like to embrace some negative emotions. I sometimes miss some negative emotions. It's not the same as "enjoy" that's in your list, but more like "suffering", only more positive.
ReplyDeleteHow do you handle your negative emotions?
I cry out, rationalise and observe.
ReplyDeleteI think "crying out" is more a way to find comfort. Other people try to use alchohol, drugs or sex to find the same feeling. Maybe you should add those?
ReplyDeleteCrying out is not to find comfort. It's a way of processing an emotion by talking about it.
ReplyDeleteI think alcohol, drug or sex is a sort of suppressing.