Know thyself
Don't be so negative about your unpleasant emotions.
WHEN I first began practising meditation, I was under the impression that the goal was to become happy, peaceful and calm. The aim of the game, I thought, was to rid oneself of all negativity.
Fast forward some years later, I came to realise that this is a common misconception of meditation. The point of the practice is to “know thyself”, which includes all the complex, messy and sometimes unbearable bits that we tend to push to the back of our minds.
In his works on the unconscious mind, the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung talks about “the shadow” – the recesses of the mind that host all the parts of ourselves we deny. While much of what we suppress might be described as “dark and destructive”, according to Jung, we also suppress over time positive forces that are creative and innovative. This is often done to spare us from other people’s envy or resentment, and so avoid rejection or social isolation.
We can see our suppression at work through how we handle so-called “negative” emotions, such as anger, anxiety, sadness and fear. Most of the time, we recognise these as anti-social states that we should reject in order for our behaviour to remain aligned with social norms.
Often, we try to distract ourselves whenever these powerful emotions arise. But in doing so, we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we don’t take the time to understand that all emotions – the good ones and the bad – are neither positive nor negative. Instead, we should look upon them as functional.
That’s not to say that we should give our negative emotions free rein. We should treat them with respect, much in the same way we respect fire. Left out of control, a raging blaze can cause untold damage. However, when it’s properly harnessed, fire becomes an invaluable heating and cooking resource. Just because it has the potential to be dangerous doesn’t mean we discard fire – we make good use of it.
The same can be said for emotions. Negative emotions, when left unchecked, can be powerfully overwhelming and cause all kinds of problems. The trick is to understand the ways in which they can benefit us, rather than suppress them. According to Jung, when we choose to subdue our less agreeable emotions, they will inevitably find some way to express themselves whether we like it or not. Ideally, we should find ways to be their ally; as a result, we’ll have much greater control over the functions they perform.
In an interesting series of studies at Stanford University (2001), psychology professor Larissa Tiedens found that when people express anger, they are conferred a higher status compared to when they express sadness or come across as being indecisive. The studies also showed that those who expressed anger were seen to be more competent leaders.
This doesn’t mean that we should storm into office meetings screaming and shouting – it’s about learning to use the energy of emotions in a productive way. People who are decisive and assertive come across as competent, in part, because they appear sure and certain to others.
It makes sense. Who would you rather have leading the way: the person who is assertive and gets things done, or someone who isn’t very sure of themselves?
Here are four other emotions that can – when used wisely – serve to our benefit:
1. Sadness
This emotion makes us pay more attention to detail. Studies have suggested that people who experience sadness or depression tend to make better decisions that minimise loss and enhance self-preservation (e.g. they often make safer financial decisions due to being more risk-averse).
2. Guilt
Often, we can feel ashamed of our guilt and so we spend a lot of time trying to wrestle with or suppress it completely. However, guilt can be a useful emotion in helping us to recap on previous actions or events so that we can take steps to avoid making the same reckless or immoral mistakes in future. While we might not get things right on the first or third attempt, a healthy dose of guilt helps us to chip away over time at our unhelpful behaviours and habits.
3. Benign envy
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche encouraged us to embrace, rather than shun our feelings of envy. Feeling envious can, he suggested, drive us to better ourselves when we see others who have attained goals we would also like to achieve. While malicious envy can cause problems, having a healthy respect for the achievements of others can help to increase our motivations and efforts to push ourselves.
4. Pessimism
This is an interesting emotion, not least of all because it’s one that’s often seen to lead to inaction. On the contrary, research highlights one clear benefit of pessimism: it encourages us to take preventative action against worstcase scenarios. For example, in business, it’s quite useful to listen to the naysayers on occasion, as they’ll often have Plans B-Z ready should your “Plan A” fail.