Balanced mood:
“Don’t worry, be happy” was the anthem of an entire generation. Yet it could be that sadness, guilt, shame and the like – often branded as negative emotions – are the feelings that really get us there in the end.
why our ‘negative’ emotions aren’t all bad news
“There is so much to be gained from the emotions we tend to shut down, like anger, envy or shame.” – Dr Sarah Woodhouse
In the animated film Inside Out, the character named Sadness saves the day. This may be a story designed to teach children the importance of listening to their feelings, but there are many grown-ups who stand to benefit too – this writer included.
I’ve always prided myself on being an optimist, perhaps exacerbated by my husband’s propensity for what I like to call “dark-cloud thinking” (to be clear, I say this as a veiled insult at dinner parties and family gatherings). But it’s recently dawned on me that he’s got the right idea, and my insistence on blue-sky thinking at all times could actually be a kind of self-harm.
“The point isn’t that we should question the value of feeling good,” says research psychologist and trauma expert Dr Sarah Woodhouse, author of You’re Not Broken. “But rather, acknowledge that there is so much to be gained from the emotions that we tend to shut down, like anger, envy or shame.”
It may come as no surprise that women, especially, are conditioned to minimise feelings that have a negative connotation. Turns out, even doctors who specialise in processing them get caught up. “I have a group of friends who could be described as emotionally literate, and yet we’ll all regularly say to one another, ‘I feel so angry/sad/flat today … but I’m okay.’ It’s as if wrapped up in these emotions is the idea that if you feel them, you’re not okay,” Dr Woodhouse says.
In many ways, we have the wrong idea about how emotions work. “They have a beginning, middle and end. But they also have a kind of energy within your body, and if you don’t acknowledge them or if you keep shutting them down, they stick around for longer than need be and you can end up in the trauma zone,” Dr Woodhouse explains.
These ‘negative’ emotions are not only very much part of who we are, but also necessary to navigate the complicated world we live in, and the annoying people and unfair situations we confront along the way. Turns out, our feelings have critical jobs to do.
Take anger, for instance. Female anger has historically been written off as “hysterical” or “bitchy” (research shows that in men it’s more likely to be seen as “strong”), and many of us were raised to believe we had to control this fiery side of ourselves. However, this just turns us into pressure-cookers. “There is so much to gain from acknowledging your anger,” Dr Woodhouse says. “I’m not talking about anger that has progressed to rage, but before that point – this is a state that can motivate you to take action in situations where you may feel exploited or misunderstood.”
As we’ve seen in recent years, anger can fuel social progress, too. And what of the other ‘negative’ emotions and their purpose? Feelings of embarrassment or regret can lead us to clear up a misunderstanding or social mishap; envy drives us to work harder and enhances our persistence; guilt can help us confront gaps that exist between our values and actions; and sadness makes us more rational and our thinking more concrete as we process the loss of something or someone.
While different feelings benefit from different coping tools, “what we do know is that the most effective way to release all of them is blindingly simple: talk about them,” Dr Woodhouse says. “That doesn’t have to mean delving deep – it can be as simple as telling someone you feel sad, or guilty or ashamed … whatever it is.” The other thing that helps: writing it down. “I’ve seen this work thousands of times over. You just need to let the words tumble out. It doesn’t matter what you write. The act of writing helps you start to move through the feeling.”
One of the reasons we may not want to sit with a feeling, though, is the fear that we’ll get stuck. In his new book, Chatter, psychologist Ethan Kross tackles this very thing: what can we do when we fall down a rabbit-hole of negative self-talk and endless rumination? It’s a terrific book and well worth reading cover-to-cover, but for the purpose of short-circuiting your mind when it becomes an echo chamber, Kross has some excellent methods. One of his quick-to-apply tools is something he calls “distanced self-talk”, where you talk to yourself in the second person.
Kross’s research at the University of Michigan’s Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory has shown that this simple switch is linked to improved performance under stress and wiser thinking. Another way to approach your situation is to imagine what you’d say to a friend with the same problem. Ask yourself: “What advice would I give them?”
Finally, consider the physical manifestation of your feelings. “While our mind might notice what we’re feeling, emotions are very much felt in the body,” Dr Woodhouse says. As a result, there can be a physical release, too. “We tell our children to take their anger out on a pillow for a reason … after a bit of punching, what is underneath the anger inevitably comes out. In the same way, you may find that by moving around or listening to what your body needs, you shake them loose.”
And then you’re one step closer to feeling, dare we say it, happy.