What if tough emotions weren’t something to be avoided, but
were useful information?
Many of us were brought up to hide our negative feelings.
Sadness, anger, shame – we buried these feelings and hid
them from everyone. We now know that is not healthy, but very few of us have
learnt how to deal with negative emotions – let alone learn from them.
Mindfulness tells us to let these feelings pass by, without
responding to them. “Let your thoughts pass like clouds in the sky,” say many
various meditations.
But is that the best way?
Professor of Psychology and leader in positive psychology,
Dr Todd Kashdan, says, “Two types of avoidance cause problems for people:
avoiding pleasure and avoiding pain.”
“…expressing frustration, or even too much sadness, is
anathema to most folks. It’s as if we expect ourselves to be computers, whose
inner processes are largely hidden and divorced from what appears on the
screen,” he writes in his book, The Upside of Your Dark Side, co-authored
with Robert Biswas-Diener.
“But it misses the point that emotional expressions exist
for a reason.”
He goes on to say, “the cultural message that ‘you should
feel good and try not to feel bad’ is among one of the most toxic processes
known to psychology.”
Dr Kashdan points out that whenever we try to conceal or
ignore unwanted thoughts and feelings, they tend to get louder until we can no
longer ignore them.
So what should we do about negative feelings instead?
Listen to them, says Dr Kashdan. Use them to gather useful
information, and then let them pass.
Importantly, remember you don’t have to believe your
thoughts, as they are not always useful or factual.
Isn’t that the same as ACT?
If you are thinking this sounds a lot like ACT, or
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, you are right. Dr Kashdan’s work complements
ACT, which is a popular form of mindfulness therapy that encourages us to
accept and face any negative feelings – and then move on to focus on what’s
most important to us.
ACT can be particularly useful if you find you often get
“stuck” in negative loops and feel you can’t move forward.
Emotions are useful tools
Dr Kashdan says all his research over many years can be
summarised in three key messages.
- First, emotions are just tools.
Don’t make emotions the goal. Research suggests if we take the goal of
happiness out of the equation, ironically, that makes us happier in the journey
of our lives.
- Second, train yourself to be
better able to clarify, describe and understand what you’re feeling, because
that will help you better figure out what to do next.
- And the third message is:
You need to know what you value
and what you want your life to look like. If you’re happy, then what? If you’re
able to get rid of your anxiety, what would you do with your life? If you’re
able to end self-doubt, what will you do next?