How To Use Negative Emotions To Your Advantage.

How often do you find yourself in a negative state with negative emotions surrounding you? The one thing that we are taught is to always stay positive. When we experience negative emotions we are taught how to change our state. It’s not bad entirely, I mean who would want to live in anger mode all their lives. We define those that are always happy and positive as Emotionally Intelligent. Emotions play a great role in our success. When you make a plan to achieve a goal, put together a strategy, and add emotion to it, your success in achieving that goal is almost inevitable.

What makes people do anything? the emotion, it starts with emotion. What causes you to fall in love, to get a divorce, to work your way out of poverty, the list is endless. If emotions have a great impact on what we do then we need to take time and learn to master and develop ourselves in this area.

I am sure you have been taught to stay in a state that is filled with positive emotions. A lot of people try to avoid feeling negative emotions. Suppressing these negative emotions often lead to an emotional breakdown. Honestly, there is so much one can suppress, and for some time. Instead of suppressing the negative emotions, I want to show you how you can use the negative emotions to your advantage

This is my personal opinion from what I learned throughout my growth journey. Just to put it out there I am not a qualified therapist or psychologist. What I am about to share with you is knowledge sort from books and some of the most successful coaches I know. This has helped me in my personal growth journey.

Well, Let’s get right into it. Negative emotions are not so negative. What? you may say, you mean to say it’s okay for me to be angry, anxious, and frustrated. I would say negative emotions can be your assets and can stir you in the right direction. Just like mild symptoms you get before a disease has fully matured, negative emotions are also symptoms in your life. Instead of referring to them as negative emotions, you could say action signals. These action signals are there to show you that there is something that is not working and you need to change it. In His book Awaken the giant within Tony Robins shares on how to deal with some action signals

Let’s take a look at a few action signals and what they mean

Frustration

Frustration usually comes when you continuously hitting roadblocks trying to accomplish your goal. When your efforts are not equal to your rewards we tend to feel the emotion of frustration.

The message from frustration: There is something that you are doing and its not working. Most people liken frustration to disappointment in terms of the message behind the feeling.

Disappointment is the feeling that there’s something you want in your life but you’ll never get it By contrast when frustrated your brain knows the solution is within the range you just haven’t tapped into it yet.

How to deal with frustration: First of all acknowledge that frustration is simply a warning signal. Reflect on the strategy you were using to go after your goal. Afterward, brainstorm new ideas that you can use to change your approach and not your goal. Frustrations simply warn you to be flexible in your approach. In short, your frustration is simply telling you to change your Strategy.

2. Anger

Anger emotions include everything from irritation to being angry, resentful, furious, or even enraged. This feeling usually comes when we feel that our rules have been broken

The message. The message of anger is that an important rule or standard that you hold for your life has been violated by someone else, or maybe even by you. (tony Robins).

How to Handle Anger. First of all, check whether or not you have misinterpreted the situation, that your anger about this person breaking your rules may be based on the fact that they don’t know what’s most important to you (even though you believe they should). Ask yourself a more empowering question like “In the long run, is it true that this person cares about me?” Interrupt the anger by asking yourself, “What can I learn from this? How can I communicate the importance of these standards I hold for myself to this person in a way that causes them to want to help me, and not violate my standards again in the future?”. It’s important to communicate our rules in every type of relationship to avoid being angry when expectations that were not clearly mentioned are not met.

In simple terms anger just a warning signal that your rules have been broken and it’s up to you to evaluate whether/ or not you communicated them or if your rules are not necessarily realistic

3. Hurt

Hurt if not dealt with properly is one of the most dangerous emotions because it stops you from living life and enjoying life to the fullest. Feelings of hurt are usually generated by a sense of loss. When people are hurt, they often lash out at others.

The Message: the hurt signal gives us is that we have an expectation that has not been met. This usually leads to a loss of trust and intimacy. That sense of loss is what creates the feeling of hurt.

Solution: Evaluate whether/ not, in reality, you actually lost something. Check your perception towards the situation and the person involved. Secondly, another way to help you get out of a sense of hurt is to elegantly and appropriately communicate your feeling of loss to the person involved. Tell them, “The other day when X-Y-Z happened, I misinterpreted that to mean that you didn’t care, and I have a sense of loss. Can you clarify for me what really happened?” Simply by changing your communication style and clarifying what’s going on, you will often find that hurt disappears. Hurt that is not dealt with often leads to anger.

Alright, let’s end here for today. I hope this article helped you to deal with negative emotions to your advantage.

This article was inspired by tony robins book awaken the giant within