psychology
3 “negative” emotions that have an unfairly bad reputation
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How useful is it to classify feelings as “good” or “bad”? After all, we can learn something from each one and grow from it. These three supposedly negative emotions in particular have a lot to offer.
Most of us now realize that there is no point in suppressing feelings. Whether we like it or not, we have to allow every emotion to arise, feel it and process it before we can let it go. But there are still feelings that are repeatedly classified as “negative.” We should ask ourselves how useful it is to classify emotions as good or bad. This assessment alone can mean that we process the supposedly negative feelings worse than the supposedly good ones. Here are three examples that clearly show that we can benefit from all feelings – if we just allow it.
These 3 supposedly negative emotions have an unfair bad reputation
1. Anger
Truly content people are always deeply relaxed, friendly and, above all, never angry – that’s the cliché. But that’s complete nonsense, we actually need anger very urgently. Because how unnatural would it be if we never got angry about anything? That would mean that nothing is important enough to us to feel anger. Girls and women in particular often learn early on that it’s not appropriate to get angry. But anger is the basis for change. Because only when something really annoys us does it give us the strength to raise our voices – and thus be heard.
2. Repentance
Regret is out. We are constantly being told that we shouldn’t regret anything because every mistake and every wrong decision makes us the person we are. That’s all well and good, but we first have to realize what went wrong. Because only when we can see that we would rather not have quit our job or moved in with our partner so soon can we learn from it what we should do differently next time. So instead of demonizing regret, we should see it as an important signpost for the future.
3. Fear
I read it again recently: fear is a bad advisor. But is that really true? Sure, it makes sense for us to leave our comfort zone and try something new. But fear often simply tells us what we don’t want. The trick, of course, is to recognize the difference: am I afraid because it’s something unfamiliar or because it wouldn’t do me any good? And sometimes it might even be both: jumping out of a plane is definitely outside of our comfort zone in most cases – but it is also quite simply dangerous.
We should learn to perceive fear neutrally at first and then listen more closely to ourselves: What exactly am I afraid of? Where does the fear come from? Can I benefit from overcoming this fear now? Or is it rightly warning me of danger? Fear is just a warning signal from our brain – neither negative nor positive. What we make of it is entirely up to us.