Dealing With Negative Emotions

Experiencing good mental health requires that you can properly accept and manage negative emotions. Negative emotions are part of everyone’s life. This morning I am experiencing two negative emotions: disappointment and fear. Today my task is to manage these emotions well.

Disappointment is a special kind of suffering. Disappointment occurs when expectations fail to materialize. It is an unpleasant emotion, and it is inevitable. Disappointment is rain at the beach when you were expecting sunshine. It is the lack of snow on your ski vacation. It is the canceled flight, the car that suddenly won’t start, or the layoff on the day you were expecting a promotion.

This morning I am working to properly accept disappointment. I was looking forward to meeting with friends this morning.  They live in Denver, we don’t see them often, and scheduling a time when we could both meet was difficult. I have been looking forward to seeing them for several weeks. We were going to meet halfway between Denver and Cheyenne, that is about a 50-mile drive for both of us. This morning we woke up to snow and a winter weather advisory: expected snow of 3 to 5 inches, winds as high as 35 miles per hour, and wind chills as low as 20 degrees below zero. The highway was listed as “very dangerous, travel only if necessary, icy with blowing snow and low visibility.”

I canceled our meeting, and I am disappointed. I was so looking forward to seeing them.

Fear is the feeling that something dangerous is happening or is about to happen. This morning I am afraid that I am not as courageous as I used to be.  I have traveled in these conditions before and, although it has been scary, I have managed. Courage is one of the four virtues and when people get older, they often become more fearful. I would like to think as I get older that I am just getting wiser. But the line between wisdom and being overly cautious is seldom clear. I want to make sure that as I age, I don’t lose the courage which has served me so well.

I am also afraid that my actions this morning might be misunderstood, and our friends could feel that I was not excited to see them. At the time I canceled our meeting it wasn’t snowing in Denver. It is possible they looked out the window and thought, “What’s the big deal? If he really wanted to see us he could have made the trip.”

These are the negative feelings running through my bones this morning: disappointment, fear of being a coward, and the fear of being misunderstood by friends. What I do with these emotions is critical to my mental health.

THREE STEPS TO PROPERLY DEAL WITH NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

My first step in managing these emotions is to acknowledge what I am feeling. Emotions are often difficult to identify, especially when they are not strong. My disappointment is stronger than my fear, both are present and neither overwhelming.  It is also hard to acknowledge these feelings because it is a bit embarrassing. Somewhere, deep in my heart, I believe that real men wouldn’t feel these emotions. On an intellectual level I don’t believe that, but my heart seems to have its own ideas about what it believes. A subject for another blog.

My second step is to view the positive side of what is happening. I get a snow day! Even though I don’t get to see friends and that is disappointing, I get a quiet day in front of the fire. Most situations which are disappointing have an upside. Rain at the beach, time to read in doors. No snow on a ski trip, ski lifts are half price, time to go to the top of the mountain for a great view or maybe a hike. Car won’t start, great excuse for missing work. Sure, it wasn’t what you were expecting, but there are often positives to the most disappointing situations.

My third step is to evaluate the truth behind the feeling. I am afraid I am not sufficiently courageous. What does the evidence suggest? Tomorrow I am subbing in a high school class. That takes courage. I recently entered a poker tournament knowing very little about how to play poker. That takes courage. I went sailing on the Pacific Ocean with my son on his 29’ sailboat. He is an amateur sailor. That took some courage. I am planning a big adventure this spring. That takes some courage. The evidence suggests that I am NOT becoming a coward.

I am afraid that my friends might misunderstand my decision to cancel our meeting. That is true, my friends might misinterpret my actions. It is always possible that people will misunderstand my actions or assign motives to my actions which never crossed my mind.  There is nothing I can do about that. However, if I try to live in such a way that others always think well of me, I’ll go crazy. The only sane way to live is to be honest with myself, knowing there will be times when my actions will be misunderstood.

Finally, what are the odds that my friends will misinterpret my decision to cancel? Answer: very low indeed. These are my friends!  Fear of being misunderstood stems from my insecurity and not from any objective reality. My fear is irrational.

Going through these three steps has not eliminated all my disappointment or fear, but they have put them into perspective. And with this realigned perspective, neither the disappointment nor the fear feel as large as they did when I began this blog.

Negative emotions are part of being alive, and I am so glad I am alive today. Although I would prefer not to have negative emotions, that is not an option. My only choice is to manage them well or poorly. Today I pray that if you are experiencing negative emotions you are able to accept them and manage them well.