24 May Learning How to Deal with Different Emotions

Avoiding negative emotions buys you short term gain at the price of long term pain.

Many people suffer from borderline personality disorder (BPD), a mental disorder characterised by unstable moods, behaviour and relationships. They experience psychiatric disorders that prevents them from accepting emotions. Emotions can be related to problems such as relationships, self-image, emotions, behaviours and thinking.

In reality, many of us suffer from emotional avoidance on a day-to-day basis. Based on psychological research, habit of emotional avoidance is one of the main causes of many psychological problems. Why? We tend to forcefully push our emotions aside, hoping that these feelings will magically go away. In the short run, avoidance is an effective solution however in the long term, these negativities become bottled-up emotions, risking a potential outburst of irrational emotions.

There are a few steps to cope with negative emotions.  

1.     Don’t immediately reject your emotions.

Rejecting emotions make the situation worse, creating an eternal battle between mind and body.  You are only building more resentment and hatred towards yourself by pretending like nothing happened. Ignorance begets fear. Escapism will never solve any problems.  

2.     Be aware of these negative emotions and let it run its course.

Don’t bother starting a fight against negative emotions. Let it be and allow sadness, fear, frustration, or anxiety to flow through your mind. Loosen up and let these tensions bypass you. It may take seconds, minutes, or hours but these feelings will eventually fade away. Use these emotional rides as messages explaining why you are feeling like this, and what triggered these emotions, so you gain clarity in the situation. The presence of these negative emotions serve as lessons in learning about yourself and coping with difficulties.  

3.     What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

It is only humane that we go through emotional rides. Accept the negative emotion, acknowledge its presence, and let the experience be a lesson in strengthening your will and power. Instead of swimming against the current, let the waves guide you. When it weakens, let this experience empower you to swim faster and harder.