Manage your negative emotions through five steps

If you view negative emotions as something you should not experience, you will naturally resist them. But if you accept that negative emotions are a natural part of your experiences, you may be more open and curious to work with them.

Think about how much you have inside you for example… anger, fear, sadness and shame?

Then take a minute to think about how you view and deal with negative emotions within yourself:

      – Do you get annoyed when you experience them?

      – Are you afraid of these feelings?

      – Are you anxious about letting go of negative emotions when they arise?

      – Do you believe that negative emotions are only for weak people?

      – Can you spot a pattern of seeking pleasure to escape your feelings?

      – Do you see negative emotions as part of life?

      – Do you believe that you are capable of accepting whatever you feel?

To help you, here is a five-step guide that you can use to neutralize your negative emotions.

Step 1: Pause and find your center

The faster we move through life, the less we feel. As we entertain, we occasionally pause, so we can "stop and see" what's going on. The more you can nestle into your center, the more easily repressed emotions will surface. And with these emotions, you will often see images and memories (perhaps from childhood) where you originally experienced these emotions. Now, let's say you did this and discovered a negative emotion.

Step 2: Adjust to your body

Tune in to the state of feeling in your body. How does it feel? (Anger, sadness, frustration, fear, sadness, depression, or shame.) Where exactly do you experience it in your body? (Head, throat, chest, intestines or feet.) And what is the feeling? (Hard, soft, cool, warm, sticky, throbbing, vibrating or heavy).

Focus your attention on the physical sensations and overall feeling. Allow the feeling and sensations to be what they are, welcoming the feelings and accepting them with full awareness.

Step 3: Relax all condemnation

We tend to judge our feelings. I shouldn't feel this way, we might say. Let go of the tendency to judge yourself or react to emotions. Just be with what you feel. Take full responsibility for your emotions. Notice that the emotional energy comes from you, rather than happening to you.

As long as you hold someone or something else as the source of your emotions ("his actions make me feel this way"), you will have limited resources for processing emotions. For a moment, let go of the connection with the person or object if the feeling is about someone or something.

Step 4: Allow the emotional energy to flow

Breathe deeply from your belly. Take slow, steady, deep breaths, allowing the emotional energy to flow freely through you. As you breathe consciously, observe how the sensations change as the emotional energy moves through you. Pay attention to emotions in a relaxed, centered space.

Step 5: Experience the released emotional energy

After a while, the raw energy of emotions is released. Here, you may discover another negative emotion hidden behind it; in this case, go through the process from the beginning. But you will most likely experience the unhindered positive energy of this transmutation process. You will feel more open, lighter, liberated and free.

Ideas for creating a new orientation to emotions

Most of us subconsciously develop a habit of judging or trying to control our feelings. And so it is helpful to establish a new context and belief for them. In my understanding, emotions are a form of energy. There are no "wrong" feelings. Feelings often appear that seem irrational until we understand their source.

We are not our emotions, but they live within us. The feelings we don't contain "spread" to those around us.

We either accept the emotion or resist it.

Resistance makes the feeling grow stronger within us.

Accepting the negative emotion means that we are on the way to solving it.

Managing emotions is a life skill that helps us and teaches us how in life we can neutralize negative emotions and turn them into positive energy that we will use only for us.