Dealing with negative feelings and emotions

We all have at times felt having negative feelings towards people who are close to us, but how do you deal with it?

I struggled with this for years, I had all these feelings and emotions inside of me but didn’t have anyone I could openly speak to without being judged.

So what did I do? I just bottled them all up inside of me, but what I learnt with time, after being overwhelmed with all these feelings and emotions being built up inside of me was that I could no longer ignore them.

I had to acknowledge all these feelings, try to analyse them why I felt the way I did – was these feelings from the authentic me (my own thoughts) or was it my inner critic (and peoples opinions I had grown up with) that had made something big out of nothing?

I then decided to start journaling. The title of my page was ‘Things and People that upset and bother me’ – I know it’s a long title, but for me, it summed up everything I needed to put on paper. When I found myself being side-tracked, I’d take a look at the title to be gently reminded of what I was doing.

Then one by one, I got out all the emotions and feelings down, I analysed them to see where this feeling came from to start with. Why did I feel so negative? Why did I feel hatred towards this person?

I went as deep down into my memory bank as I could, wrote down everything I could remember, spoke out loud (to myself) – I guess I just needed to ‘hear’ it. There were tears, smiles, ‘aha’ moments and more, it took me a good 1 month to deal with all of this – one suppressed feeling a day to deal with.

I acknowledged my feelings and emotions, I forgave the person who made me feel this way and I forgave myself for allowing me to feel this way and then I burnt the paper I had written on – I let go.

Now, I am not saying that I haven’t felt those negative feelings since, they do come back now and then, I acknowledge these feelings and try to shift my mindset on to something positive.

For example; for the last couple of days I have felt a bit upset about the way a friend treated me, I have felt anger, I let myself feel this, I asked myself if this anger has anything to do with my authentic self (did I do anything wrong?) or is it my friend’s insecurities and rudeness that made me feel this way.

Once I analysed where the problem was, which had nothing to with me – I took a few deep breaths and let it go. With each breath I took in, I was thinking of those feelings, with each breath out – I let those feelings, thoughts and emotions go.

I got myself ready to study, opened Facebook to post a quote when I got a reminder from Facebook that it’s ( years since I joined. I scrolled through my memories; positive quotes, family photos, holidays, meeting celebrities and more – I had a big smile on my face!

Don’t let one (or two) negative things/feelings ruin all the good experiences you have had. There’s always something to be happy about, a simple thing as a walk in the sunshine, listen to a track which makes you excited, chocolate (my favourite!), a phone call to a friend you’ve been thinking of – the list is endless.

Tips on how to deal with negative feelings

• Recognise and name the emotion.
• Learn from the emotion.
• Snapback into the present moment.
• Remind yourself that the emotion will pass.
• Accept the emotion.
• Figure out what is causing the emotion.
• Tell yourself the emotion won’t last forever.
• Notice how emotion is affecting your behaviour.

How do you deal with negative feelings and emotions?

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