Can Accepting Negative Emotions Make You Happier?

Experiencing negative emotions is unpleasant and sometimes even painful, especially considering that our brains tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Therefore, accepting negative emotions can be complicated, although it is true that it undoubtedly has a positive impact on our well-being.

We tend to suppress emotions such as fear, sadness or anger – classified as negative.  The problem is that this crackdown has long-term consequences, both physical and mental. Because avoiding or rejecting them does not mean that they disappear, quite the contrary. One way or another, they accumulate in us and generate greater suffering.

So, constructively confronting our negative emotions can help us evolve, achieve crucial goals in life, maintain healthy bonds with others and, most importantly, get to know ourselves. Let’s go further on this subject.

Accept negative emotions without judging them

Anger, fear or sadness are emotions that are part of our daily life. However, just as they tell us something about ourselves and the needs we have when we are experiencing them, they also often cause stress or anxiety if we don’t know how to deal with them. This is why they are often avoided, ignored or we forbid them.

Learning to deal with negative emotions is undoubtedly a complex learning process, because it is about facing them, analyzing them and thinking about what they want to convey to us. This does not mean that we have to be permissive with them. But rather that we know how to deal with them, that we are aware of what we are experiencing and the reasons why we are feeling them.

The difference between acceptance and suffering

It is important to try to be aware of the difference between accepting negative emotions that can make us suffer and experiencing the suffering that we impose on ourselves.

Acceptance is closely linked to balance. However, Western culture today tends to demand that we try to stay happy all the time. However, this is an unrealistic expectation that can harm our psychological well-being.

Balance lies in a life of positivity and negativity, to the right extent. Indeed, the combination of the two extremes can help us infuse quiet satisfaction into our life.

However, this is a process that takes time and work. It’s not easy to come to terms with negative emotions because acceptance, like any other cognitive habit, is a skill that grows and develops over time.

Strategies to better manage negative emotions

Several strategies have been explored and developed to accept and process negative emotions. However, there is a specific group of approaches that are growing in popularity. In the study conducted by Ceri Sims, these approaches are referred to as TEARS HOPE.

TEARS: Tears

• T – Teach and Learn. This strategy involves working on self-awareness and increasing knowledge about body and mind, as well as how they both respond to different emotional states. This way, it will be easier to understand when you are upset and why, in addition to knowing how to interpret the signals the body is sending.

• E – Express and enable sensory and embodied experiences . This technique is based on encouraging openness and inner curiosity to increase acceptance of what is happening in everyday life.
• A – Accept and befriend. It is about increasing self-compassion and tolerance for frustration.
• R – Re-appraise and re-frame . This technique involves learning to see things differently. Cognitive-behavioral approaches can be used for this purpose.
• S – Social media (social support) . This strategy highlights the need to increase feelings of connection with others and self-compassion, while investing efforts in improving our personal relationships. Meditation and mindfulness can help.

(of) HOPE: “(d ‘) espoir”.

• H – Hedonic wellbeing / happiness. Science shows that maintaining a 3 to 1 ratio of positive emotions to negative emotions can be beneficial. This means that it is important to manifest positive experiences on a daily basis, to focus on happy memories and to savor successes. But also to increase the time spent in a positive state of mind and to try to compensate for negative emotions.
• O – Observe and attend to. This technique emphasizes the practice of mindfulness. To achieve this, we need to stop paying too much attention to the things that are not really important.

• P – Physiology and behavioral changes. It is usually productive to focus on relaxation, breathing exercises, and personal care.
• E – Eudaimonia (eudemonism). This technique involves a sense of authenticity and the search for personal goals in life.

Accepting negative emotions helps you feel better

Most mental health professionals agree that accepting negative emotions without judging them can be one of the best ways to improve overall psychological well-being. For this reason, it is common for psychologists to recommend experimenting with negative emotions in order to deal with them.

So an important key to improving emotional well-being lies in accepting, in the first place, that we are struggling with negative emotions. In this regard, Iris Mauss, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, explains that ” people who usually accept their negative emotions experience these types of emotions less, which is equivalent to better psychological health “.

Additionally, according to several studies, people who tend to be less upset by the negative feelings they experience may experience higher levels of well-being than those who are more likely to consistently blame themselves. .

As we see, accepting negative emotions and working with them is fundamental to feeling well.

Our thoughts

To better understand the route of our emotions, we need to know some data. In this article, we are going to share with you some of the ent …