How to Allow Negative Attitudes and Feelings to Happen

Positive thinking, it can really screw you over. When you’re in the middle of a meltdown how do you feel when someone tries to persuade you to look at the positive or to be positive? Do you thank them and say ‘yes you’re right, how silly of me, let’s chant an affirmation’? NO - you want to tell them to shut the $#@% up and shove their positivity where the sun definitely isn’t shining.

Why is it that we think that being ‘positive’ will resolve our problems? Why is it that our reflex response to anyone being a complete downer is to make them come up? Have we been conditioned into thinking that ‘positivity’ is, or should be, our natural resting state of being? Why can’t we just let ourselves feel whatever we feel without judging that we should feel another way?

The underlying pervasive expectation to be positive could be the reason for so many of your blind spots when it comes to resolving your problematic emotions, habits, patterns, behaviours and relationship issues. When something really shit happens, you may find yourself in a HURRY to analyse it to find the silver lining, the lesson and the learning – why? I believe it is because you are wanting to force yourself to feel positive. Because you should be positive. Because negative thinking and feeling is ‘bad for you,’ it won’t help you resolve the problem and it definitely won’t empower you. No, you cannot sit around moaning about it, you need to ‘build a bridge’ and ‘get over it’ and ‘push on.’

But have you stopped to think about how forcing yourself to ‘get to the positive’ feels to your inner child? Let’s explore this through the child’s eyes. You’re three years old and something really shit has happened. The dog has decapitated and completely chewed up your favourite stuffed toy, a cow you affectionately named Boris. Boris is the toy you have relied upon for security and comfort since you were a baby. Boris has his own personality – he is a friend, a confidante, a support. Your beloved grandparents bought Boris the cow when travelling in Switzerland, so there is no hope of ever getting another Boris. Now Boris is gone. Boris is headless and his stuffing is scattered across the living room. That’s just shit. Heart-breaking. Sad. Disappointing. Frustrating. Enraging. Raw emotions of loss, grief and abandonment. It’s painful. You throw a ‘tantrum’.

Now imagine that your parent comes along and INTERRUPTS you. They try to MAKE you FEEL GOOD about it. How does that feel? At that moment, you DON’T WANT TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT. You are in the throes of an emotional crisis, an outpouring of negative energy and all you want to do is scream and cry and punch your little fists into the pillow, wishing Boris would reappear and things would go back to the way they were. You don’t want to be interrupted; you want to release how you rightfully feel.

Instead, your parent now begins to INSIST that you FEEL GOOD. They might begin to urge you to ‘get over it’, they might make promises to get you another Boris or a ‘better Boris’, they might try to distract you with other ‘positive’ things – new toys or ice-cream. They have interrupted your emotional experience and now they are insisting that you change it. How does that feel? WORSE. You have all these negative emotions AND NOW you feel guilty, ashamed and inadequate for having them. This is how you were trained to avoid negative emotion – at all costs.

And what does this type of avoidance lead to?

Total imbalance. Anxiety. Depression. Self-denial. Self-criticism. Faking feelings. Putting on a ‘brave face’. Failing to rest and pushing through extreme stress at great physical, emotional and mental costs. Procrastination. Self-sabotage. Believing that there is something inherently wrong with you if you feel bad. The list goes on…

The child, with its innocent and spontaneous expression of emotion, reminds of us of something very important. Something you have forgotten through the rational eyes of the adult. And that is: No matter how hard you try; you cannot choose which emotions you have. Your emotions happen – whether you like it or not. They are generated by a process of filtering that happens BELOW the AWARENESS of your CONSCIOUS MIND. As much as you might like to ‘think’ that you can choose to be HAPPY about something, it’s your body and subconscious programming that will determine whether you can actually feel happiness. You may find this difficult to believe and that is probably because, like everyone, you have become an expert at overriding your spontaneous and unchosen emotion with the positivity or happiness you ‘choose’ to have. But true spontaneous happiness, well that’s up to your body. It is for this reason that if you are to have any chance of establishing emotional balance you must work with your body, with your inner child.  And this might mean – letting it have its tantrum.

If this statement makes you feel uneasy – let’s try and make it feel doable.

Firstly, stop trying to control your feelings. Your ego must accept that your conscious mind efforts at ‘positive thinking’ are really no match for your inner child and its spontaneous emotional outbursts. If there is ever a way to guarantee a tantrum it is by boldly declaring that you will not have a tantrum! You must learn to respect the power of your emotional body as much as the power of your intellect and seek cooperation between them. Trying to ‘control’ the tears only ends in tears.

Secondly, stop trying to predict how you ‘should’ feel. How often are you beating yourself up for feeling or not feeling a certain way? Let’s say you just found out that your work colleague won $20 million dollars and she has quit to run off and do a tour of Outlander locations in the highlands of Scotland. You’re pissed off. Jealous. Full of envious thoughts. Not to mention annoyed that she’s left you with a pile of work. It is true that you do feel happy for her, but you disallow your “What about me?!” tantrum because you should feel happy for someone else. This just creates a ‘tantrum in waiting’ and that is not going to be pretty when it does break free.

Thirdly, don’t fear your raw emotion. While it may feel like your conscious mind has no control over the juggernaut of your emotional outburst, this is not really true. It only feels that way because you have denied your true feelings for so long. You judge yourself for tantrums because they’re childish, chaotic, unsightly, and can be costly (broken dinnerware, dints in the wall etc.)  But these are the versions of tantrums which arise because you haven’t allowed the tantrum! The conscious mind does have a choice and that is, when confronted with an uprising of emotion, it can choose how to best deal with it. You can choose to get proactive and have a tantrum in a fun and empowering way that does NOT HARM anyone else. Over the years, I have had clients who have needed to go to the shooting range, wallop a rug, break plates, and that old favourite – punch a pillow. A controlled tantrum is a powerful release.

Is Tantrum Therapy sounding a bit more appealing now?

Let’s return for a moment to the child. Red faced, snotty and distraught. Flung across the bed in the depths of grief at the death of Boris. Imagine for a moment, what it would have felt like if your parent had said to you: “Oh this is SO SAD that Boris is gone. It must feel awful. Go on, cry it out. I’ll just be here with you while you feel sad. Take as long as you need. Is there something you want me to do?”

I don’t know about you, but when I envisage that response to my ‘tantrum’, I can almost feel my inner child’s tears begin to dry up. I suddenly feel understood, validated and ALLOWED to feel terrible. And it helps. I can move through this emotional experience. I can take my time. There’s no tension, no guilt and no shame. The tantrum has worked its magic.

The permission to feel and be negative is powerful. The permission to release negative emotion mindfully without judgement is taking responsibility for your power. Denying your negativity is simply a way of denying your power.  Contrary to what you might think, giving your negativity some air times does not mean you will get stuck there, it doesn’t prevent you from moving on. It clears the air, your mind, and your system. It frees you to get on with your life.