We move through negative feelings by spending time with them.
Emotions are like weather patterns. They never stick around too long. Often, we think that feeling negative emotions makes us wrong, weird, or bad. But it’s just the opposite.
To feel is what differentiates us from cold, hard machines.
Emotions are data that we use to course correct
Negative emotions – crappy, painful, ugh – all have a purpose.
They’re not there to “get” you – and how you think about them matters. Our thoughts form our reality, independent of reality itself – but more on that another day. Emotions are pieces of data that tell us if we’re on a good course, or if we should change something.
When we try to push away negative feelings, it’s like slapping a sticker over a ‘check engine’ light. Ignoring these pieces of data causes us to slowly lose our ability to deal with what the world throws at us.
When we simply sit in it – our currents emotion(s) – we don’t have to do it with a smile. It’s not meant to bring us happiness, but peace.
Peace with what is. There is nothing more simple than this. And I say simple, not easy.
We can laugh, cry, shake with anger, and still experience peace at the same time. How? By accepting what is and knowing that these emotions we’re feeling are just weather patterns passing through.
In contrast, if we spend our energy trying to fight the emotions or change them, we’ll get exhausted, frustrated, and miserable. Imagine standing out in the middle of a storm – you can struggle all you want to try to stop the rain and thunder, but that storm will keep on going until it passes.
It’s up to you whether you want to exhaust yourself striving to change the weather, or enjoy the sound of the rain and feel awestruck at the powerful booms of thunder. How we think about it matters.
Sitting in it is the best way to let the negative emotion weather pattern pass. Feeling negative emotions, feeling like crap on occasion, is normal. The only humans who don’t experience this are humans who are dead.
I don’t want to sugarcoat this – sitting in it isn’t going to bring you happiness. It’ll probably be uncomfortable. If you’re feeling something negative, sitting with it instead of turning to TikTok or a bowl of ice cream can be maddeningly difficult. But there’s something very human and satisfying about it too because instead of fleeing, we’re saying to the universe “I can handle anything that comes my way.” We become our own superhero who can save us from anything.
Sometimes, this satisfaction can be more powerful than temporary happiness or comfort. You decide. Plus, you won’t be struggling and stressing yourself out by trying to change the unchangeable, which comes with the numerous health benefits.
Think about what can be gained by no longer spending huge amounts of energy running away. I think this is what people mean when they say, “embrace the feeling”, though that’s too vague to be helpful to anyone.
When you think of the word “emotion,” think “e-motion” or “energy in motion.” Always in motion, always changing. If we don’t like one, we know that soon it will change. If we like one, savor it, because it too will soon be gone. This is life.
By sitting in it, we don’t fight the constantly flowing river of life, we flow with it, struggle less, and can thus find peace.
For those annoyed with the idea of just “sitting in it”
Understandable. We live in a society that fetishizes success, overworking, doing more-more-more. We’re taught that hard work can accomplish anything. Many of us feel guilty just for taking a few minutes here and there to relax, sometimes so much so that we rarely truly relax at all. Some people spend their entire lives like this.
Studies show that when we try to push away certain emotions, they actually tend to stick around longer.
Acceptance of negativity builds resilience, and people with lots of resilience tend to have lots of optimism. The two build on each other like an upward spiral. If you are someone who deeply values productivity and hard work, consider how this upward spiral could impact you.
Consider also that emotions evolved to keep us alive. Emotions are information, so at any time we can think: what is this particular emotion, and what is it trying to teach me? Emotions are ultimately there as signals to tell us if we’re going in a good direction, or if we need to course correct. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable approach to look at “sitting in it” as having a new source of info to use to our advantage. Even a single minute of sitting in it every now and then makes a difference.
Conclusion: Why We’re Told to Not Ignore Negative Feelings
Negative emotions are like weather patterns, always on the move, and will always leave soon. We can struggle against them while they’re over us, or we can accept them and know they’re on their way out.
When we encounter negativity, the fastest way to let it pass is to sit in it. As humans, we are great at adapting, and whatever we sit in for long enough will become bearable – we may even find a new perspective that can be somewhat enjoyable.
Sit in it. Sit in the muck! Bathe in that warm, uncomfy, mucky feeling (is that going too far? Yeah, that’s going too far. Sorry.) and know that it’ll be replaced with something else soon.
By the way, this also all applies for positive, feel-good emotions too, and sitting in it can be a very rich, enjoyable time. The next time you’re happy or feel a wave of gratefulness wash over you, try to simply sit in it for a minute while it’s there – there is no doing it wrong, it may go away, it may be underwhelming, whatever happens is perfectly fine.
Sitting in it is a chance to get away from the constant stimulation, the screens, the sugar, the advertising that invades nearly every moment of our lives. Try it a time or two. Try starting with one minute of sitting and doing nothing but feeling and accepting the emotion, and if you’re feeling like it, try two or three. Frame it as an experiment – it may not work, and so there’s no commitment other than that one minute. Try this five to ten times in a week, and simply see what happens. If you don’t like it, you can drop it and never do it again.
Don’t feel like you’re not doing it right if some spectacular outcome doesn’t come.
Sitting in it is not glorious, glamorous, and you won’t see it in movies or TV, but it’s an excellent way to become more competent with dealing with all that life can throw at us. We can find peace despite external circumstances, slow down, deal with less stress, and enjoy being human.