Are Some Emotions “Bad”?
I recently started reading a book recommended to me called Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin, M.D. She talks early on about an idea that I’ve spend a lot of time thinking about over the past decade. It was first introduced to me in the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson.
“Many people are taught to repress their emotions for various personal, social, or cultural reasons — particularly negative emotions. Sadly, to deny these emotions is to deny many of the feedback mechanisms that help a person solve problems. Remember, pain serves a purpose.”
He talks about how “Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution.” The idea of “toxic positivity”, where society tells you you should always feel happy, so now not only do you feel bad, you feel bad about feeling bad. And around and around you go. I read this book during a particularly difficult time in my life and was hiding from pretty much every single one of those “bad emotions”. Reading this was such an immediate light bulb for me. I realized that I COULD let myself be sad, I could tell people I wasn’t ok and let them help me. I figured things out for the first time by moving through them, instead of away from them.
This idea showed up again in my favorite book The Untethered Soul by Michael Alan Singer.
“If life does something that causes a disturbance inside of you, instead of pulling away, let it pass through you like the wind. At any moment you can feel frustration, anger, fear, jealousy, insecurity, or embarrassment. If you watch, you will see that your heart is trying to push it all away. If you want to be free, you have to learn to stop fighting these human feelings.”
Same idea. Stress comes from resistance, peace comes from acceptance of both the good and the bad. Sitting, breathing, feeling these emotions fully, that is where true happiness comes from. Now, to circle back to Mind Over Medicine, Dr. Rankin talks about the idea that:
“Every emotion is a necessary, useful call to action”
Instead of hiding from them, they are an invitation to become conscious of why they arrive and how they are here to help.
She says “anger protects our boundaries and helps us lessen our attachments to people who treat us poorly. Fear is related to intuition, clarity, instinct, and attentiveness, helping you focus on the present moment so you can respond to what’s happening appropriately. Sadness brings the gift of release, helping us to let go of what isn’t working.”
She then goes on to reference Pixar’s Inside Out, which if you know me, you know a Pixar reference is the quickest way to my heart 🧡 In the movie, when the little girl moves away from her childhood home, the character of the emotion Joy attempts to paint everything in a positive light. It wasn’t until she accepted Sadness allowing her to get the love, attention, and comfort that she needed to heal (powerful stuff for a kid’s movie).
So are these emotions “bad”? Or do they have something to teach us? 🤟🏼
