Being sad, angry, disappointed, and jealous are widely believed to be "negative" emotions - but I am going to tell you, they're not. Each one is a response to our surroundings and comes from within our core, much like the so-called "positive" ones.
Our society sends mixed messages on emotions -we need to stop doing that. Here's an example of what I mean- when someone voices or exhibits sadness, we tell them to think positive, but we don't offer tools in understanding their sadness. We don't listen to their whys. The minute you tell them to not feel a certain way you are saying their experience doesn't matter. It is a slammed door.
Anyone who has truly evaluated their life and walked a path of healing knows most of the wisdom we gain along that journey comes from the emotions we would rather not feel - it is our wounds talking to us and telling us they need healing - they need care - they need attention. What they don't need is to be discounted nor shoved away.
I have lost many people in my life, both of my parents are now gone. My marriage was destroyed. People I thought were friends, but truly weren't, thankfully have departed. Each of those losses came with strong emotions and once I allowed myself to grieve what needed to be grieved..feel what needed to be felt, lessons I needed to learn were learnt. Losing family to death makes you appreciate your loved ones who are alive, even more. In my case grieving a marriage that was lost to domestic violence made me evaluate my choices in life and all the whys deeper than I ever did before. As for people who I thought were friends who truly weren't, I learned that I needed to create and stick to stronger boundaries. None of those lessons would have been learnt if I numbed my pain or dishonored my emotions by creating distractions away from feeling.
There's truth in that old saying that pain always worsens before it gets better - the key to getting better is to acknowledge your truth to begin with...we cannot learn from a lie we tell ourselves, no matter how many times we try to convince ourselves.
I wasted too many decades running from my emotions, too many nights of excruciating pain when the distractions not working added more emotions to deal with.
I learned to run from my emotions as a child, a lesson no child should ever be taught. Whenever I would reach out with those so-called negative emotions I was told to stop talking about them, stop feeling them, just to go away. Of course that never worked and all that happened was those emotions were stored away, brewing, and then showed their wrath of being ignored in other ways. It is pretty damn hard to run away from yourself - actually impossible.
Perhaps you're wondering why I am being so damn passionate about all of this, well, I have been for a long while but recently something happened that angered me to the point of action. My action in this case is writing about this all in hopes that it connects with someone who needs to hear all of this just so they realize they are not alone, they are not crazy, they are not weak and there is hope.
I had someone contact me, they were talking about wanting to stop feeling, wanting to die and all because they couldn't find happiness, they couldn't stop feeling sad. They felt unworthy of life because of an emotion they were experiencing and no one would listen to them - they were just told to think positive and to stop talking about it. They had doors of support slammed in their face when they needed someone just to listen so they could let the pain out.
Just the mere thought that this person was so incredibly fragile and people in their day to day world couldn't give a true damn is what infuriated me. I listened to their story through their tears. It was quite a heartbreaking situation and there was no way I was going to utter the false hope of think positive to gaping emotional wounds. That would have been like pouring salt and vinegar into a festering infection.
Together we discovered that their sadness wasn't necessarily the recent loss they were experiencing, it actually went deeper into their life to when they were a child, a wound that was never given tender loving care. All the recent loss did was tear off the scab that had been trying to camouflage it all. Once they realized where it all started from they were finally able to grieve what needed to be grieved. Was it easy? No, but it gave them hope and true hope is healing.
Will they be sad in the future? Of course they will experience sadness but next time they will realize that sadness is only a reaction to something in their life, it does not have to be a state of being like it was while they were trying to run from their truth.
Our days are filled with emotions, we all experience a full range of them and at various points throughout the day and that is what makes us human. We feel, we can evaluate, and we evolve. We do it without really noticing but it is when we refuse to care for those old wounds we've been walking around with, trying to ignore, is when we get in trouble.
If you truly believe in the Law of Attraction then realize this, if you're running from your truth then you will attract others who are living a falsehood as well.
The concept of the Law of Attraction has been abused and misused. Now, here comes another shocker - the concept of "think it, believe it, receive it," is not new. Actually it has been around and used in non mainstream religions for a very long time - Those who practice Wicca use it in spells as do those who practice HooDoo and you can find it in various forms in Paganism and Spiritualism. I bet all my devout Christian friends just gasped.
The first person who named it as such was Helena Blavatsky and that happened in the late 1800s, She was a Russian occultist. She was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society.
Now, I am a person who does believe positive energy and negative energy - but I do not believe emotions are negative nor positive, they are tools in understanding our experience as humans. It is when we do not respect our experience nor our emotions for what they are, as they are, is when the negative can set in. That includes when we do not respect the emotions and experience of others, believing we are holier than thou.
But all of that is a different matter for a different post -
For now, know that your emotions are an extension of you ...allow yourself to feel them for the truth they present. When you do, you will start knowing yourself better than ever before.
Give those emotions and wounds a voice, keep a journal handy and just let them flow.
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