Handling Negative Emotions

As humans we have many different emotions that can crop up.  Some of these emotions such as anger, some types of fear, jealousy etc take away from ability to show compassion.  These emotions need to be controlled.  When we feel emotions such as anger, our judgement becomes compromised, and we react without intention, and become more open to hurting others.  It is only with a clear mind that we can make proper choices.

Negative emotions also cause health issues.  High blood pressure, depression, heart and stroke issues, are just a few of the ailments that arise because the wrong emotions are running rampant in our bodies.  In order to be healthy in our bodies and develop our compassionate side, we must become familiar with these emotions and familiar with the signs that they are developing, so that we can restrain these negative emotions before they take hold.  

Being able to remove negative emotions before they have a chance to fester allows us to have more clarity over the issue and develop positive solutions to these problems.  Once we have been infected we loose control over out judgement, and that is when we start to hurt others, and hurt ourselves.

How can we get control over our negative emotions?  One way is to become familiar with them, and contemplate them.  We can develop new patterns, so that once an emotion like anger is invoked, we already realize that it is coming and we can have some 'medicine' available to us.  We can catch it before it takes over and remind ourselves how we have planned to react, and learn to push the angry emotion away.  

Mindfulness of ourselves is key.  This can be developed consciously, thru a practice of confronting these emotions in a thoughtful manner when we are not in that state, but of a clear mind and reviewing how we are going to react the next time those feelings come up.  A few minutes meditating on this every week is a good way to start.  

Steps to learning how to handle negative emotions:

• Be mindful of the emotions that we are feeling in any given situation.
• Become familiar with these emotions and when and how they are invoked, so that you can learn to see it happening.
• Contemplate these negative emotions and become familiar with them.  This can be done a few minutes for a few times a week perhaps during a meditation.
• Think about how you can replace these negative emotions with a more constructive response.
• Commit to being intentional and mindful about your emotions, and practice, practice, practice.
• Don't connect to negative emotions if you slip up, or it takes a while to get the hang of it.  Have compassion for yourself too!!