Whitney Goodman is a psychotherapist and the author of Toxic Positivity: How To Embrace Every Emotion in a Happy-Obsessed World. She says: “Simply knowing what emotion you are feeling and being able to label it can transform your emotional experience, and help you feel more at ease. Researchers have found that when we deny and suppress feelings, it increases activity in the amygdala – the part of the brain which deals with emotions – which makes us feel more stressed. “Just being able to name the feeling, to say ‘I’m upset’ or “I feel really angry right now’ because you’ve done this”, can decrease the activity.”
“We all need our feelings – whatever they may be – to understand ourselves, our relationships and our world, to know when to leave a relationship and when to stay,” adds Sarner. “The problem is not the feelings themselves, but the things people do not to feel things, for example, acting in a violent way so they can feel strong and the person they are with becomes the frightened one.”
2. Don’t avoid or numb the ‘ugly’ feeling "
Feelings may feel life-threatening, but they aren’t,” says Sarner. “But what can be dangerous is acting on your emotions – throwing a chair across the room, for example. It’s not the feeling that’s bad, although the action might be. What’s key is finding the space to be angry without acting on it in the moment.”
Scott*, 62, used to clam up when he was irritated by his wife. “When things weren’t going well, the more she would ask me to do something, the more I would go into my shell,” he says. “I could feel myself getting increasingly tightly-wound until it all came out at once: I would shout and rant and I can see how that would have been scary. I wasn’t proud of myself.” When Scott’s wife threatened to leave, he attended a course of anger management therapy and things are now on a more even keel. Even if things don’t go this far, there is a danger that people unequipped to deal with negative emotions run the risk of numbing themselves with alcohol, drugs or sex, scrolling on social media: as Sarner puts it, “anything to kill the feeling off”.
Goodman agrees. “Instead of running from that emotion or numbing it, experience it,” she says. “Talk it over with a trusted friend or a professional. Writing about your feelings has been shown to help people manage their emotions, process them, or make better decisions.” Having a good cry is a tried-and-tested method that really works and has cathartic effects for us mentally and physically.
3. Don’t fall foul of becoming a toxic optimist
There’s a growing movement in Western culture not only to deny our negative emotions, but to put a bright and sunny spin on them. This has led to a new phenomenon which psychologists have termed “toxic positivity”.
Toxic positivity is a distortion of the highly regarded “positive psychology” movement from the 1990s. While positive psychology encourages seeing the “up-side” as often as you can, toxic positivity implies actually faking good feelings. It’s the world of “everything happens for a reason”, and cloying affirmations such as “Be grateful for what you’ve learnt”.
“There are many benefits to being positive, but things can go wrong and people need psychological flex to deal with more difficult emotions,” says Goodman. She believes that this relentlessly cheerful approach is damaging, as it implies that what people are feeling is “wrong”, that they shouldn’t be feeling it at all. “It makes people feel guilty and ashamed and silences legitimate concerns – that they aren’t strong enough, or even that bad things are their fault,” Goodman adds.
A study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who habitually avoid acknowledging challenging emotions can end up feeling worse than they did before. “Accepting negative emotions, rather than just avoiding or dismissing them, may be more beneficial in the long run,” says Brett Ford, the lead author of the study. “People who tend not to judge their feelings and not think about their emotions as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ tend to have better mental health across the board.”
4. Go easy on yourself and open up to other friends
“It can help to acknowledge that pain is an unavoidable part of life and that fighting back against this suffering typically leads to more suffering,” says Goodman. “This doesn’t mean you like, or even accept, the current reality, but are able to accept the facts or the situation, even if you can’t change them.”
Often, simply opening up to a friend or partner can help take the edge off the feelings. According to Goodman, the biggest predictor of healthy wellbeing is the quality of your relationships. “In the end, feeling positive is about being around people that support and increase moments of happiness.” These could be your family, friends and colleagues, but also the casual interactions you have on a daily basis, such as the barista or the man who does your dry cleaning. At the end of the day, there’s no way to get through life without at least the odd spike of anger, envy, or resentment.
The answer, says Sarner, is “to feel those ugly feelings” and to manage them with grace.
