Negative Emotions

There are emotions, and then there's our judgement of the emotions.

We call some emotions ‘positive’ and others ‘negative.’

Sometimes an emotion can be negative in light of whether it's helpful for our goal or not. Like feeling anxiety when you're stepping on stage for an important public talk.

But often when we label an emotion as ‘negative’ it means that we have some resistance to fully accepting and feeling that emotion.

There's the emotion. Then there's the resistance to the emotion. And resistance is where the issues come from.

We may feel that the emotion is to be avoided or purged because it interferes with our day, our pursuits, or our joy. But most of the time it's the resistance to the emotion that derails us. Like damming up our energy, we get cut off from What Is. This may be needed for a moment - it may not be smart to fully feel the wave of emotion while you are driving or while your child needs your help. Many of us, though, attempt to resist certain emotions entirely, cutting ourselves off from the truth of what is happening in us.

If we see emotions as types of fuel, we may conclude that there is good fuel that helps us get where we are going and there is bad fuel that runs us down. And certainly emotion can be a type of fuel.

We might also see emotions as messengers, bringing us information about reality that we can utilize (even if it might not be wanted).

Through the lens of Emotions as Messengers, what reason might we resist certain emotions? Certain messages? What might we be afraid of? What might we not want to hear?

Are our emotions obstacles to overcome? Or are they the path to where we ultimately want to go?

I'm often tempted to think that an enlightened life looks like all Highs and no Lows. I want my landscape to be all mountains with no valleys, all sunshine and no rain.

That is not a life of freedom, but a life shaped by fear.

Ram Dass said it well: "You say, 'Everything in my life, the highs and the lows, are all grist for the mill of going home. I will eat it all.' And it's even farther out than that because at that point your suffering becomes functional for your awakening. Your suffering literally becomes grace."