Fleeing Feelings

I just made a remarkable realization.

It is this: Many people don’t want to feel negative emotions.

I know! You’re like,

“Betsy, what is wrong with you? I mean, you’re a therapist! You’re a psycho-coach! Why is this news to you?”

And you’re like,

“My god! Why would anyone want to feel negative emotions?”

And you’re probably tempted to stop reading right now because, like, what an idiot!

But don’t.

I think the reason I found this realization remarkable is that the people I work with — teachers, students — are not afraid to feel. They figure out very quickly, through our work together, that their negative emotions are gold mines. When we find a motherlode — like strong anxiety or anger or frustration or a desire to quit — we dig down into the hidden meanings of the emotions, their sources and lessons, and, when we think we have a bit of a handle on all those things, we come up with a workable plan of action that will address them.

And the people I work with learn pretty quickly that staying with negative emotions — not fleeing or fearing them — makes them feel better. Short-term and long-term.

This realization I speak of — the one about people’s desire to flee feelings — came when I listened to an episode of The Hidden Brain, a podcast that “explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior.” The episode was “A Better Way to Worry.” In that episode, someone said that people would rather not feel anxiety or worry and so they avoid those emotions at all costs. The point of the episode — the big reveal — was that

avoiding anxiety is a bad idea.

And, according to research described in the episode, diving into anxiety, trying to figure out what it’s signaling to us, what it’s teaching us, is

good.

I was like,

“What is wrong with people? Why is that realization — that working with negative emotions is good — news?”

So you see, I was just as blown away by someone else’s realization as you might be by mine.

What’s wrong with me is that I cherish negative emotions. I know their power. And I have great faith that attending to them leads to insight and wisdom.

What’s wrong with (some) people is that they fear feeling. They would rather avoid negative emotions than honor and learn from them. They somehow have come to believe that sensations that evolved to alert us to disequilibrium in our organisms are extraneous, inconvenient, burdensome. Even, apparently, terrifying.

That’s flat wrong.

Mantra: Bring it, negativity! And beware, cuz I can get to the bottom of you and emerge better and wiser.