Negative emotions, unpleasant emotions: just simple synonyms?

Emotions have a very clear function: whether pleasant or unpleasant, they ensure that information reaches us through sensations to inform us about our psychological state. To illustrate the role of an emotion, you might imagine that an unpleasant emotion represents a little warning light on a car’s dashboard indicating an imbalance. For humans, the imbalance would be within our psyche. Given the certainty that everything is constantly changing, it is normal for our emotions to be just as fluctuating.

They attempt to warn us when a need is unmet amid the incessant transformations of life. In other words, emotions are like visitors who come to pay us a temporary visit.

Subsequently, it is our responsibility to make room for the emotion so that we can eventually decode the message it conveys. In this way, we suggest talking more about unpleasant emotions than negative ones, because they play a very important role in our well-being. Still, several obstacles prevent us from experiencing the emotion simply. Among these, we may be tempted to avoid it by seeking relief, such as eating, distracting ourselves, or minimizing our emotion. These are valid techniques and may be necessary for a time. However, it will be inevitable to address the emotion at some point so that it does not remain blocked within us and paralyze us in the long term.

Moreover, the discomfort associated with an emotion tends to decrease when we stop avoiding it, and our motivation is no longer to run from it. It loses its strength when we sit with it and live it fully. We can become aware, in the section on the emotional process, of where we can start when we want to live an emotion while respecting the path through which it passes. The emotional process explains how an emotion can be experienced healthily when given the chance to complete its cycle/path.

The next time you feel an unpleasant emotion, ask yourself: Oh, what need is this sadness telling me is unmet right now?