Tolerating Our Emotions: The First Step To Be Happy

Emotions are those relatively brief psychophysiological states that we all inevitably experience. Your task is to send us a clear message: something is happening, inside or outside of you (but related in some way to you), that needs your attention. Whether positive or negative, emotions move us and push us to act in a specific way. In fact, the term emotion comes from the Latin emotio which means “movement or impulse”, “that which moves you towards”.

Emotional states are caused by the release in our brain of certain neurotransmitters or hormones, which turn emotions into feelings. Unlike emotions, feelings are more sustained over time and can be more easily verbalized.

We can classify emotions according to their valence: healthy positive emotions (joy, well-being, peace …), unhealthy positive emotions (euphoria, mania, hypomania …), healthy negative emotions (frustration, sadness, anger, regret …) and emotions unhealthy negatives (depression, anxiety, guilt …).

In line with this issue, it seems that society has installed in our heads the demand to always be well and this is totally unrealistic and unattainable. Emotional states come and go depending on the context, our expectations, how we process information … and always being installed in the same emotional state of happiness is as little adaptive as it is utopian.

Why is it so hard for us to tolerate emotions?

We live in a culture of well-being and consumption. We are continually bombarded with unrealistic messages that only increase the pressure on us. These messages usually tell us that under the product they advertise is the solution to many of our ills. They also reinforce the idea that we should always smile, no matter what. Finally, they overestimate the control we have over our lives, so that the blame for sadness is only us.

All this irrational positivity does is make us feel worse. Thus, being in a positive state of mind is such an enormous demand that it can be the main obstacle to never reaching this state. It also leads us to put a disguise to our feelings, so that we only let others perceive those that are socially approved.

With this attitude, the only thing we get is to feel bad for the fact of being bad, worth the redundancy and then we do not arrive at any congruent solution. This double “terribilitis”, as Albert Ellis said, causes negative feelings to be prolonged and even those that were negative but healthy become unhealthy.

And not only society influences this poor way of managing emotions, education received in childhood is also a risk factor. Emotional intelligence is conspicuous by its absence in educational plans. For example, how many of you have been reminded that “men don’t cry”?

Strategies for learning to accept how we feel

If we learn to effectively tolerate our emotional states, whatever they may be, paradoxically we will feel how those negative emotions on many occasions are going to dissolve by themselves. It is not about feeding our emotions with more negative thoughts, acting as victims or ultimately adding fuel to the fire. What we mean is that it does not help us to criticize or judge ourselves if we experience anxiety, sadness or anger.

Some strategies that we can put into practice from today are:

Forget the “shoulds”

When you hear that inner voice spouting some “should”, force him to change it for a preference or a “wish”. We cannot be continually trying to control how things should be, not even our emotional states. I will only be able to modify the thoughts responsible for my disturbance if I first accept that at that moment I feel bad.

You are a human being and you have to accept yourself as such

You are not a God, nor a super-man, nor someone perfect. You are human and as such you will live emotional states that will be more or less pleasant. It is important to accept the idea that we cannot fight against our own nature.

Feel the emotion in your body

Invite emotion to dwell in you. It’s just discomfort, it’s not going to kill you. It’s a bunch of chemistry running through your bloodstream. Don’t give it more dimension, don’t dramatize it. Love it, accepted, it is part of your being.

Normalize your emotional states

Just as we explain to other people that we are in pain or that we are hot or cold, we can talk about our emotions when they are not the most positive. To tolerate emotion you have to accept it, and accepting it also means normalizing it at all levels, even with others. Then another emotion may appear: shame. But remember that this is the product of wanting to hide for doing something wrong. Is it bad to feel bad from time to time?

Do not forget that your emotions, far from making you a weak person, make you be and live as a human being. Don’t hide them, live them, learn from them and let them inspire you.