How to deal with unpleasant emotions.

Most of us find it really difficult to deal with the unpleasant emotions. Whenever we are in the grip of any unpleasant emotion, be it anger, greed jealousy or hatred, we lose all the reason, clarity and intelligence. We always come out of these emotions battered and bruised. Either we hurt ourselves or we hurt others. This is everyone’s story. For some of us living with anger, jealousy or hatred has become a part of life. We have become habituated to them. The irony is that we don’t even try to understand why we end up falling into the same pit again and again. We appear to be so intelligent on the outside but all that is a sham. We have an opinion about politics, religion, sports, environment or economy, however, we are totally oblivious to what goes on in our little heads all the time. This lack of awareness about what goes on in our head is the fundamental cause of our emotional problems. We are unaware of our emotional response system. Let’s try to understand the nature of emotions and how we respond to them.

Nature of emotions.

The first thing to be understood about emotions is that they stem from our unconsciousness. You don’t deliberately choose to become jealous or angry. Anger or jealousy happens to you. They come to you as an uninvited guest. You can’t avoid them and there is a reason behind it. We live in a very complex world where arguments, confrontations or comparisons have become a part of our daily life. We don’t live in isolation. Throughout the day situations will arise where you will become angry, jealous, sad, greedy and it’s fine. These emotions are a part of being human. We are configured to have them and it’s not a problem. A flower has fragrance as well as thorns but if the flower ceases to have any fragrance and becomes all thorns, that is where the problem arises. That is the beginning of neurosis. The point that I am trying to make is that emotions are our unconscious reactions to the challenges, and they are perfectly normal as long as we don’t take them to a neurotic level.

The second thing to be understood is that all the emotions have one thing similar about them ie overwhelmingness. All the emotions, whether unpleasant or pleasant give you a sense of being too much. It seems as if you are drugged. When people are possessed by the emotions, they can’t see or think clearly. They do things that are beyond any sanity. Anger makes people say all kind of toxic things that they regret later on. In jealousy, people try to hurt others. In greed, people cheat and lie all the time. Under the spell of emotions, people behave like an alcoholic who doesn’t know what he is doing. So, these are the two basic quality of emotions. Emotions are unconscious and overwhelming. It seems as if they arise out of nowhere and drug you with a very compulsive energy; that you can’t withstand. You have to do something about it.

Our response to the emotions.

As far as our response to these emotions is concerned, we just know of two alternatives –expression and repression, and in both the cases we suffer. Let’s try to understand both.

Expression-There are people who are expressive. If someone insults them, they can’t sit silently, they have to give it back. These are the people who will get into trouble all the time. You will find them arguing everywhere and with everyone. They are really bad at handling their emotions. The general perception of such people is that they are authentic and upfront. They don’t give a damn about what other people think about them. However, these people are helpless. They are the victim of their emotions. They can’t refrain from indulging in their emotions. And remember, indulgence always creates habit. If today someone insults you and you become angry about it. What do you think, you will do tomorrow when someone insults you again? Again you will indulge in the anger. The more often you become angry, the deeper the anger reaches. It becomes a part of your identity. Sooner or later, you will just become an angry and bitter person, because you are learning the ways of the anger, you are becoming more efficient in creating the episodes of anger. Whatever you indulge in starts growing more and more in you. Indulgence is conditioning. So, indulgence cannot take you out of any unpleasant emotions. Secondly, in expression, everyone is harmed. You throw the poison on other person. Do you think that the other person will sit quietly? No, a mutual game will start. Everyone engaged in the game will come out damaged. Nothing beautiful can ever come out of expression or indulgence. The general perception that expressive people are some sort of heroic people is absolutely wrong. Expressive people are compulsive people; they need help. But certainly, they are better than the repressors.

Repression-Repressive people are the opposite of troublemakers. On the surface it might seem that they are really calm and composed, but deep down they are boiling. In order to avoid the trouble, they have learned the mechanism of repressing their emotions. They go on avoiding troubles in their daily life but deep down the wounds go on becoming deeper and deeper. Their composure is just a facade; they can fool the world but not themselves. An expressive person only suffers when he becomes angry, these people suffer every second of their life. Somebody insulted them years back, they repressed it, and now that repression has taken a form of revenge, bitterness. Repression is the most spineless way to exist because your revenge is just impotent, it will lie dormant in the deepest recesses of your consciousness. You will never do anything about it. Some psychologists say that there are different type of repressions, some of them are mature. But all repressions are toxic. If you are thinking about something that happened years back, how could it be healthy. You are stuck in the past. Your wound has not healed. You don’t allow it to heal. You are just pricking the wound every single day. You have become attached to your wounds. And you don’t just suffer psychologically. Mind and body are not separate. All these repressions and conflict reflect in your body as disease. Your whole life becomes a horrible mess. So, in that sense expression is better than repression.

These are the only ways that we know of, when it comes to responding to the emotions. And both lead to misery. To change, we need to avoid both. To move out of a problem we have to understand it, and understanding can only take place when you pay attention to the problem. The third way which we have missed till now, is the way of observation. In observation, you are just trying to look at the problem, without any intent to find a solution.

Observation ⇒ If you can refrain from reacting in the moment when the anger, greed or jealousy arises, you will find that something extraordinary will come out of it. When anger grips you, stay with it, observe it without any motive , without any intent to get rid of it. Pay complete attention to the anger. When you look at a marvellous sky or a beautiful flower, you don’t intend to change it. You just look at it. With that quality of attention, if you can look at your anger, you’ll find that anger flowers and disappears. It’s very momentary. It doesn’t sustain on its own. It’s our reaction of expression or repression that sustains it. If you can go through this once, then you’ll never ever be angry. Just try, it once.

Warning ⇒ There is a very thin line between repression and observation. A lot of people can think that they are observing their emotions but in actuality they might be repressing; because on the outside you won’t see any difference between the two. So, be very careful with your observation. In observation you’ll find that unpleasant emotions would be there but you would be OK with them. There will be no urge to get rid of them. In observation, there will be a lightness, you won’t have any grudges against the person who triggered the unpleasant emotions. You will come out of it unscratched. In repression you will have an urge to get rid of the emotions and you will always feel wounded later on. So, be very careful with the observation. I hope that you had an insight into what emotions are; and you will do something about changing your life.