{"id":58521,"date":"2022-01-13T12:44:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=58521"},"modified":"2022-01-18T16:58:26","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T20:58:26","slug":"embrace-negative-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Embrace Negative Emotions to Be Happier in Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the problem with avoiding negative emotions? How do negative emotions\u2014paradoxically enough\u2014contribute to happiness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Modern culture pressures us to reject negative emotions and replace them with positivity. However, even experiences that we deem positive carry with them a negative element. Therefore, we cannot really experience happiness without also experiencing potentially negative emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is why happiness requires that you embrace negative emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-don-t-run-away-from-negative-emotions\">Don&#8217;t Run Away From Negative Emotions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Society tells us that we should seek to get rid of our mental suffering and replace it with positive feelings. This is the theme in some advertisements with a before-and-after structure. The world around a person using an inferior product is dark and gloomy. It\u2019s only after buying the product advertised that the world becomes bright and positive. The implicit message is that you should do everything in your power to transform your dull, unhappy life into a happy one (in this case, buy a product). (Shortform note: This advertising approach is a strategy in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/emotion-marketing\">emotional marketing<\/a>, which uses color, storytelling, ideal images, and associations to trigger consumers\u2019 emotions that motivate them to act in certain ways. Research shows that a consumer\u2019s emotional response to an ad is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/inside-the-consumer-mind\/201302\/how-emotions-influence-what-we-buy\">two to three times more influential<\/a> than the ad\u2019s content in swaying their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/buying-decisions\/\">decision to buy<\/a> the product.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, if we consider the problem more deeply, it becomes clear that even experiences that we regard as positive carry with them a negative counterpart.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For instance, many people consider having a child to be one of the highest forms of happiness. But having a child is a positive experience that has many potentially negative feelings associated with it, such as the stress of sleepless nights when your child is an infant, the fear that your child won\u2019t be accepted by her peers, and anger when your child is a disobedient teenager. The positive experience can\u2019t exist without its negative counterparts.&nbsp;<strong>Therefore, we cannot achieve our deepest happiness without embracing negative emotions. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-embracing-negativity\">Embracing Negativity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Although society pressures us to reject negative feelings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/life-smarts\/201907\/four-ways-improve-self-esteem\">accepting <em>all <\/em>of your feelings can enhance self-esteem<\/a>. When we separate self-esteem from the experience of positive feelings, we free ourselves from the myth that we\u2019re defective if we\u2019re not happy, and we release ourselves from the (futile) task of trying to eliminate our negative feelings. This allows us to value ourselves as we are\u2014negative feelings and all\u2014rather than as we\u2019d like to be (people who don\u2019t experience negative emotions).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, humans vary on the scale of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/healthy-minds\/202106\/3-ways-curb-negative-mental-habits\">dispositional negativity<\/a>, or the degree to which we experience negative emotions relative to context. For instance, someone with high dispositional negativity may get cut off in traffic in the morning and still be thinking about the experience later that night. Someone with low dispositional negativity could experience the same thing and recover five minutes later. In addition, people with high dispositional negativity can experience negative emotion even if there is no appropriate context for that emotion\u2014for example, they can feel down even when there\u2019s no apparent reason.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of suggesting that people with high dispositional negativity simply think happier thoughts, or eliminate their negative feelings, psychologists recommend that they accept their negative <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/thoughts-feelings-and-behaviors\/\">thoughts and feelings<\/a> without judgment.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the problem with avoiding negative emotions? How do negative emotions\u2014paradoxically enough\u2014contribute to happiness? Modern culture pressures us to reject negative emotions and replace them with positivity. However, even experiences that we deem positive carry with them a negative element. Therefore, we cannot really experience happiness without also experiencing potentially negative emotions. Here is why happiness requires that you embrace negative emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":34078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[565],"class_list":["post-58521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-psychology","tag-the-happiness-trap","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Embrace Negative Emotions to Be Happier in Life - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Society pressures us to reject negative emotions and embrace positivity. But even positive experiences carry with them a negative element.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Embrace Negative Emotions to Be Happier in Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Society pressures us to reject negative emotions and embrace positivity. But even positive experiences carry with them a negative element.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-13T16:44:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-18T20:58:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/sad-girl.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"939\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Darya Sinusoid\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46\"},\"headline\":\"Embrace Negative Emotions to Be Happier in Life\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-13T16:44:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-18T20:58:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\"},\"wordCount\":562,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/sad-girl.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Happiness Trap\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Lifestyle\",\"Psychology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/\",\"name\":\"Embrace Negative Emotions to Be Happier in Life - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/embrace-negative-emotions\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/sad-girl.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-13T16:44:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-18T20:58:26+00:00\",\"description\":\"Society pressures us to reject negative emotions and embrace positivity. 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