Stay Positive By Embracing Your Negative Emotions

Recently, life threw a handful of rough curve balls and stormy skies at me.

Imagine that moment when you’re walking along, blissfully happy with the shining sun, your health, your work, and pretty much everything else happening in your life when suddenly you trip, land face first into a pile of mud, ruin your favorite shirt, break your wrist on the fall, realize your insurance won’t pay for the hospital trip, finally get home, and see that you’ve been broken into and robbed.

Yes. The last four weeks have sorta been something like that. But the nitty gritty details aren’t important. In fact, the only thing that really matters is that I’ve pushed through the hardships and I’m continuing to push through while keeping a positive outlook and solving the problems in front of me.

Positivity is a key part of my life. Even at the lowest moments, at those times when I just want to scream out in frustration and curse the world asking what else could possibly go wrong, I try and remember the age old saying: this too shall pass.

See, it doesn’t work to just be positive. First off, that’s way easier said than done. And second, for positivity to work there has to be a balance. You have to be willing to understand and accept the negative side of life. It’s unrealistic to expect yourself to be happy and radiating joy at all times. It simply can’t be. Negative emotions happen. Problems occur. Things go wrong. You trip and fall in the mud. The worst thing you can do is wallow in that failure and refuse to get up. But another equally bad scenario, something that many people mistake for being the right choice, is to ignore those negative emotions, bury them, and fake your way into feeling happy and positive right away.

Yes, positivity is a key part of my life, but only because I also understand when it’s appropriate to be genuinely positive and when it’s time to embrace my negative emotions. I seek where they came from, accept them as a part of myself, reach for a higher vibration, and ultimately let them go. It’s a healing process that allows me to come a little bit closer with myself each time.

Our emotions are, simply put, messengers from the vibrational field around us. They are clues as to what’s happening in our lives that are both wrong and right. And you can’t try to hide away and bury the bad emotions. It’s perfectly normal to feel anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration, and jealousy. That’s fine! But you also want to understand why you felt that way and find what triggered that emotion so that you can deal with the greater issue at hand.

For example, perhaps your sister calls and tells you about this amazing new job she received and how excited she is about it. You tell her you’re happy for her, but on the inside you’re screaming about how unfair life is and how you deserve an opportunity like this way more and that she won’t be able to handle it. Why do you feel that way? Embrace that negative emotion and dig a little bit into yourself to figure it out. Are you really mad at her? Probably not. You’re more likely unhappy with a part of your life. Maybe you’re not as satisfied with your job as you pretend to be and it’s time to start seeking something you love. Or maybe you’ve associated some past trauma with success and subconsciously you expect successes to fail so your initial reaction is to assume it’s undeserved or unfair so that when it does fall apart you won’t be surprised. There’s likely a specific event you can trace that negative emotion back to.

The point of embracing our negative emotions is so that we can discover what triggered them, learn a little bit more about ourselves, and create a positive change in our reaction for the next time we encounter a similar situation.

Now, you might ask, “If someone steals from me I’m going to be mad! But that’s their fault! I didn’t steal anything so what does it have to do with me?” Know that our vibration is constantly attracting certain scenarios and events into our lives. And yes, absolutely one-hundred percent it is NOT your fault if someone acts viciously against you or an accident or trauma occurs in your life. Please don’t think that’s my point at all! The universe only wants us to deal with our unresolved issues and help us continually grow into better people and the obstacles and challenges we face along the way are meant to do just that.

When traumatic-type events happen we react in a certain way. We might feel sad, angry, or defeated. Embrace that feeling and ask yourself why. If something was stolen are you upset because it was expensive? It’s completely normal for you to feel this way. Embrace it. Let yourself be angry for a little while, vent to a friend, or file a report to try and get the item back. Think about previous times someone’s stolen from you. How did you react? Have you ever gotten so blind with rage you acted irrationally? Do you still do that or have you improved? If your reaction is improving then you’re doing something right. Next, reach for a higher feeling. Maybe instead of feeling angry you try to feel only frustrated that you’ll have to go purchase this item again. Accept that there is nothing you could have done and that the thief alone is solely responsible for their actions. Material things are just that – material things. Your behavior, your happiness, and your well-being are much more important. In order to truly move forward you eventually have to let the anger and the hurt go, releasing that negativity so that you create room for better feelings to fall in place.

When you accept your raw, negative emotions as a healthy response to life, commend yourself for being honest enough to feel them, and allow yourself to release them you’ll be doing yourself the ultimate favor. So while life has been trying its best to keep knocking me down I’m standing proudly, embracing my feelings as they come, knowing that greater opportunities await me, and that there’s no one and nothing that will keep me from moving forward – except for myself.

Until next time –

Yours for happy writing,

Lady Jenji