To Be Happy You Have To Face Your Darkest Feelings

Do you feel sad, angry, critical or worried? The good news is, it’s okay. You need to be strong to face your darkest feelings, and that is very important for your mental health.

It is important for you to face your darkest feelings because it provides space to heal them, and therefore be happy, say researchers. Remember that an emotion is not just a noun, it is much more than that.

The truth is that life is not always good. It seems logical to try to avoid our most negative emotions and memories in favor of the best. However, the dark feelings and unpleasant memories have been a part of us, of our past.

In fact, our body can store our darkest emotions as places of suffering,  and by facing them, both physical and psychological pain will end. That is, knowing and controlling hidden and repressed negative emotions such as hatred, anger, or anger can ease physical pain.

Based on the latest research, in order for a person to be truly happy, they must accept their darkest feelings and must understand that life is not always a bed of roses.

3 ways to control emotions

A study published in the Australian Journal of Psychology analyzes how to face your darkest emotions and how to deal with them. The researchers found three ways to help us deal with them: acceptance, cognitive distancing, and cognitive change.

• Acceptance techniques can help people understand their emotions and their physical and cognitive emotions. Acceptance is the first step in learning to deal with them.
• Cognitive distancing is achieved by seeing things from a different point of view. For example, observing events as a storyteller will make yourself a third party.

• The technique of cognitive change requires a little self-pity. For example, imagine talking to a caring person about your darkest thoughts and feelings. You can use an imaginary listener to talk to and remind you of your own strengths and clear abilities.

To go face to face with your darkest feelings

When we reject or consider our emotional state unacceptable, we deny a part of ourselves. In other words, we prefer not to deal with what has caused so much pain, so we block it out. What we have forgotten is that part of our identity is gone.

Therefore, even if we can not control our emotions when we are ashamed, we can accept them. However, if it makes us feel bad, we distance ourselves from that feeling so that we do not experience it again. But as we mentioned before, denying our negative emotions prevents us from being happy.

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In this sense, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley studied the hypothesis that  accepting our darkest emotions is related to better mental health. The reason for this is that acceptance helps us to react to negative psychological experiences.

Therefore , accepting negative emotional states keeps us from noticing them, since we accept them as they are and we do not judge them as good or bad. In this way, we reduce the negative associations we have with these feelings, and our psychological health will improve.

People who are happy can accept their feelings and thoughts without judging them. In other words, they are able to recognize what their emotions are and the emotions that accompany them. However, they do not act impulsively on them. They recognize their anger, their fear and their  jealousy, as well as their anger and frustration. But instead of letting them take over, they accept them.

As we can see, accepting our darkest feelings does not make us bad people. On the contrary, it gives us clues about ourselves. In fact, it is impossible to do so if we only look at our positive emotions, since even our shadows are a part of us. We have to accept everything.