When you become constantly vigilant about negative emotions and work to avoid these, you engage in a futile effort that will ultimately lead to frustration and fear.
When you decide that a certain emotion should be avoided, you must then live on high alert at all times to avoid experiencing that feeling.
You then experience fear regarding the possibility of these strong feelings, which in itself because of a negative experience. You perpetuate this cycle with your avoidance.
When you avoid difficult feelings, you are denying the truth about your life, as well, which is never a healthy coping strategy. This is not helpful to finding solutions, nor does it allow you to take control of your life or learn from your experiences.
QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON:
Thinking
- Are you actively thinking about understanding your feelings?
- Are you thinking about all the the things that help you accept these feelings?
- Are you thinking about how you can further develop how to be proactive about your difficult feelings?
Talk – New Language
- Are you actively expressing these difficult feelings such as grief in a proactive way?
- Do you speak of all the good and positive things that help you with acceptance?
- Are you continuously telling yourself and reminding yourself to accept these difficult feelings and counter it?
Behaviour
- Do you accept your emotions and own up to them fully?
- Do you try and focus on positive behaviours that help you accept your difficult feelings?
- Do you continuously learn more about how to accept your feelings?
Relationships & Contribution
- Do you try and accept and understand your feelings to be able to express them in a healthy way?
- Are you willing to make sure that you always try to accept your difficult feelings to improve your relationships?
