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My doctor recommended this book to me: “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” by Dale Carnegie. It’s a very old book, but has some very easy ways to help the way a person can change the way they think and thereby improve their life. It has helped me a lot. Not the usual psychological talking points. Probably you can find it at the library or on Amazon.
Good luck with things. Life can be hard sometimes...
I am looking for effective ways to deal with negative emotions - particularly anger, resentment, and feeling victimized.
I do use some holistic healing methods (EFT, aromatherapy), but I would like to hear what other people do for negative emotions.
I observe, acknowledge, and allow them to be and they dissolve over time. In my case, physical pains and sensations have also come up corresponding with the stuck emotions. It's a healing process taking place in body, mind, spirit. Within time, I feel a sense of relief from the stuck, oppressive emotions which were translating into thoughts and acting like a filter to my experiences.
I observe, acknowledge, and allow them to be and they dissolve over time. In my case, physical pains and sensations have also come up corresponding with the stuck emotions. It's a healing process taking place in body, mind, spirit. Within time, I feel a sense of relief from the stuck, oppressive emotions which were translating into thoughts and acting like a filter to my experiences.
Yes. The first thing I remind myself is that they WILL happen sometimes no matter how hard we try to avoid them. You won't totally prevent them, so the next best thing is to acknowledge what you feel and try to pin it to the actual event brought that particular emotion to the surface. Let it run it's course for a while instead of denying it. Sometimes the harder you fight it the worse it gets. The more you live in fear of them the more time during your life you spend in fear. Let it wash over you and it will lose a lot of power. End it on your terms. Negative emotions aren't all bad. They serve to warn us about dangers and make us step back and consider another course of action.
As for how to get past a negative emotion once it's present...well, there are books and books digging into all that. People write it out, meditate it out, talk it out, run it out, there are many options to choose from.
Books don't help me deal with persistent feelings.
Take resentments . . . I have one resentment tied to a person that I haven't seen for years and years. It is illogical that I should still be angry at this person for something she said many, many years ago (basically just a rude insult). Compounding the rudeness and the hurt I felt is a resentment of what I "imagine" her life to be (there is no way I could possibly know). But the story is that she was rude to me and she goes on to live a charmed life.
It is completely illogical, but it still plays in my head and then other resentments pile on top of it.
How do people deal with specific resentments?
That's just one negative emotion.
I deal with others, as well, but let's see if anyone can tackle resentments and what to do about them.
If it's serious, real stuff I feel resentful over, where they legitimately wronged me, as soon as practical and possible, I cut them out of my life.
I make my life as "charmed" as I can, and my friendship is a privilege that not everyone deserves. Lots of people do, and we have a great time, but not everyone does. Got no time for nastiness.
If it could be a misunderstanding, I let go my feelings of victimization.
I look for ways to be compassionate. Maybe that is assuming they did not mean something the way I perceived it, or thinking "Hey I don't know, maybe they were having a horrible day." Maybe that simply means thinking, "They have to live with themselves, and they are nasty inside. I feel sorry for them."
The hardest one has been my ex, as he has spent some 2 decades giving me reasons to resent him. Some days my mind just spins in circles, wanting to go over and over how I wish he could understand, all the ways in which he wronged me. Ain't easy to let that kind of thing go. Not easy at all. Best solution I've found is to re-center myself on the thought that he is no longer in my life, that it does not serve me to dwell on him, that I don't care and it doesn't matter.
I also try to direct my mind to more preferred thoughts, like plans, goals, projects, even focusing on my breathing, or putting on some upbeat music that feels good to listen to.
But if a line of thought is truly persistent, sometimes that is because I need to process it. What helps me to do that, is to type it out in my journal document or my blog (on another site) or to discuss it with a close and non-judgmental friend. It's like I had angry squirrels on crack running circles in my skull, and I got fed up, pulled them out into the real world, and released them into the wild, when I do that. And once in a while I will have some sort of a "breakthrough" as I guess the psych field calls it, because of this processing, some idea that helps me to really lay a major piece of negative thought baggage to rest at last.
Books don't help me deal with persistent feelings.
Take resentments . . . I have one resentment tied to a person that I haven't seen for years and years. It is illogical that I should still be angry at this person for something she said many, many years ago (basically just a rude insult). Compounding the rudeness and the hurt I felt is a resentment of what I "imagine" her life to be (there is no way I could possibly know). But the story is that she was rude to me and she goes on to live a charmed life.
It is completely illogical, but it still plays in my head and then other resentments pile on top of it.
How do people deal with specific resentments?
That's just one negative emotion.
I deal with others, as well, but let's see if anyone can tackle resentments and what to do about them.
Read and study some of the ways to CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK. The book I recommended teaches, in very simple ways, how to keep from thinking about negative things. You are dwelling on what this woman said and your imagined story of how her life turned out. You can stop thinking about this scenario if you really want to. You want to have this hate in your heart for some reason. Your only other remedy than changing the way you think, is to go into therapy and stick with it until your anger is spent out.
You seem to want to have these negative feelings. You need to figure out why... What do you get out of doing this?
Hope you can get over this. You are wasting your life.
If it's serious, real stuff I feel resentful over, where they legitimately wronged me, as soon as practical and possible, I cut them out of my life.
I make my life as "charmed" as I can, and my friendship is a privilege that not everyone deserves. Lots of people do, and we have a great time, but not everyone does. Got no time for nastiness.
If it could be a misunderstanding, I let go my feelings of victimization.
I look for ways to be compassionate. Maybe that is assuming they did not mean something the way I perceived it, or thinking "Hey I don't know, maybe they were having a horrible day." Maybe that simply means thinking, "They have to live with themselves, and they are nasty inside. I feel sorry for them."
The hardest one has been my ex, as he has spent some 2 decades giving me reasons to resent him. Some days my mind just spins in circles, wanting to go over and over how I wish he could understand, all the ways in which he wronged me. Ain't easy to let that kind of thing go. Not easy at all. Best solution I've found is to re-center myself on the thought that he is no longer in my life, that it does not serve me to dwell on him, that I don't care and it doesn't matter.
I also try to direct my mind to more preferred thoughts, like plans, goals, projects, even focusing on my breathing, or putting on some upbeat music that feels good to listen to.
But if a line of thought is truly persistent, sometimes that is because I need to process it. What helps me to do that, is to type it out in my journal document or my blog (on another site) or to discuss it with a close and non-judgmental friend. It's like I had angry squirrels on crack running circles in my skull, and I got fed up, pulled them out into the real world, and released them into the wild, when I do that. And once in a while I will have some sort of a "breakthrough" as I guess the psych field calls it, because of this processing, some idea that helps me to really lay a major piece of negative thought baggage to rest at last.
Thank you. This is helpful.
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