Reader: How to stop feeling anger, sadness, fear, hurt or guilt

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he five primary negative emotions are important feedback tools for our learning and growth. They are anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt and are the way our unconscious mind lets us know one or more of our boundaries have been crossed. Boundaries which can be changed through our decisions and beliefs.

Part 1 outlines a technique to release stored negative emotions by changing what you’re thinking about. It’s a great start to your personal development journey. Part 2 goes deeper into how to do this without the need for techniques.

Part 1 What are negative emotions for?

Negative emotions are the way our unconscious mind lets us know there is something to learn. If we didn’t learn then we may make the same mistake twice. By learning, we can better ourselves and grow as people. Learning sometimes happens unconsciously over time, however, sometimes they cannot be resolved by ourselves so we talk with people who are close to us.

Have you heard the story about the time someone lost their keys and got stuck outside their house all night or the time when they broke their arm falling off a roof as a kid or something similar yet they tell the story in a joking manner with plenty of laughter? Events like these were most likely traumatic at the time yet a few days, weeks or years later there are no negative feelings associated with them whatsoever. How can this be the case?

The answer is because in each case the person learnt positive things from the events. These positive learnings prevented the person from repeating the same behaviour making the negative emotion redundant so it releases itself.

By understanding the mechanics of this process of learning to release emotions, we can fast track this learning process by asking ourselves that very question: “what can I learn from this”.

The five primary negative emotions and their uses

Anger - usually linked to poor communication
Sadness - feeling sorry for oneself, usually when things haven’t worked out how you’d imagined
Fear - feeling of the unknown
Hurt - feeling sorry for oneself, usually when your values have been crossed
Guilt - having made mistakes, not doing the right thing

All other negative emotions which we experience fall underneath these primary ones. For example frustration could be classed as a type of anger and anxiety could be fear - whatever feels right for you is perfect.

The process of resolving negative emotions

The process is that you ask yourself which of the five primary negative emotions you are feeling and then ask yourself what you can learn from it. The learning needs to be:

Positive
Future focused

To help with the learnings, use the information below as a starting point.

How each of them can be released

Anger - who have you not listened to or who were you not patient with because they did not understand your communication? What will you change next time in order to learn from this?

Sadness - it is OK to feel sorry for yourself but it will only bring you more sadness. Ask yourself what you can learn from it in order that you grow and move onward.

Fear - for what, protection? Fear does not protect you, your fight-or-flight response does. What can you learn from the fear in order that you can proceed? What is the worst that could happen? You are stronger than your think.

Hurt - what for - to prevent future hurt? What can you learn from this in order to let it go once and for all?

Guilt - mistakes are the most important thing we can do as long as we learn from them. What can you learn and what actions can you take in order that guilt releases and you make amends with yourself.

Nobody makes you feel a certain way

The most common objection I get to this model is, “I can’t choose how I feel - they made me angry/sad”. The question I then ask is, “how did they make you angry/sad? Did they wrap it up as a present and give it to you?”

The fact is nobody makes you feel a certain way. We say something to ourselves and then make a decision as to how to feel. This is explained more thoroughly in my post on internal dialogue.

Things to consider with this technique

Sometimes we may experience more than one emotion during a period of time and this can be overwhelming. The skill is taking your time to isolate one emotion, taking a deep breath and asking yourself “what positive things can I learn from this which will help me in the future?”

This technique is great for processing strong emotions - but it is a technique.

If you want to develop something which is sustainable and requires no effort then make sure to check out 5 facts below.