The Value of Emotions and Moods in Our Lives
I was on a teleconference recently with a master coach and asked the following question: “Is there value sometimes in staying in a “negative” mood, such as resignation, or should we always want to shift out of it as soon as we see ourselves in it?” I was speaking from my own experience of always wanting to get out of it when I catch myself in resignation. Resignation is the mood where we feel kind of low, see no possibilities in different areas of our life, and want to lay on the couch and “veg out” in front of the TV.
I was reminded in the conversation that ALL emotions fulfill some role in our lives – even those we label as “negative” such as anger, fear, pessimism and resignation to name a few. Our emotions are a bodily response to something going on for us, and thus there is often great wisdom to be found in them if we take the time to look and explore.
What I was also quickly reminded of is that it’s very AMERICAN to not want to experience or stay in “negative” emotions. And, to see how quickly we judge certain emotions or moods to be either “positive” or “negative”, often causing further suffering. Our culture places such emphasis on being upbeat, feeling good, always being positive, always moving forward, taking limitless action day after day. The strong message in our culture is you have to go around like “Everything is OK”, to “put on your happy face” and act like everything’s all right – you get the gist of the message. One of the other callers hit the nail on the head when she said “It’s exhausting to always feel like you have to be happy and ON”. What a relief it is to admit that we just aren’t there some days!
What also hit home for me was the distinction of being in a TEMPORARY emotion of resignation versus a LONG-TERM mood of resignation. They are not the same. Experiencing many different emotions is a function of living a JOYFUL life – we experience happiness, anger, sadness, excitement, frustration, elation, resentment – all that life has to offer over time. We sometimes get stuck, and may need some coaching or other assistance, when we lose our EMOTIONAL FLEXIBITY and live life in one mood all the time. In other words, we have the same emotional response to every event over the course of days, weeks or months. And, that goes for ALL emotions, because UNENDING HAPPINESS or OPTIMISM can blind us to what we need to see as much as UNENDING SADNESS or PESSIMISM can.
I realized that the past 2-3 weeks I had been experiencing many different emotions, both “good” and “bad”, and wasn’t stuck in my old friend of long-term resignation. It was a big reminder for me and I even felt a shift in myself from heaviness to more lightness, a place I like to be (since I’m an American!).
One final thought that stuck with me was a comment this coach made about Americans - at the CORE of our SUFFERING is the constant pursuit of HAPPINESS. I want to be clear here because I believe "constant" is the key word there. I'm not saying that it's bad to desire happiness or to create a life filled primarily with happiness. What I am saying is if you are only content with having happiness all the time (you have to always be "UP"), then you will miss out on the full range of emotions the human experience has to offer and you will likely suffer when you are anything but happy.
So I leave you with a few questions to ponder and ask you to create new questions that will be relevant for you:
- What is our constant pursuit of happiness creating for us and what is it costing us?
- What are we missing out on when we don’t allow ourselves to experience the full range of human emotions?
- Am I stuck in one long-term mood - have I lost my emotional flexibility in life?
- Do I have friends, family and colleagues (a network of support) that I can share whatever emotion(s) I’m experiencing, or do I always have to be ON?
- What emotion or mood am I in right now? What role might it be fulfilling in my life at this time?
GO FORTH AND LIVE A JOYFUL LIFE!
