Negative thoughts are actually vital to our well-being and mental health .
The role of emotions such as anger and sadness in the human experience. Ignoring or suppressing these negative thoughts can have a range of unwanted effects on our mental health and well-being.
Everything depends on attitude. We are ambitious or lazy, enthusiastic or dull, loyal, or undependable, according to our attitude.
Unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping you make sense of life's ups and downs. Without the negative we cannot evaluate our experiences, or experience true sense of satisfaction.
What’s so good about the bad?
The positive consequences of negative thoughts and emotions. Attempts to suppress feelings such as anger or sadness can actually reduce our sense of contentment.
Despite society’s bias towards positive thinking – which can result in people feeling embarrassed about negative emotions – being constantly upbeat carries its own risks.
First, suppressing thoughts means we cannot accurately evaluate life’s experiences. If we don’t allow ourselves the lows, then the satisfaction from the highs becomes lessened. As the author explains, “attempting to suppress thoughts can backfire and even diminish our sense of contentment”.
Secondly, negative emotions are likely to be important for our survival. The negativity associated with a health issue, or a relationship, or work, makes it clear to us that there is a problem. It alerts us to the things that need attention and that we need to change.
?Simply put: “The survival value of negative thoughts and emotions may help explain why suppressing them is so fruitless.”
Finally, the act of suppressing thoughts and feelings can be bad for our physical health and cause stress. A Florida State University study showed that those who suppress emotions experience greater stress when confronted with the topic causing their negative thoughts.
How can you accept negative thoughts?
Accepting negative thoughts and emotions can actually lead to greater clarity and understanding of our life.
A shift in perspective and learning to tolerate strong emotions could help us.
Ultimately, we have to accept the rough to make the smooth that much better.
Disclaimer:?The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensure discussion or debate.
Thank you?...Why negative thoughts are actually good …
You can never win an argument with a negative person. They only hear what suits them and listen only to respond.
Attempting to suppress thoughts can backfire and even diminish our sense of contentment.
Secondly, negative emotions are likely to be important for our survival. The negativity associated with a health issue, or a relationship, or work, makes it clear to us that there is a problem.
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The more you try to suppress thoughts, the more they are likely to appear in your mind!
When people try to impress or resist certain thoughts it can often backfire and lead to higher rates of that thought intruding into your mind.
For example, smokers who try to not think of cigarettes at all often find it harder to give up, and people who suppress thoughts that cause anxiety are more likely to think about their triggers and thus feel more anxious. this an “ironic thought process,” and its effect is often greater the more a person is feeling stressed.
When you forcefully try?not?to think of something, one part of your mind is suppressing the forbidden thought, but another part of your mind “checks in” every so often to make sure the thought is not coming up – therefore, ironically, bringing it to mind.
It’s like going into a job interview and thinking to yourself, “Okay?don’t?mess up saying your name, and?don’t?mess up giving a handshake, and?don’t?mess up telling about your work background.” You’re trying to suppress negative ways of thinking, but you’re also simultaneously bringing them into your mind and subtly planting the idea in yourself.
For this reason, many say “the brain can’t process negatives,” because every time you try to NOT think about something, you’re bringing it into your mind and actively thinking about it.
Do you want to add a word or two?....
Another core strategy for better managing your thoughts is to learn the power of reframing or what Cognitive Behavioral Therapists call Cognitive Restructuring.
This is the practice of taking an existing thought that is unhealthy and destructive, then re-wording it or re-framing it in a way that makes it more healthy and motivating to you.
Our beliefs are more flexible than we realize (and everything is subject to multiple interpretations), so one of the best ways to manage negative thinking is to learn how to replace it with types of thinking that better serve you.
?Even just using different words to describe the same belief can change its meaning and connotation. This is one of the most common tools used in “Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.”
Your comments........?
So, how does one deal with negative people?
One obvious solution is to walk away from them. But this is easier said than done; while we could always walk away from the bartender with a bad attitude or the airline agent with an anger-management problem, we can’t walk away from a parent, sibling, spouse, colleague, or friend with a negative attitude.
A more practical approach to dealing with them is to start by understanding the reasons for their negativity. In brief, almost all negativity has its roots in one of three deep-seated fears: the fear of being disrespected by others, the fear of not being loved by others, and the fear that “bad things” are going to happen.
These fears feed off each other to fuel the belief that “the world is a dangerous place and people are generally mean.”
It is easy to see how, from the perspective of someone operating from such fears, it makes sense to question the wisdom of pursuing dreams (failure seems all but guaranteed) and to be averse to taking risks even if it is obvious that doing so is necessary to learn and grow. It is also easy to see why people with these fears would find it difficult to trust other people.
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Helping individuals and groups resolve conflicts through assisted conversations.
2 年True, for general well-being, steer clear of the Debby Downers. But when it is close friends or family, it takes some tolerance and understanding and maybe even professional help.
Managing Director at DAYALIZE
2 年Looked at from this perspective, their negativity is a thinly disguised cry for help. Of course, negative people do themselves no favors by being needy and controlling—they’d be far more successful in getting the respect, love, and control they crave if they realized how self-defeating their neediness and desire for control is—but that doesn’t take away the fact that negative people need help. A straightforward, but ultimately unproductive way of helping negative people is to give them the respect, love, and control they crave. However, this could be a slippery slope because people adapt to the new levels of respect, love, and control they get, and thus, you may find yourself in the position of having to provide increasing levels of respect, love, and control to keep the negative person happy. Put differently, by fulfilling their desires, you may be creating a Frankenstein that comes back to haunt you worse than ever. Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise.