Overcome negative emotions (men)
Men, do you want to overcome negative emotions? We’re going to learn how to break the chain of strong negative emotions. Let’s start with the basics of strong, negative emotions in men. Because we can’t see emotions, it can be difficult to understand them, grasp them, and harness them. But we can. What this series of three posts does is look at the accumulation of strong negative emotions as a chain of events. At each point in the chain there is something that can be done to break the chain of strong negative emotions and gain mastery over the expression of our emotions.
It all begins with hurt. Hurt can lead to a volcano of emotions. Men become destructive when the accumulated volcano of emotions becomes too much to handle. But each link in the chain can be broken, a solution can be found. There’s a way out, something you can do, a better turn to take.
Here’s the chain of strong negative emotions:
HURT to
POOL OF
UNRESOLVED
EMOTIONS to
TRIGGERS to
REACTION to
HANGING ON TO MORE EMOTION.
This chain is the the guts of the situation. Here’s an overview of the chain.
HURT from childhood, abuse, trauma or frustrated goals, failures, accidents, or confrontations leads to negative emotions (makes sense). If hurt didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have a build up of strong, negative emotions (logical). It’s the root of the whole problem. Hurt leads to anger, resentment, frustration, rage, fear, depression, anxiety and more.
The POOL OF UNRESOLVED EMOTIONS lurks deep in your mind, head and memory. It’s the volcanic sludge inside you that makes you feel that your mind is a dangerous place. You’re afraid that you may lash out and hurt somebody or yourself. To cope, most men push this pool of sludge down; deny it, avoid it; they don’t want to think about it because it hurts. They take to drinking alcohol, taking drugs, gaming or watching porn to ease the tension. Anything but resolve the sludge.
Life may be fine for a while until, wham! somebody does or says something which TRIGGERS off an explosion from deep inside the sludge-pool. Then, sometimes, all hell can break lose; we lose control.
The trigger touches a raw nerve, a deep hurt, it re-ignites the rage, fear or anger we hoped we had under control. This leads to our REACTION, what we do or say while in the grip of a strong negative emotion. Soon we’re going to owe somebody a truckload of sorry, please forgive me, I didn’t know what I was doing or why I said that.
After the storm, we’re left HANGING ON to more negative emotion, plus shame and regret. This adds to our pool of negative emotional sludge. Anger, rage, fear and shame can continue for years or decades. As the sludge-pool of unresolved emotions gets larger, we feel more hopeless, shameful, guilty and condemned.
But there’s hope.
At each point in the chain, from HURT to POOL to TRIGGER to REACTION to HANGING ON, we can choose a better outcome. We can take action. We can be aware of an alternative pathway at each point. That’s what these posts are about: making the choice for a better outcome. It’s a skill to learn.
Here’s a brief summary of what we’re aiming at:
Instead of being hurt and hurting, we aim NOT TO HURT OTHERS and NOT TAKE ON OTHER PEOPLE’S CRAP.
Instead of having a pool of unresolved emotions, we aim to UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT and RESOLVE strong negative emotions before they move in permanently.
Instead of being caught off-guard by unexpected triggers, we aim to KNOW & BE AWARE of our triggers and how to handle them safely.
Instead of blindly and regretfully reacting to triggers, we aim to RESPOND REASONABLY by mixing our emotions with effective thoughts and plans.
Instead of hanging on to complex negative emotions, we aim to LET GO quickly to let our pool of emotions become more inviting so we can like and accept ourselves more and others can too.
This is the chain of solutions which every man can reach for:
LESS
HURT to
POOL OF
RESOLVED
EMOTIONS to
AWARENESS
OF TRIGGERS to
REASONABLE
RESPONSES to
LETTING GO.
The next two posts will go into details of how this can be achieved. The mission is clear: break the chain of strong negative emotions.
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