Life is 50:50. We are happy half of the time and we are feeling negative emotions half of the time.
Believe me: it took me quite some time to accept it, and stop fighting my negative emotions. I grew up with the believe that I was always supposed to be happy and look for happiness.
And now I am finally at peace with the reality that of course we want to be happy, but that it is also ok to feel negative emotions and enjoy the full experience as humans.
In this episode I discuss the three types of emotions I would like you to consider:
1. The desired emotions – the ones we choose because we want to have balance as humans. What are the feelings you want to experience in the world? You’re coming in as a human— what emotions do you want to have in your repertoire to be able to have the full human experience?
2. The unwanted emotions – they are a fundamental part of the human experience; they don’t feel good but we allow them and stop fighting them since we understand that they are caused by our thoughts and that they are part of the 50% of the life that does not feel great but these feelings are also often at the birth of great things we achieve in our lives. We allow them because we understand that they represent a way for our body to communicate with us.
3. The indulgent emotions – these emotions are the ones that don’t serve us at all. And we want to replace them. We don’t want to resist them, but we want to stop indulging in them.
You get to choose how to feel all of the time by choosing which thought you want to entertain and give space to. The world doesn’t cause you to feel anything by itself; it is the way you think about circumstances that causes you to feel a certain emotion; and you are in control of your mind.
So when you feel negatively, and if you want to feel better, go to the root cause (thoughts) of your negative emotion and decide deliberately if that thought serves you or if, instead, you want to entertain an alternative thought about the same circumstance.
Below some examples of emotions in the different 3 brackets to give you concrete examples and stimulate your thinking to further develop your emotional intelligence and be more aware and deliberate on how you feel.
| Positive emotions | Negative emotions | Indulgent emotions |
| Joy | Boredom | Worry |
| Passion | Anger | Confusion |
| Excitement | Frustration | Doubt |
| Love | Discomfort | Overwhelm |
| Self-compassion | Rage | Victim |
| Empathy | Fear | Self-pity |
| Abundance | Disappointment | Helplessness |
Becoming emotionally aware is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
This is my gift to you and I trust that you will give it some ‘thought’.
With love,
Chiara