Negative Emotions

     Sometimes I think I may rename this blog to “Confessions of a Florida Herbalist.” Not really, it's just that I seem to open up and confess a lot of myself here. This post I'm confessing that I am a metalhead. Yes. I listen to metal music. The more aggressive, the better. I don't always look like it, and my personality doesn’t always come off as being very metal. But I am. A lot of people, upon finding this little fact out, ask me how I can listen to music that is so full of anger and aggression and retain my “chill” and composure. It's simple really. Metal music helps channel out my negative emotions so that I can better interact with the world-at-large without wanting to strangle people. And that's what I want to share with you today. How to accept negative emotions and not fear them or let them end up running your life.

     American culture seems to be all about getting rid of negativity. Almost every January I hear/read about people's New Year's resolutions to get rid of all the negativity in their lives. Everyone is focusing on the positive and not leaving any space for the negative. Unfortunately I believe this is contributing to the problem rather than helping. I recently had an elderly friend who was told by his doctor that he might have a year left, if he's lucky, and there's nothing that modern medicine can do. When this information was passed on to his wife and friends, the response was always some variant of “well doctors don't know everything, you have years left if you stay positive and motivated.” Well, this is not the response he wanted to hear. He understood that there was always a chance to beat the odds. What he needed and wanted was help to get himself and his family ready in case he didn't beat those odds. No one acknowledged the real chance that he might die, any day, but most likely on a day within this year. Everyone just ignored that possibility and pushed on to “stay positive.” It's not just his situation either. Every day I see more and more positive statements and encounter people who ignore the negative. We, as a culture, are forgetting how to cope.

     Coping mechanisms are vital to life. They help us accept that bad things happen. They help us to work through hard times and grow as an individual. Without coping mechanisms, we don't work through negativity, we just bottle it up and push it down. When we don't deal with our “darker” emotions, we begin a life ruled by avoidance and occasionally those emotions we are avoiding will creep out in unexpected ways.

     Everyone has different and unique ways to deal and cope with hard times and dark emotions. However, the journey to learning how you best deal with these emotions is fairly similar for everyone.

Step 1: Stop Judging Yourself Because of Negative Emotions

A lot of people are afraid of these negative emotions. Afraid of the pain. Afraid of the stigma. Understand that having these emotions is normal. You can be sad without being clinically depressed. You can have mood swings without being bipolar. You can feel anxious without having anxiety. These emotions are an important part of life and everyone experiences them. They are not bad. They, in and of themselves, do not indicate a problem. Stop judging yourself for having them.

Step 2: Identify the Emotion

Once you are aware that these feelings are normal, stop and identify them before you react. When you experience the pain, fear, anxiety, anger, etc, take a moment and think about it. Understand what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way. Take a moment to acknowledge that you are feeling sad and why you are sad before pushing it aside and forcing yourself to “be happy.” Be in the moment with your emotions.

Step 3: Accept Your Emotions

Once you have identified the emotion and identified the cause of the emotion, you now need to accept and release that emotion. Don't hold on to it. Embrace the emotion and then release it. When you embrace your emotions, you are not controlled by them. You understand that you are not your anger, embarrassment, shame, guilt, sadness, anxiety, etc. You feel these emotions, but they do not define you.

Step 4: Welcome The Impermanence of Emotion

Emotions come and go. Welcome them, embrace them, and let them go. Don't hold on to them. Be in the moment, don't live in the past. Often when we experience these negative emotions, our brains replay them over and over again. We analyze what we did, and torture ourselves for what we didn't do. Stop. When you do that, you are not releasing the emotion, you are being consumed by it. Stop playing the “what if” game, stop dwelling on things you cannot control, stop thinking about all the ways a certain thing is destined to “go wrong.” Understand that you have experienced an emotion and that emotions are not permanent. Address the emotion and let it go so that it does not take over. Understand that you will feel them again, and welcome when they come, but don't hang on to them.

Step 5: Release Your Emotions

Once you realize that you are not your emotions, you can safely release them. Whether it's by venting into a creative outlet, talking to a good friend about it, meditation, prayer, gardening, physical exertion, or just turning up your favorite song and singing along. Everyone has their own way of releasing these emotions. Some people even have multiple ways. Find what works for you.

Step 6: Find a Balance

The negative emotions are only part of your emotional spectrum. Use these same steps for the positive emotions as well. We don't necessarily want to let go of our happiness, pride, and other good feelings. However, when we hang on to them, the negative emotions seem all that much darker. They can also blind you to very real possibilities of things such as failure. Balance in all things, including emotions, is key to staying healthy and in harmony with yourself.

     I hope I have provided a little help and support for your negative emotions. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.

Resources:

Accepting Your Darkest Emotions Is The Key To Psychological Health: Quartz Media: https://qz.com/1034450/accepting-your-darkest-emotions-is-the-key-to-psychological-health/

Are You Afraid of Your Negative Emotions?: Nerdy Creator: http://www.nerdycreator.com/blog/negative-emotions/

Dealing With Difficult Emotions: Kids Health: http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/stressful-feelings.html

Emotional Acceptance, Why Feeling Bad Is Good: Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201009/emotional-acceptance-why-feeling-bad-is-good

How To Use Mindfulness To Work With Negative Emotions: Mrs. Mindfulness: https://mrsmindfulness.com/mindfulness-for-negative-emotions/

Is Accepting Unpleasant Emotions The Key To Happiness?: Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201708/is-accepting-unpleasant-emotions-the-secret-happiness

Flower Essences

     If you look into Complementary and Alternative medicine for long, you may run across something that almost defies Science. Homeopathy dilutes a remedy down to where science tells us there is nothing left. However, many of these homeopathic remedies still work. Skeptics tell us that it's the placebo effect and only that. However, science also denied the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle (previously referred to as the theoretical “God particle”) until it was finally discovered in 2012. Just because science is not currently able to validate the effects of homeopathy, does not mean that they are not real. However, homeopathy is not what I wanted to introduce you all to today. I want to discuss flower essences.

     In 1928, a British homeopathic doctor named Edward Bach noted that the homeopathic remedies he made with flowers had extremely promising effects on his patients. Thus began his in-depth research and eventual development of the 38 Bach flower remedies. After several years practicing orthodox medicine, specializing in bacteriology and immunology, followed by ten years of practicing homeopathy, Dr Bach had developed a new approach to illness. He was frustrated by orthodox medicine's concentration on the disease as opposed to the patient, and changed his focus. He developed the idea that our emotional states had a major influence on our susceptibility to disease. An idea, that orthodox medicine is just beginning to explore today. The flower remedies he developed work on that concept, helping to change the emotional reactions to disease as well as correct emotional problems that may lead up to disease.

     Looking at the modern world, especially here in America, one cannot help but see a major shift in emotional distress. Anxiety, depression, severe mood changes, and many other emotional effects have begun to plague society. A good portion of that, most likely, has to do with our lifestyles today. We spend more time inside at a desk and less time outside and/or exercising. We have to deal with things such as traffic, which can be horribly stressful, on a daily basis. We don't have time to decompress and we have lost the knowledge of how to do so in the first place. All of this puts major stress on our adrenal glands, which control the fight-or-flight response, so that we are running at a constant level of extreme stress. However, we can help reduce all of our responses to this heightened state by using relaxation techniques, eating right, exercising, and using flower essences.

 

     You're probably wondering about the effects of flower essences when you are taking medication. One of the reasons I usually recommend flower essences is that they do not interact with drugs. This is the real beauty of Dr Bach's dilution techniques. The essences are diluted down so much that you don't have to worry about side effects, or drug interactions, while still being able to reap the benefits of the remedy. And the benefits are so apparent that some of the calming effects can be seen immediately. Rescue Remedy is the only formula of essences left to us by Dr Bach, and animal rescuers across America use it to calm down their rescues. There are even several EMTs that carry Rescue Remedy with them to help calm down accident victims. I have even recommended it to several people who I know that experience anxiety attacks, and they all say it works better than anything else they've ever tried.

     Though Dr Bach only left us with 38 remedies, and one formula, there are researchers all over the world who are diligently studying flowers and how they interact with us. There are a good number of essences, developed by these researchers, from all over, including a good number from native American plants.

     Even though science cannot currently validate the use of flower essences, I hope you see the value of them. How they're able to help without negative side effects and interactions. How they help minimize our susceptibility to disease by working on our emotional state. And how they help speed our recovery by effecting our emotional reactions to disease. Flower essences are an essential part of my personal healing, and are so effective that I recommend them to everyone I know.

Resources:

A Brief History of Flower Essences: https://www.anaflora.com/articles/fe-gen-art/b-his-ess.html

Bach Center's Guide to the Remedies: https://www.bachcentre.com/centre/remedies.htm

Flower Essence FAQ: https://www.desert-alchemy.com/faq/

What Are Flower Essences?: http://www.fesflowers.com/product-info/flower-essences/what-are-flower-essences/