Everyone goes through tough times, and no matter how long you’ve had something on your mind – whether for just a few hours or months – it’s important that you talk to someone about it. You don’t have to confront your setbacks alone.
If we choose to foster a sense of inner peace, challenge our perceptions and interpretations when our emotions could use some schooling, and learn to take responsibility for our joy, we can not only minimise pain; we can choose to be a source of pleasure, for ourselves and the people around us.
Next time a negative situation or issue arises and you’re tempted to brush it under the rug, stop. Don’t brush it under the rug where it’s still there, just hidden. Resolve it, brush it into the trash and then take the trash out.
Suppressing your feelings regularly will only result in an emotional overload. Bottle them up for too long and they explode. Avoiding conflict and brushing things under the rug does not mean they’ll go away, it means they’ll come back later, but with firepower behind them.
Painful things don’t go away because you ignore them. Negative situations cause negative emotions. It is vital to everyone’s emotional health to work it out and not brush it under the rug.
Learning to solve conflict and issues in healthy ways will give you an advantage as you go through life. Your relationships will be healthier and you’ll be more self-confident because you believe in your ability to get through challenges.
Teachers won’t always like your papers. Friends will be jerks. Bosses will ask challenging questions and professors will give constructive (but not always) criticism. Learning to accept this, and to deal productively with healthy conflict, will help you be more resilient.
Negative feelings are only negative if they’re excessive and enduring. We won’t hurt ourselves into eternal misery if we let ourselves feel what we need to feel. And we don’t have to feel bad nearly as often as we think.
We can identify what we want to say yes to in life and choose that, before struggling with whether or not to say no to someone else. If you love dancing, take a class. Don’t worry about where it’s leading. Do it just because you love it.
Being more reactive than active is a decision to let the outside world dictate how we feel. We don’t need to sit around waiting for other people to evoke our feelings. Instead, we can take responsibility to create our world as we want it.