How To Deal with Negative Feelings 2 Do Better Now Enjoy

Deal With ItIneffective StylesEffective Styles5 Steps StopRelated QuotationsRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics9 Skills & Topics

FOUR RULES

1. Accept the Feelings

2. Think Opposite

3. Act Opposite

4. Feel Opposite

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Negative feelings and how to deal with them by thinking, feeling, and acting the opposite of them to overcome them and create better habits.

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” —Proverbs 16:32

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Ineffective Styles for Dealing with Negative Feelings

Four Kinds:

Control
Act-Out
Suppress
Feed

1. Control or Change Negative Feelings

You cannot control a feeling because a feeling is a reaction to a sensation that you did not prevent.
Therefore, whenever you try to control a feeling, all that you accomplish is to give that feeling time, attention, and energy.
You cannot change a feeling because a feeling is what it is and will always remain what it is.
Your reframing and renaming feelings only serve to cover and hide them, not change them.
Control includes attempts to make the feeling: become different, change, develop into something else, improve, or modify itself.
Control is really resistance because control does not accept “what is.”
The Rule Is: • The feelings you resist persist.

2. Act Out Negative Feelings

You often become frustrated with trying to control negative feelings because that only increases then.
In order to get some relief from the excess energy of a negative feeling—you choose to act out that negative feeling.
Even though you do get some immediate relief because the feeling is dissipated (released) from your acting it out—you have only reinforced that feeling.
That is, the more you act out a feeling, the more you encourage it to return (reinforcement).
This reinforcement is why the ventilation, expression, or release of feelings is not a solution but only a short-term fix that leads to long-term problems.
It is common knowledge that what you practice gets stronger, not weaker.
The Rule Is: • What you act on, you reinforce.

3. Suppress Negative Feelings

You often avoid the experience of a feeling by suppressing it.
Suppression and repression are just modern names for putting something into darkness.
Repression means that you put it further into darkness than if you had only suppressed it.
Darkness itself has also been renamed. Now we call the darkness within unconsciousness, preconsciousness, and semiconsciousness.
The results of suppressing or repressing a feeling are only that you are no longer aware of its impact on you.
The suppressed feeling remains active and a driving force in your life that can resurface at any time.
The Rule Is— • What you suppress lives on in darkness.

4. Feed Negative Feelings

When you think thoughts and execute behaviors that are similar in nature to your feelings, you feed your feelings.
Therefore, do not think anxious thoughts when you are anxious.
Therefore, do not think angry thoughts when you are angry.
Flee, whining like the plague that it is.
Flee, worry like the pestilence that it is.
The Rule Is— • The feelings you feed grow.

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Effective Way for Dealing with Negative Feelings

Four Principles:

(1) Accept the Negative Feeling
(2) Think Opposite of the Negative Feeling
(3) Act Opposite from the Negative Feeling
(4) Feel Opposite from the Negative Feeling

“If people want to change their Irrational Bs (unhelpful Beliefs), which lead to self-defeating Consequences, to Rational Bs (helpful Beliefs), which lead to self-helping Consequences, they had better work on their Believing-Emoting-Behaving and not merely on their Believing. More specifically, they had better vigorously and forcefully (that is, emotively) change their dysfunctional Bs; and at the same time, they forcefully and persistently feel and act against them.” —Albert Ellis

1. ACCEPT IT

The only time to control a feeling is before it ever exists by choosing different sensations.
Therefore, the only reasonable course of action with an existing feeling is to accept it.
The more unconditional or complete your acceptance is—the better.
Let the negative feeling (anger, anxiety) dissipate (run out of energy) on its own. Let it go, be, flow, or float.
Detach from it.
Above all, disengage your identity from it: stop making it about you, who you are, or your being.
The Rule Is: • The feelings you refuse to identify with will naturally pass.

2. THINK OPPOSITE

Choose to think thoughts that are opposite in nature to your negative feelings of anger or anxiety. Always remember, you never have to think or act the way that you feel.

By thinking the opposite of your negative feelings, you are creating sensations that will eventually lead to your feeling the opposite of your negative feelings. For example, when you are feeling angry or anxious, then your thinking calmly and rationally will eventually lead you to feel calm and in control.

The Rule Is: • Think against, not for your negative feelings.

3. ACT OPPOSITE

Choose to act the opposite of your negative feelings.
Always remember, you never have to act or think the way that you feel.
By acting the opposite of your negative feelings, you are creating sensations that will eventually lead to your feeling the opposite of your negative feelings.
For example, when feeling angry or anxious, your acting calmly will eventually lead you to feel calm and in control.
The Rule Is: • Act against your negative feelings.

4. FEEL OPPOSITE

Choose to have feelings that are opposite to the destructive and maladaptive feelings you wish to replace.
You find and repeatedly engage in activities, events, and situations that are conducive to the feelings that you want.
By feeling the opposite of your negative feelings, you are creating a new feeling habit that you can go to instead of the self-defeating feeling habit you are seeking to replace.

OVERCOME OLD HABITS WITH NEW HABITS

“What reinforcements, then, is it possible to find with which to oppose habit? Why, the contrary habit.“ —Epictetus, Discourses

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The same 4 rules with the important step of repeating or practicing them.

Act Against Anger

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Negative Feelings: Quotations Various Sources

Listed Alphabetically

“A man has no more character than he can command in a time of crisis.” —Ralph W. Sockman

“Against criticism, a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

“Be careful of anger—it’s just one letter away from danger.” —Anonymous

“Be the change you seek.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.” —Baruch Spinoza

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” —Robert Frost

“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.” —Proverbs 25:28

“He who angers you conquers you.” —Elizabeth Kenny

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.” —Buddha

“I do not have the same kind of feeling as the feeling I am choosing to feel about.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“I do not have to act the way I feel.” —Anonymous

“I do not have to have feelings about my feelings.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid one hundred days of sorrow.” —Chinese proverb

“Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” —James Thurber

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Our most important thoughts are those which contradict our emotions.” —Paul Valery, 1871-1945

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” —Mark Twain

“The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.” —Sophocles

“The only thing of consequence is what we do.” —John Ruskin

“The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.” —Napoleon

“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” —Confucius

“To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable.” —Barry Goldwater

“Trusting anger gets you into the problem and trusting pride keeps you in it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Your luck is how you treat people.” —Bridget O’Donnel

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Negative Feelings: Related Pages of Free Information

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Negative Feelings: 6 Groups of Topics Menu

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Negative Feelings: 9 Skills & Topics Menu

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