How to deal with negative emotions?

We are constantly talked about how important it is to be in a good mood, to believe in ourselves and look at every situation from its positive side. And what to do when we are in a bad mood and all we want is to feel sorry for ourselves or to “kill the neighbors who disturb our sleep”.

Here are some tips from Barbara Sher’s book Dreaming Doesn’t Hurt in case you urgently need to get rid of negativity.

Start keeping a journal to describe your difficult moments

Emotions and negativity are better not to be suppressed but to learn to express them properly. It’s important to allow yourself to be angry and cranky and not try to pretend you don’t feel those feelings.

The easiest way to vent your anger and frustration is to start keeping an Evil Journal. On its cover, you can stick a photo of your displeased grimace.

There will come a time when you will want to say that: “Yes … everything is forgotten!”. That’s why you should start keeping a journal.

Write in it everything that excites you, “throw out” all the irritation and anger accumulated in you, describe your fears and failures, and also what you are afraid to tell your loved ones relatives.

In doing so, you won’t have to apologize or look for some common sense. Just be yourself.

And don’t forget your evil notebook is where you get rid of all the negativity you’ve accumulated. In it you should not solve problems or try to write something good so as not to turn it into a simple diary.

Enact a “hysterical theater performance”

Remember how kids start acting out when they don’t get enough attention? They are cranky, cry, shout and sometimes get hysterical. Adults also try to act like this, trying to get attention, but they don’t always realize it.

Sometimes we get angry simply because others don’t pay attention to us and no one knows how hard it is for us. If you feel like having a good time, it’s best to use the “hysterical performance” technique.

You should get together somewhere with 2 or 3 of your closest friends and do this. Before the start of the “performance” you must announce:

“Bad times have come for me and I’m sick of everything. Now in front of you I’m going crazy. If you want to cover your ears or ignore me. I need 10 minutes.”

And you can do anything you like: rage, cry, jump, sing songs. After such a “performance” you will immediately feel better.

The most important thing is to warn others.

Exaggerate negative events that have happened to you

This is another way to deal with negative emotions, namely, to make them absurd using irony, humor and sarcasm. You can do it for example in the following way.

For example, you have a strained relationship with your boss and you think about it all the time. The next time you see your boss, you can picture in your imagination that instead of his head, there is a big pug head or some kind of dot.

If you are waiting in a traffic jam and the smoking driver from the next car annoys you, you can imagine that there is a small monkey smoking a hookah in his stomach.