Mental Wellbeing - What Your Parents Never Told You

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

This past week, one of my executive clients said that many of her insecurities date back to her childhood. Her parents never taught her how to deal with negative emotions.

She told me how much she wants to run away from certain "bad" feelings or doesn't give herself permission to experience them because it makes her feel like a failure.

What followed was a fascinating conversation. Most parents never teach their children how to deal with negative emotions because they don't understand it themselves.

Research into just how many emotions there are reveals everything from an infinite number to only 4 raw emotions - anger, fear, happiness and sadness.

The proponents of the existence of 6 raw emotions add "surprise" and "disgust" to the list.

We could argue about the underlying number of emotions and the relative percentage of positive vs negative emotions, but suffice to say that most emotions are, what we would deem, negative!

The myriad of self-help books on the market is an attempt to show us how to deal with these many negative emotions to experience mental wellbeing and a happier, more content, life. If anyone had discovered the ultimate answer, why were (according to NPD) 18.6 million self-help books sold in 2019?

Some theories or techniques offered in those books may bring temporary relief from emotional pain. However, we usually find that the minute we finish the book and put it away, we revert to our old habits.

Is it realistic to think you could be happy and content all the time?

It is only natural that we all wish we could experience a life of only happiness and contentment, empty of fear and insecurity. Still, if you think about it rationally for just a moment, you'll probably agree that this just isn't possible. The full spectrum of emotions is part of our Human Experience, and they are there to protect and help us.

For example, fear is there to alert us to danger and activate the flight or flight response. However, today, you are less likely to meet a woolly mammoth lurking around the corner and more likely to fear something such as losing your job.

For the rest of your life, you will always experience a full spectrum of emotions!

It all boils down to the fact that if we had an Instruction Manual for the Human Experience, it would say, "You'll experience a range of emotions and this is normal. Any attempt to only experience positive emotions will be futile. Using techniques to mitigate negative emotions will be futile in the long run as well."

The reason for the latter is that what you focus on grows! Perhaps you have a negative emotion, such as a feeling that you're not good enough.

You might start to dwell on why you're feeling that way. You might ask yourself what you can do to change your feelings. Or you might beat yourself up for feeling that way.

If so, you're just adding fuel to the fire of your feelings of inadequacy. The more you try to "work on it" or "change it," the more deeply it digs in its heels.

Some of us try to run away from or bury our negative emotions by using alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, smoking, cutting (self-harming) or eating. Behaviours like these numb our perception, distract us or release the brain's "feel-good chemicals." We can then develop addictions to these behaviours as a way of coping with negative emotions. It's our unconscious mind's attempt to shield ourselves from an inevitable part of life.

However, what if we understood where emotions come from?

What if I told you that they can only ever come from one place, from one thing - period?

In the Instruction Manual for the Human Experience, it says, "Emotions come from our thinking. In fact, our experience of life can only ever come from thought at the moment. What we feel is merely a result of this thinking - nothing more or nothing less. Thought & emotion are linked and go together like Peanut Butter & Jelly, Bonnie & Clyde, Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta.

We may not be aware of the "thought" part of the equation because we have 60,000 - 90,000 of them per day. Most of them are happening at an unconscious level, outside of our conscious awareness. However, whenever you feel that pang of emotion, you can rest assured that thought just preceded it by a millisecond.

This is both good news and bad. The bad news is that there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop negative thoughts from entering your mind.

The good news is that these thoughts are coming from inside us, and they are 100% made up! For example, the belief that "I'm not good enough" is just some made up rubbish going through your mind and results in a negative feeling or emotion. The same goes for every other thought and resulting emotion. This understanding IS the Holy Grail!

Is Mental Wellbeing Closer Than You Think?

The faster you realise that negative feelings are self-created (not coming from your outside circumstances), the sooner those negative feelings will crumble and fall away. This then leaves you in your default state, which is one of happiness and contentment.

I still often forget how it works, and I get caught up in believing my thinking. I experience some very uncomfortable, negative emotions or maybe even have a "mini melt-down" from time to time. Then, if I'm lucky.....it hits me!

I remember that the unpleasant feelings I'm experiencing are not coming from any outside event or person, but from my thoughts, which are simply made up and not reality. I allow myself to feel whatever it is that I'm feeling and I don't fight it. I remember that if I just let the thoughts pass and don't grab on to them, new thinking will soon come along. The bad feelings don't always disappear immediately, but they lose their power before they inevitably go.

An attitude of just accepting the full and broad spectrum of emotions that are part of the Human Experience can be life-changing. We expound so much energy trying to deal with, fight off, eliminate, ignore or cover up our negative emotions that it can be exhausting.

What if you could better harness that energy for other things? What if you could just accept that negative emotions will forever be a part of life?

Quite paradoxically, you'll find that the more you acknowledge this and understand this, the less you will experience negative emotions and, when you do, the quicker they will move on.

I'm passionate about wanting to share this understanding with today's youth. If we could only learn this as a child, we would experience greater mental wellbeing throughout our lives.

Whenever those negative feelings and emotions arise, we would more quickly be reminded that the source of those emotions is nothing more than our personal thinking. With 60,000 - 90,000 thoughts passing through our minds each and every day, one thing is sure - "This too will pass!" Another, hopefully, more pleasant idea or thought, is just a moment away.