If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you probably know that I praise FasterEFT for having excellent tools, which allow you to create life-changing shifts by eliminating unpleasant feelings and emotions. This time, I’d like to answer a question I haven’t addressed before: if a feeling or emotion is unpleasant, does it mean it’s always harmful and we must get rid of it? No, far from it!

Having emotions is not only natural but inevitable. Regardless of how much mental work you’ve done for your emotional and spiritual improvement, regardless of how many issues you’ve successfully resolved in your life, you will experience some unpleasant emotions from time to time. However, these emotions are not there to torture you: they all have positive intentions behind them, which you can use to your advantage. The reason I recommend tools such as FasterEFT is to minimise the effect of emotions when they’re counterproductive; otherwise, listening to what they’re trying to tell you can be enough to make the changes you want.

How emotions can help us

Unpleasant emotions can be considered “calls for action”, as Tony Robbins puts it. In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, he lists a number of common emotions together with their possible meanings. For example, according to the list, feeling angry means somebody has violated your rules (that person could even be yourself), so it might be a good idea to adjust your rules or clearly communicate what they are to the person in question. Also, disappointment means you have unmet expectations, so it’s time to make new, more realistic ones, decide what you want exactly, and take action.

Even if you don’t have the book, you can still ask questions that can help you figure out what your mind/body is trying to communicate through your emotions. For example, if you’ve identified an event related to how you’re feeling, you can ask, “How can I use this? What can I learn from this?” Remember, everything happens for a reason and has the potential to enrich your life. You can consider it as a sign post, if you will, which show you the ideal path.

In the past, I’ve had a lot of painful experiences with rejection, fear, disappointment, anger, and shame attached to them. I used to blame these experiences for not being able to live my life to its fullest. Although I don’t wish them on anybody, I can now find the gift in them: if it hadn’t been for them, I’d have probably never learned about teachers like Louise Hay, Robert Smith, Tony Robbins, or Bill Harris. I’d never have realised that my emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being depends on me, not anyone else. I’d never felt motivated enough to try something new in order to change things around me instead of being complacent about them.

Sometimes, unpleasant emotions can even be a lifesaver. If you were walking in a forest and suddenly saw a bear running towards you, what would happen inside you? You wouldn’t just stand there and calmly think, “Gee, how interesting!”, would you? I assume you wouldn’t try to tap on how you’re feeling at that moment either. Chances are, your emotional reaction would tell you to run like hell if you want to stay alive, and you wouldn’t stop until you’ve made sure you’re safe. In this situation, this is completely normal and healthy.

You can also link emotional pain to an undesirable habit if you want to replace it with a healthier habit. The mind always seeks ways of moving towards pleasure and avoiding pain. Because of this, if you associate strong pain with the habit of drinking alcohol, you’ll be much less likely to do it again in the future.

When Tony was young and told his mother that he wanted to drink beer just like his dad, she tried this on him. She told him to drink six cans in one sitting and he eagerly agreed. After the third or forth can, he threw up. Before this event, being told not to drink beer (i.e. intellectual association) was to no avail. (Seeing his father drink regularly didn’t help, of course.) On the other hand, the emotional association (the disgust, the smell) proved to be so effective that he decided to never touch beer again.

If you want to try this strategy, I suggest doing so with close friends after a thorough discussion, or alone. There are Toastmasters clubs where whenever a member is giving a public speech and pauses with “ah” or other filler words, he/she has to pay a little money as “penalty”. This rule has been put into practice after a mutual agreement and everyone in the club knows that it serves as a guide to improve one’s skills as a public speaker, rather than a weapon for messing with each other. In Tony’s book, I read a piece of advice that a person who regularly overeats can use to quit this habit: as soon as they notice themselves doing it in a restaurante, they should jump up, point to the chair, and yell in front of everybody, “PIG!!!” I consider these examples ideal because you have the most control in these cases, and you have little chance of getting undesirable results. What’s guaranteed is that so much pain becomes attached to saying “ah” or overeating that you won’t feel like doing it again.

When emotions can cause problems

Even with the potential benefits, unpleasant emotions can cause all kinds of problems when they’re excessive and chronic. One such example is feeling frightful of a bear attack even when there are no bears around. (Sooner or later, you may as well attract a situation where a bear actually attacks you!) The more you repeat it inside you, the better you’ll become at it, while you’re also projecting this emotion into the world around you. If you’re constantly in a state of heartbroken because of a past relationship, people you’re dating with will unconsciously sense that energy inside you and react accordingly (for instance, they reject you). Over time, negative emotions get stored in your body, disrupt its normal energy flow and manifest themselves in physical pain and/or diseases. This is why it’s important to let them go.

A lot of people don’t know how to actually release their emotions, so they deal with them through rather destructive ways. One of them is diving in the emotion: they surrender and intensify it by constantly complaining or boasting about how “bad” it is for them. While they may find some pleasure in showing off that they are better at something than others (feeling like crap), they’re focussing on and reaffirming what they don’t want, so it’s only going to get worse. Others pretend that the emotion is not there, and may say something like “I’m fine.” This is yet another recipe to make the emotions and their impact stronger, because if you ignore their messages, the mind/body will keep trying until you acknowledge it.

There are also those who don’t allow themselves to express their emotions; in other words, they repress them. This is how I coped with my emotions for a long time: I learnt to avoid feeling “bad” by avoiding meeting certain people, doing particular activities, or even thinking about various thoughts! Needless to say, this approach proved to be not only extremely limiting—I missed out on opportunities I might have actually enjoyed—but also destructive (as it lead to pain and illnesses). In addition, it didn’t prevent me from feeling “bad” in the long run, so it’s definitely not the right solution either.

Find the right balance

There are many ways of releasing your negative emotions. One of them is taking a moment to acknowledge the existence and the purpose of what you’re feeling. In certain cases, becoming aware of what the emotion is about and acting accordingly may be well enough for it to be dissolved. If you need other tools as well such as tapping, that’s fine as well. Even then, having a cooperative attitude with your body always sets you up for achieving results more rapidly.

Relationships is one area where the recognition of the message of emotions can be very helpful. Sometimes, that message is as simple as “Sit down and talk.” Of course, if you’re fuming with anger, for instance, tap on it first. On the other hand, if what you have is only a slight discomfort or a nagging feeling, that could be an excellent cue for having a non-violent conversation. You could begin with something like this: “I’m feeling annoyed because you left the door open yesterday. Could you close it next time? It’s important to me.” Also, when someone else approaches you with a similar request, don’t just say, “Tap on it.” Listen to what they have to say and think about how their problem can be solved. If you want to remind them to tap, it’s better to ask, “Have you tapped on it?”, because it’s less likely to sound as if you were discarding their issue, plus you’re leaving it up to them to decide whether they want to use this technique or not.

In case you’ve repressed your emotions and find it difficult to express them, there are many creative options you can turn to. In The Power Is Within You, Louise Hay mentions hitting pillows, hitting sand bags, running, swimming, yelling in a car with its windows up, and saying why you’re angry while looking into your eyes in a mirror among other things. Remember, the goal is bringing up old hurts to the surface so that you can release them afterwords, so don’t stay in the unpleasant emotion for too long. Wrap it up with creating inner peace and forgiving anyone involved. While in front of the mirror, you can also say the affirmation, “I allow you to express yourself freely. I love you.” Also, make sure you’re not hurting you or anyone else in the process.

Conclusion

Emotions are there to serve you—even when it’s not obvious. You can find the next step in solving your problem or become even wiser by listening to their messages. Sometimes, emotions are necessary for survival. You can even use them to abandon an unhealthy habit. Having unpleasant emotions from time to time is perfectly okay for everyone. That’s what makes us human.

Of course, that doesn’t mean letting your subconscious go on auto-pilot is always ideal. When you practise or store a lot of negative emotions, it’s time to step in: you can bring to the surface and let go of them through many creative ways, making space for pleasant, empowering emotions. It’s all about finding the right balance and the world will become more beautiful right away.