If Things Go Wrong, Don’t Get Carried Away

We know that everything ends up happening, that even the most complicated circumstance comes to an end, that even the worst of storms hides the sun behind its clouds. However, when we are submerged in that negative situation, it seems that everything falls on us.

Without wanting to, we become very negative people, thinking that there is no way out and that everything is over. We are not able to see further, and consequently we let ourselves be carried away by our feelings, abandoning ourselves and letting the headwind make us lose much more than we would have lost in case of opposition.

Don’t get carried away when your negative emotions show up

It is inevitable to feel negative emotions just as it is inevitable to have to face events and circumstances that are contrary to our desires. These emotions play a role, focus on what is happening to us, stop to reflect on the circumstances and put a solution to them. However, its adaptive function can be buried when emotion takes control of our actions and our thoughts.

It is then when our thoughts are filled with defeatism, lowering our arms and abandoning those behaviors that try to balance the negative streak we are going through: minimizing the loss. In these cases, instead of staying with the information that emotion tries to convey to us, we let it become a sounding board that plays insidiously, reducing our spirits … and with it our strength.

So if you find yourself in such a situation,  don’t get carried away by your negative emotions. Don’t try to fight them either – they will never be your enemy if you treat them properly. It simply draws their information and energy from them. Accept that they are now part of you, but do not allow them to become viral, contaminating all thought and behavior that you generate.

Yes, at that moment you feel terrible. Your partner has left you and you think you will not find anyone else. You have been fired from your job and you consider it to be the last straw. You have suffered a disappointment and you think you have to start distrusting everyone. All this does not help you, it limits and prolongs the suffering and pain that you have given your hand to.

The importance of taking an emotional distance

Even if we are overwhelmed and we feel that there is no hope due to the dark clouds that are in our minds, it is necessary to make an effort to emotionally distance ourselves from the situation we have experienced. We’re not seeing anything clear, so why not zoom out a bit?

Doing so will help us see what is happening more clearly. We will acquire a new perspective that will give us useful information to get out of the point where we are trapped.

Now, how can we take an emotional distance? We can start by  thinking about a situation in the past that we have experienced and in which we experience similar sensations.  We could not overcome it? In addition, over time, we relativize the importance we gave to all those adversities we have experienced.

This will allow us to realize that this situation is the same. Only the content has changed, but in reality we are going to get out of it. It can also help us to talk to other people and pay attention to how they live what we are going through. Putting ourselves in their shoes will help us see our situation from a new perspective.

Think that even if you believe that you do not have the power to change anything that is happening to you, this does not mean that you have to let yourself be carried away. Swimming against the current is sometimes necessary. Especially in those moments when emotions blur your vision so much that you can end up suffering from severe depression. So do not get carried away by what you know that in the future you will be able to see from a much less dramatic perspective.

Images courtesy of Anne Solin