Emotions as Traffic Signals - Kate Gegg, AM, LCSW

While “bad” feelings don’t feel as nice, they are actually incredibly important tools to help us find long term happiness
What if, instead of trying not to have negative emotions, we could learn to embrace them just as we do positive ones?
Negative emotions, like positive emotions, are signals to us about what does and doesn’t work for us
The trouble is sometimes we don’t feel the way we think we “should” feel in a scenario, and so we often want to push our feelings away.
Or, sometimes negative emotions are just plain hard to feel and hold on to because we’ve gotten so used to not feeling them and we don’t like how they feel.
We want to try and work towards connecting with our negative emotions in a sustainable way.
Negative emotions can teach us about what we value (sadness when we experience a loss), when we’ve made a mis-step (guilt), when we feel wronged or betrayed and need to protect ourselves (anger).
Without working on learning how to approach and tolerate these feelings we are vulnerable to missing important cues about what can make our lives better.
See post and comments for how this is different if we are depressed or anxious.

A common request I get in treatment, “You’re going to help me get rid of my bad feelings, right?”. It makes sense. Feeling good feels good and feeling bad feels bad. But, that’s not how it works OR how we want it to work.

Think of your emotions like a traffic signal that help you get to know your authentic self (meaning your personal beliefs, preferences, likes, dislikes, interests, values, and limits. See comments for more).

We are not capable of long-term and sustainable happiness if we are not in touch with our authentic selves, so learning to accept all your feelings is an important step in the process of having more positive feelings overall.

Red light emotions make us stop and signal to us that something isn’t quite right. Those include anger, sadness, guilt, shame, embarrassment – and most other emotions you might lump in the “bad” category.

Green light emotions are a signal to move closer to something. Those include joy, pride, satisfaction, hope, interest – and most other emotions you might lump into the “good” category.

Whenever we feel an emotion we are offered an opportunity to pause, reflect, understand, and learn. Examples of some of those lessons are in today’s comments.

Unfortunately, many of us struggle to tolerate the experience of feeling our negative emotions because they feel bad, we don’t like them, and most of us don’t have practice in accepting them. There is a sweet spot between feeling them “enough” to make sense of them, and stewing in them (or overwhelming ourselves with them). Finding that personal sweet spot can take some practice.

When we we’re depressed we’re often so over-run with negative feelings (they’re on overdrive) that they can be difficult to process through or make sense of. Sometimes we feel numb or don’t really feel anything at all. If either of those describes you that’s a sign to consider professional help from a therapist. See comments for more.

So, although you may be tempted to push away negative emotions, try to work towards seeing them as your teacher and your guide. This is best done once you are out of the throes of the negative emotion – sometimes just getting through is all you can do in the moment.

Notes:

Think about what each emotion signals to you. Some examples below for the purpose of some of our most common emotions.
When we feel anger we’ve received a signal we feel wronged, betrayed, or exploited in some way. We can learn from these situations and work to protect ourselves so we are not repeatedly in situations where we feel taken advantage of.
When we feel sad we’ve received a signal we feel the loss of something important or valued to us. Knowing what we value and working towards finding that in our lives (in other ways beyond the loss we just endured) offers us the opportunity to make more and more meaningful experiences moving forward. Sadness also helps us know and recognize how important something or someone was to us (which means we can sometimes feel surprised when we didn’t realize it until we lost it).
When we feel guilt we’ve received a signal that we’ve made a mistep. This signal helps us know when to make a mends, and helps us protect our sense of integrity and self respect.
When we feel fear we’ve received a signal that there is something to be afraid of. We want to work towards finding safety and security for ourselves.
When we feel joy we’ve found something that brings us pleasure. We want to (responsibly) keep that in our lives in a way that’s sustainable with other goals and priorities.
When we feel pride in ourselves or others we’ve received a signal that we or someone important to us has accomplished something of significance.
I mention your “authentic self” in the post. Many of us are confused about our authentic self because culturally, societally, and sometimes by our families we’ve been given messages about how we “should” feel, what we “should” think, and what “should” be important to us. These messages, some of which are well intentioned can confuse our ability to be in touch with how we actually feel, what we actually think and believe, where our limits actually are, and what is actually important to us. I talk about this further in my post on judgments and in my post on “should’s vs wants”.
Anxiety and depression can heighten emotions, and sometimes we can feel intense guilt, sadness, or fear that is not in proportion to the situation we are in or how we authentically feel about something. Feeling a lot of guilt CAN mean you really did something you feel is wrong, or it can mean your emotion is on over drive. While we can still learn from these emotions, the strength of the emotion does not directly match the strength of the lesson. Often times when we are anxious or depressed it’s not that there’s no reason for the feelings we are having, it’s that we don’t understand the reason – and the process of finding the reason can take a lot of reflecting and professional help. We also may need to learn when to listen to emotions and when to to challenge emotions, and figuring out when to do which is a complex process that is best done with a professional.
The premise of this post is that our emotions serve a function; we have them for a reason. Inside Out, the Pixar Movie is a great introduction to this concept, and explores how all of our emotions (including anger and sadness) serve functional and useful purposes for us. If you’re wrestling with this idea, or looking to introduce it to a child, consider watching the movie.