Using Negative Emotions

After we’ve identified our mission in life, or recognized the issue we need to work on, and we’re working hard to make our vision a reality, with G-d’s help, we’re still going to be tested. We have to expand our blueprint to include those tests, and to make sure that our expectations can accommodate the conditions of real life. When we have expectations that the world can’t fit into, we get upset, bothered, angry – all those psychological conditions that therapists deal with.

When we’re building our new template for life, we want to make it inclusive of everything that G-d is sending our way, even anger, fear and negative emotions. We can do this by internalizing the idea that everything that happens to us is always and only good. Most of us don’t yet think that way. We find ourselves in challenging circumstances, or we find ourselves dealing with some very intense negative feelings, and then we add to our problems by looking directly at the “brick wall” and telling ourselves how bad and terrible and awful it all is. But as soon as we do that, we’ve made it so much harder to get out of that negative state.

So now, the question of questions is how can a negative emotion be “good”? Well, when a person is fearful, or angry, or jealous, when their juices are going and their blood is boiling, they are suddenly in possession of an awful lot of energy and motivation to act, to move, to scream, to say, or to do something.  Once the negative emotion has dug all that energy up for us. we can use that energy and channel it into something healthy and good for us.

We’re all aiming for the relaxed, calm, content state of being, but how much do relaxed, calm people actually do in the world? It’s much harder to get off the couch and to make something happening when you’re in a state of nirvana. But when we’re mad? When we’re scared? Suddenly, we have the strength to change things we resigned ourselves to years’ ago; or to try things that everyone tells us can’t be done; or to challenge things that can’t be challenged. So even negative emotions can help us to move forward in our lives in a way that will enable us to have success and enjoyment.

Every single action that we take was “mothered” by a decision. We are making a decision every second of our lives, regardless of whether we are actually doing it consciously, or unconsciously. Right this second, you are deciding what to focus on. Are you really reading this sentence right now, or are you focusing on your past, and your pain? Wherever you decide to put your focus, that’s where you’ll be. If you want to focus on all the positive things in your life, you’ll be positive.

Even if a woman is yelling at her husband, screaming blue murder at him, telling him all sorts of horrible things about himself, yelling that she wants a divorce – if this guy has a positive belief system, and he believes in his marriage, and that this woman really loves him, even though he’s being screamed at and cursed at, he’ll have the inner strength and conviction to stick around, and sort his marriage out. Maybe deep down in his heart he’s learned how to have a strong, positive image of what his marriage is, and how it could “look” in the near future. If he knows what he’s aiming for, and he’s got the tools to achieve it, then he doesn’t need to talk or fight back. That husband is giving off powerful spiritual vibrations of certainty, and positivity and love for his wife, that can’t really be explained, but that are going to turn his whole marriage around 180 degrees.

It’s all about having a razor-sharp, strong focus. Most people simply don’t know what this sort of strong focus can achieve and do and change in the world. In our marriage example, what’s going on by the wife, right now? She’s just let her husband have it, no holds barred, and he’s responding with solidity and unconditional love – and that’s exactly what she’s looking for! The husband doesn’t need to come up with a brilliant speech to win her back, he just needs to believe in his marriage, and believe that right now, he needs to be yelled at. Instead of bristling with anger, the husband’s strong focus on creating a good marriage helps him to accept all the verbal chastisement calmly; and when he does that, life starts to respond to him in turn, doors that were locked and bolted shut start to open, and it becomes a cycle of progress. And he’s seeing real movement not just in his marriage, but also with his children; and with his work; and in his belief in himself. He’s stopped the vicious cycle in its tracks, and now everything is starting to turn in a positive direction.

When we believe strongly, we set ourselves a vision, we have a target, and we know what we’re aiming for. If a person just shows up at the airport one day, and decides to buy any old ticket, or to get on any old plane, he’s never going to get anywhere. He’s just going to be flying around the world aimlessly… We have to know where we are today, right now, and where we are trying to get to.

It’s only once we’ve picked a destination for ourselves that we can start to think about how best to get there. So what’s your ultimate goal? It could be that you don’t actually know! That’s OK too, just start with something right now that you like the idea of, or that you find exciting, that you want right now, and / or that you know that you need. Then start to think about why you haven’t got there already. There are many “small” answers about what’s holding us back: lack of money, or lack of self-belief, or lack of opportunity, for example, but the “big” answer, the “real” answer is we haven’t managed to reach our destination because we have inner conflicts and negative beliefs that are controlling our lives.

Maybe it’s been that way up until now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Start now, and focus on creating your own vision of the goal or life that you want to achieve.