I used to think that the strong uncomfortable emotions I had were ‘negative’, ‘dangerous’, and ‘bad’ until I learned something absolutely life-changing, which was – there aren’t any ‘bad’ emotions, just ‘bad management’ of emotions.

When I first learned that it hit me hard. I realized that I’d been a poor steward of my emotions and had some pretty bad management practices in my life concerning them. In that moment I knew that I needed to learn more about my emotions and how to manage them in a healthy way. As part of that journey of discovery, I decided to look particularly at my strong uncomfortable emotions. A lot of the time I had stuffed my strong uncomfortable emotions down, or ignored their voice, choosing not to listen to them. Learning to acknowledge that God gave them to me for a reason, to respect them, and to listen to them would be a growth journey that would take courage, honesty, and integrity on my part.

I reasoned that if God gave them to me He did so because they would be good for me in some way. After all, our feelings aren’t just random chemical releases and impulses. They are God-given messengers. And if we want to be healthy, to grow, to get anywhere in life that’s worth going to, then we need to be able to let them speak to us, to tell us what we really need.

So I did some research and found out just how our strong powerful emotions could actually be helpful and good for us.

That’s right, our so-called ‘bad’ emotions – the uncomfortable, unpleasant, sometimes stronger than we’d like ones – are actually good for us. Those ones can do incredibly positive and powerfully good things in our life. When we understand the power these emotions release to us then we can harness it and use it. That way we make those emotions work for us, instead of them scaring us silly, and making us feel ashamed of having them.

Man, did I ever come to have a new appreciation for those emotions! Let me share with you some of the cool stuff I found. I’ve just picked a few to share today, as it’d be good for you to do your own research on some of the others, and go on your own journey of discovery and gaining respect for your uncomfortable emotions.

Anger

Growing up, I always thought that anger was just bad and dangerous, nothing else. It never occurred to me that it could be otherwise. Why? Because that’s all I’d seen – voices and hands raised in anger. I’ve since learned that anger can work for us in incredibly positive ways if it’s managed in a healthy way. Anger tells us when we’re feeling powerless and out of control. It focuses our attention, thinking, and behaviour. It’s an incredibly powerful motivating and energizing emotion that can spur us to solve problems and drive us toward our goals. Anger can make us aware of injustice, it protects values and beliefs. Research overwhelmingly indicates that feeling angry can increase effective performance, creativity, and can lead to self-improvement. Expressing anger in a healthy way can also lead to more successful negotiations in life or on the job.

Sadness

As I look back over the years I seem to have spent a lot of time feeling sad, which is a perfectly normal response to the crappy childhood I had and the abuse I suffered. But can feeling sad be good for you, and can positive things come out of it? Here are some of the things I found out. Sadness can help us improve attention to external details and increase memory retention, especially of events. Sadness can cause a change in our judgmental bias, reducing it, and it can increase good judgment by promoting a more detailed and attentive thinking style. It can increase our perseverance by making us want to exert effort to change. It can cause us to be more generous (in many different ways). Experiencing sadness can motivate you and make you a nicer person, increasing your empathy and improving your interactions with others.

Frustration

Frustration is a feeling that, if allowed to build, can turn to anger, and it’s often caused by things not working out the way we thought they would, or by having unrealistic expectations. A key factor in managing frustration well is to shift frustration from an irritant to a teacher. On the plus side, frustration is a strong motivating emotion, filled with energy and power. It can lead you to take more personal responsibility and therefore empower you. Frustration can initiate conversation, or close it down. Frustration can be a great spur to creativity and inventiveness, it can cause you to consider other possibilities, other ways of doing things. Frustration can spur you on toward your goals with greater determination. It can make you look at what’s within your control and what’s outside it, to know what you can do something about, and what’s not yours to take on.

Disappointment

Every one of us will no doubt be disappointed many times during our life. It can happen because of people letting us down or situations not going the way we thought they would. Having realistic expectations is a key factor in not setting ourselves up for continual disappointments. Disappointment can work for us in wonderful ways. It tells us what really matters to us and shows where we have passion. It’s a great growth motivator. It causes new creativity, is a great troubleshooting tool, and brings expansion and growth as we move through it. Disappointment can help us correct actions to better achieve our goals. It helps us reframe assumptions and can release us from illusions. It increases our knowledge. It makes us stronger and more resilient, and at the same time can keep us grounded.

Crying

Although crying isn’t always seen as a ‘negative’ emotion it can sometimes be a strong reaction we have to the things we go through, and it can cause us to feel vulnerable, uncomfortable, uneasy, or even ashamed. Yet, like the others, crying also does good things for us. It helps regulate feelings of stress, reducing them by releasing stress hormones from our body. It lets us know when we’re feeling overwhelmed and can’t take any more. Crying is self-soothing and helps us come back to a state of being more relaxed, and it lifts our spirits. It helps relieve pain by releasing oxytocin and endorphins into our body. Crying removes toxins from the body, gets rid of excess manganese, and helps stop our physical body from storing hurt and trauma in our cells. It helps us release our feelings of grief, disappointment, anger, etc., and activates the nervous system, restoring the body to a state of balance. It lowers blood pressure. It helps you embrace your humanity and can make you more empathetic.5

Make uncomfortable emotions work for you

I found it interesting that these so-called negative emotions are all powerful motivators, that give us energy and focus. And they are all creativity boosters. These are just some of the amazing things our uncomfortable emotions do, and as we’ve seen, they are anything but ‘negative’ when we know how to steward their goodness.

Instead of them working against me as they have in the past, I am now actively seeking to make them work for me. I now try and pause when I feel them, acknowledge them, and ask them what they are trying to tell me, or release to me. And you know what? They actually tell me. Yes, that’s right, our emotions can communicate not just in feelings, but in words!

But let’s face it, I don’t always remember to do that, and in the past I would have berated myself for not doing better. Now I am learning that it takes time to form new habits and I give myself more grace than I used to. I know that if I forget in the moment I can always revisit it later, so that situation doesn’t become a wasted experience. In those times it’s helpful to ask questions such as the ones listed in the activation below. They are questions I created to help me process through my uncomfortable emotions, based on the positive things I’ve learned those emotions are trying to show, or release to me.

Anger, frustration, sadness, crying, grief, or feeling anxious, rejected, exposed, insignificant, overwhelmed, humiliated, disappointed, let down, or disgusted, are all emotions that we could do with re-exploring and seeing with new eyes. Can I encourage you to do so. Go on an exploration, and do some reading or research on them. If you do, maybe you might come to a whole new appreciation of your emotions, and a willingness to listen to them, like I did.

Activation

It’s always good to do something practical as a result of things we learn. So here’s an activation in relation to uncomfortable or strong emotions. It’s something I am learning to do, and even if I don’t remember to do it in the middle of a strong emotional flow, I am trying to do it afterward, so I can learn from the situation.

I recommend using a journal for this activation so you can record what you find. Sit and think about a recent time when you strongly felt one of the emotions I mentioned in the main article – anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, or strong crying. Think about what it was trying to communicate to you, teach you, or release to you. Look beyond the surface level emotion –

What was it showing you, either about the situation or about yourself?
Is it dangerous? Risky? Should you think it through further and get more understanding, or gather more facts, before proceeding?
Was it showing you an area of passion in your life?
Was it making you aware of an injustice – to yourself or others?
Was it showing you your values and seeking to protect them?
Was it telling you that you felt powerless, and like you’d lost control of a situation?
Was it showing you that you’re doing too much and need to reassess?
Was it revealing to you your feelings – joy, delight, anticipation, overwhelm, fear, disgust, humiliation etc?
What inner needs was it revealing to you – the need for love, acceptance, to be heard, etc?
What was it trying to do for you in the situation?
Was it showing you what is inside your control, and what isn’t?
Was it communicating an unmet or unrealistic expectation?
Was it trying to regulate the stress of a situation?
Was it seeking to help you reframe assumptions, or release you from illusions you had about the situation or person?
Was it trying to increase your ability to make kind, wise judgments about people and situations?
Was it seeking to train you in righteousness, forming in you some of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in Gal 5. – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control? Was it wanting to increase your skills as a peacemaker, or increase mercy in your life? Or maybe, train you in living in harmony with God and man, or in truth? (Col 3:12,14; Eph 5:8,9; Matt 5:9; Heb 12:14; Eph 4:2,3)
What was it asking of you in the situation?
Was it calling you to take responsibility within a situation – to own up to your part in the situation, or maybe to seek a solution?
Was it calling you to push onwards with fresh energy and endeavour in order to achieve a goal?
Was it asking you to initiate communication?
Was it asking you to grow in a particular area such as character, internal capability, resilience and strength, in a skill, or a spiritual gift?
What gifts was this emotion (and God) wanting to release to you in the situation?
Were they offering you the gift of being able to look at others with empathy?
Were they gifting you with fresh motivation, renewed passion, energy and focus, fresh creativity and problem-solving ability, fresh strategy, and wisdom?

How 'bad' emotions are good...