MAKING FRIENDS WITH "UNFRIENDLY" EMOTIONS

No one likes the painful emotions, the ones that make us sad and tearful, frustrated and angry, despairing, fearful or panicked. I believe that the reasons why the population of the United States is experiencing such an epidemic of depression is that we've been raised to either judge ourselves for having the pain or we haven't learned how to resolve the pain - so it's pushed into our subconscious for relief. We use excessive alcohol, sex, sugar, caffeine and nicotine to help us to suppress the pain. We also use excessive shopping, gambling, working, exercise, love obsessions and under or overeating to do this, as well.
As a psychotherapist in private practice for over 23 years I've heard more than a few depressed patients say that feeling their anger wouldn't help to change anything. Partly true -- feeling and expressing their anger may not change another person or situation, but it absolutely will change their mental/emotional/physical state -- giving them back their Vital Energy. Depression is not a feeling, it is a mechanism in which a person's Vital Energy (Prana, Chi)is used to hold down their uncomfortable emotional energy. The result is an inner struggle that depletes them, making them feel lethargic and unmotivated. In the case of anxiety, the person over-focuses on the upsetting emotion, getting locked into it and depleted by it. In both cases the individual is over-focusing, either by doing so directly (anxiety) or by focusing their Vital Energy towards it in resistence to it (depression). In both of these cases the patient would agree that the emotional energy they are stuck with is considered by them to be an "unfriendly" one - a painful one.
What's the antidote? How can we learn to face rather than run from pain?
The process of making friends with our pain starts with understanding that all feelings (whether emotional or physical) are friendly messengers -- coming to us for the purpose of keeping us whole and healthy -- not to hurt us. If we can stay with that thought rather than reverting to the thought that it is some kind of punishment or failure on our part we have crossed the first hurdle in making friends with pain.
The second step is using the signal to look deeper inside of our thoughts and beliefs to find the self-blame that is the underpinning of emotional pain. How are we blaming ourselves for the pain? Here's an example - if I like my brown eyes, and someone comes over to me and tells me that I have ugly eyes because they are brown, I will not be upset because I do not agree. If, instead, I didn't like my eyes I would be in agreement with the persons statement and I would either become hurt (sad) or angry (a defensive stand against hurt) towards this person for saying that to me. If I use my pain as a signal to look inside - I can see that I am holding a negative belief about myself and I am now, being conscious of it, able to question it and change the negative belief into an atleast neutral one. Here's another example - if I am insecure about being smart enough to go to college, and someone with a college degree calls me "dumb", I will most likely feel insulted, and feel either hurt or angry towards them. But, if I were secure about my intellect and someone called me "dumb" I would probably just ignore it or chuckle. With no insecure idea inside of me to be triggered by the comment I would not react with pain. If I did, it would be an opportunity for me to explore my true beliefs about myself and have the opportunity to correct it. Correction is the name of the game. When our mind is filled with negative ideas about who we are, our emotions signal us, and provides us with the opportunity to make corrections. Life is much sweeter when we are not walking around carrying a load of negative beliefs about our selves. If you find that you need some assistence in changing the beliefs I highly suggest that you ask for help, from friends, family, and, if need be, a psychotherapist. Our beliefs about our selves influence every decision we make for our self. The better we think and feel about our selves the more we beleive we deserve and the better we treat our selves. There are no "unfriendly" emotions - only signals for the purpose of healing and strengthening you.