Sadness, anger, panic, scared, anxious, envy, hate. . .

Nope. Not me. Don’t have any of those. Don’t want any of those. I am positive and happy. Don’t send that poison my way.

Honor, conviction, fairness, energy, focus, task completion, awareness, vision, release, relaxation, instinct, intuition…

Yep. That’s me. I want more of those. I am positive and happy. Give me more of these.

Did you know that the descriptions in the second set are the gifts of the emotions in the first set?

They are.

We spend so much of our energy trying to avoid, manage or suppress these so called negative emotions without ever stopping to think that they exist for a reason. Emotions are just emotions, neither positive nor negative. There are however, positive and negative responses to emotions.

The etymology of the word emotion includes words like moving, stir up, agitation, move out, remove, strong feelings. The modern definition includes something that causes such a reaction. Emotions are there to cause a reaction to get things moving. Emotions drive our behaviors. The emotions are doing their job, we need to adjust our behaviors in response to those emotions.

Most of us learned how to respond to “negative” emotions when we were children watching adults react with a vague awareness (feeling). Unfortunately, those adults learned how to respond when they were children watching adults react with a vague awareness. We simply don’t have good responses to these emotions because we never learned what the emotions are there for.

Sadness brings the gift or release and relaxation. Anger brings honor and conviction. Panic brings energy and focus. Fear brings instinct and intuition. Anxiety brings focus and task completion. Envy brings fairness and security. Hatred bring awareness and vision.

What You Probably Learned 

Sadness is being unable to move forward to resolution. Anger is harsh, violent annoyance or even rage. Panic immobilize and torment. Fear is constant worry. Anxiety is nervousness that stops you from dealing with things. Envy is resenting what someone else has. Hatred is fierce attacks on others.

Which behaviors would you prefer? I think if we all had an opportunity to learn and become aware of the gifts that these emotions bring, we could finally stop trying to avoid, manage and suppress them. Fortunately, these emotions don’t go away. I personally am relieved that they don’t. Once I became aware of the gifts they offer, I welcome them wholeheartedly.

I invite you to get to know more about these mislabeled emotions and learn to love them!