365 Ways To Wellbeing – 356th Way
Showing emotions, bad and good, is good for us. Facing our emotions and processing them gives as away to free from their grip. If we neglect our emotions they may cause us many kind of problems, like emotional gridlocks and mental and physical problems.
We can express our feelings in many different ways. We don’t really have to think how to express positive feelings, there’s plenty of room in the world for them. Negative feelings are a bit different case. It’s quite common to express negative feeling in a way that harms others. We get angry, frustrated and jealous to others and let them know how we think. It’s a vicious circle of hatred that lingers on long after everything is said and done. This of course is not the right way to process our emotions. We just end up hurting others and ourselves -and our wellbeing- too along the way.
How to break that vicious cycle of negative emotions?
Kindness and compassion are great! By understanding the sameness between the people and acknowledging that there’s a thing called common humanity. We can increase our understanding and emphasize good instead of bad. By realizing that I’m not different from anybody else, I can better be connected to others and see how my harmful behavior hurts them.
Fighting fire with fire doesn’t lead far. Even though you would be hurt, there’s no point of taking things further by hurting back. It doesn’t have anything to do with being weak, but being strong instead. Being the one who stop the cycle is not easy. But at times we succeed and that’s the time when we can really feel good about ourselves and be proud of doing the right thing. In the end kind deeds are a favor for your wellbeing.
This day it was time to bake Karelian pies. Yummy!
While we were baking I thought about the good things that I´ve inherited from my childhood home. Kindness is one of them and I´m very proud of it. It has brought some misery to me also, I have to say. There has been times when I’ve been too kind without being strong and independent and able to defend myself. For kindness to work it needs to be accompanied with determination and courage too. We need not to forget our needs and ourselves because that’s when kindness takes a wrong turn and might start working against us.
Kindness is my strength and I want to cherish that in me – That is what I realized this day. I want to learn to be stronger, defend myself better and break free from my negative emotions. But I do not want to learn to show my negative emotions in a way that continues the vicious cycle. I want to get rid of them in a way that serves my wellbeing better. I want to continue believing in good in people because it’s so much better for my wellbeing to promote happiness than hatred.
Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 Ways To Wellbeing”.
