“I’ve been feeling a lot of negative emotions since the beginning of the lockdown”. As an organizational psychologist, this is what I’ve heard the most over the past 10 days.
The good news is that there are no negative emotions–there are only unpleasant emotions. If we have gone through millennia of evolution with our emotions intact, it is because even the most unpleasant of them have a use and a function.
Anger? It creates a temporary tension to help fight against the source of the injustice. Sadness? It arouses empathy and social support. Disgust? It protects against what could be harmful to ourselves and to others. Fear? It prevents us from confronting dangers that could jeopardize our existence.
Understanding the meaning of our emotions allows us to welcome them with a sense of calmness, and to view them not simply as unpleasant feelings but as sources of information to help move us towards an improved state of being.
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