Deal with the negative in productive ways!

While negative emotions have the potential to be destructive, it is also important to understand them and learn to control them, so they don’t control you.

Negative emotions include sadness, anger, jealousy, hate and severe anxiety. These emotions can impede your ability to cope with everyday situations. However, negative emotions are a natural part of life and they provide a reference point for positive emotions.

Negative emotions are often natural and appropriate but it is how you express your emotions that really determines whether they are constructive or destructive.

For example, it is natural to feel resentful when you have been left waiting by a friend who arrives extremely late without reasonable justification, or to feel sad when a loved one dies. However, if you express your anger by yelling at someone or even ignoring them, this will probably lead to destructive outcomes.

Be aware of the possible negative emotions that you might experience and learn ways to identify and deal with them.

Children need to learn the difference between positive and negative emotions not only for survival reasons, but also to develop emotional intelligence and resilience. Most emotional intelligence programs for children include information on how to recognise and understand different types of emotions, as well as problem solving and coping with negative emotions in a constructive way.

Emotions have a biological component. Emotions are experienced as physical sensations in the body and the brain responds to these sensations by stimulating further neural and hormonal responses and also with higher level thought which adds additional layers of meaning to the emotions. This complex process can ultimately either have a positive or negative effect on your wellbeing.

There are many ways to deal with negative emotions. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Replace negative thinking patterns with more constructive and productive thoughts.
2. Exercise! Get regular exercise and try to exercise even when you don’t feel like doing anything.
3. Eat healthy food. Aim for a balanced diet with healthy foods and only occasional small treats.
4. Don’t blow things out of proportion and focus only on the negative aspects of a situation.
5. Try to understand your negative emotions and the things that trigger these emotions.
6. Learn to relax. Consider taking a yoga or meditation class or listening to relaxing music.
7. Leave the past in the past. There is no use worrying about what you can’t change. Quote: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley
8. Seek professional counselling help if required. Don’t be afraid to try a different counsellor if you do not feel comfortable with someone.
9. Learn about grief and try to understand the grieving process.
10. Sleep well. Try to develop a regular sleep schedule and keep to the routine, even on weekends.
11. Set realistic and achievable goals and work towards them.
12. Celebrate the small things in life. Take time to smell the roses, talk with a child or stroke your pet.
13. Think about the good things you have achieved in your life.
14. Look on the bright side of the situation.
15. Understand that life is not always easy, however it is often in our darker periods that we search for answers and find meaning.

Happy Dolphin

We teach children to count, to read, we teach them about the world, we teach them how to be resilient, how to bounce back, how to solve conflict and how to manage their anger… but do we ever really teach them to be happy and how to practice it daily?

Happiness must be taught.

It is a learned skill, it needs to constantly reviewed and drilled into our young minds, and so we can create a more optimistic future!

Planning to be Happy

Happiness is something that we can work on; in fact we need to make plans to ensure that our highest potential and greatest good is reached. As the saying goes,

Those you fail to plan, plan to fail!

So let’s looks at ways we can plan to be happy on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly level!

Start by identifying when you’re at your happiest.

• What are the happiest times of each day for you?
• What are you thinking when you are happy?
• Who are you with?
• What are you doing?
• What things within yourself are guiding you in those times, what are your motivations?

Remind yourself to be happy

Maybe you need to place a few objects or photos around your house or on your desk to remind you to be happy. On top of my filing cabinet I have a pink and a black toy poodle. They remind me of my dogs at home and how happy they are to see me when I get home!

I also have a set of flags with Chinese characters and English words. They include: tranquillity, courage, love, wisdom, peace and most importantly happiness. The quote under the happiness states:

When one’s spiritual needs are met by an untroubled inner life. Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

Positive activities in your weekly routine are also important. Schedule time to be happy – is essential to well being!

The way we think makes a difference

Each day we have a million different thoughts. Some of these thoughts are positive, some productive and some of our thoughts are destructive. We can teach people, especially children how to identify the negative and destructive thoughts.  Even really young children can be taught to replace negative thinking with more positive thoughts. This is an essential skill for parents and teachers to teach.

Make a list of things that may bring you happiness.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What can you do today that will bring you joy?
• What can you do this week?
• What can you plan to do this month?
• What will you plan this year?

Teach children, adolescents and your friends how to be happy. There will always be times of sorrow or sadness in our lives, or times where we feel anxious or unhappy for what ever reason, but as the sun rises each day, so does sadness lift.

Sometimes, we just have to know how to be happy and practice it daily!

Smile - It can increase your happiness!

He then came across a large map of the world, so he ripped it out the paper and then tore the picture of the world into small pieces to resemble a jigsaw puzzle and gave it to the child.

Satisfied with his genius, he thought that will keep her busy for at least 20 minutes.

Within a minute, the child exclaimed, “Dad, I have done it!”

Amazed, the father looked at her and said, “How did you do it so quickly?”

“It was easy,” she replied. “On the other side of the world was a picture of a person. If you get the person right, you get the world right!”

If you get the person right you get the world right!

There will always be disruptive students within the classroom and at school. Perhaps these students are the ones that teach us the most. They make teachers use their class room management skills, challenge teachers the most and, at times, are outright rude. These are the kids that end up in the Principals office and then are usually sent to the School Counsellor. There are always reasons for this behaviour.

I raise the ethical question, should schools seek the greatest good for the greatest number, or seek to help an individual reach their full potential? I understand the need to seek the greatest good for the greatest number, but as a counsellor, for me it is individuals that matter most. This is illustrated simply in the well known story above.

Of course, schools and society and even teachers must focus on the greatest good for the greatest number, but we can’t dismiss the individual who will need our help.

Because it is when you get the person or individual right – that it that we can get the world right!