Last week I learnt something that helped me a lot with my mental health that I wanted to share on Hive. I felt a drastic improvement in just two days of implementing it. This has to do with NOT suppressing negative emotions and practicing mindfulness.
When I first heard about this concept in a talk by Hugh van Cuylenburg, I thought "What? Negative emotions are good?! We shouldn't suppress them?" What the hell? that's interesting actually.
Hugh van Cuylenburg is an Australian speaker, author, and educator who is best known for founding The Resilience Project, a non-profit organization that aims to help schools, sports clubs, and businesses promote mental health and well-being through the principles of gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. Hugh has delivered talks and workshops to thousands of people across Australia and internationally, and he is the author of the book "The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness Through Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness."
Now, I'm not going to write about the role Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness play in happiness just to increase my article word count. I've included the full video in a section below where you can listen to it in detail. Instead, I'm writing about what stood out most to me and how I've made a change in my life.
G.E.M. - Gratitude, Mindfulness & Empathy- The Three Ingredients to Happiness
Negative Emotions and Why We Shouldn't Suppress Them
For many of us negative emotions such as sadness, boredom, anxiety, anger/ irritability are uncomfortable and we want to be able to get those feelings out immediately, don't we?
Well here's the thing. We shouldn't. When we go through these feelings with a conscious effort to understand the root cause, our brains come up with solutions. Even if a solution isn't found when those emotions subside, we feel so much better.
When we try to numb negative emotions by escaping to our phones and scrolling through social media, we end up feeling worse afterwards. And the one feeling all of us get when we escape to our phones multiple times a day is regret.
Try it. Whenever you see yourself reaching out for your phone, be mindful of what you are feeling if it's not genuinely to make contact with someone to do something important, refrain from picking up your phone.
Looking back at my life I am guilty of escapism. I used it when I wasn't happy with my job, when I was stressed out as a new parent, whenever I felt low. No wonder I became less social. I was even thinking of how I don't really have much of a friend circle since I moved to Trinidad and Tobago and haven't taken a vacation with the family in years despite the pandemic and being furloughed. If I made a conscious effort I could have gone to some place close by like a staycation or to the sister Isle Tobago.
For me starting a family meant I would have had to make a more conscious effort and plan my life. With out planning I just got stuck in a routine and I'd fill the gaps with T.V. and social media.
And I can relate to Hugh van Cuylenburg in his video where he says that he found himself particularly attached to his phone between 5-8 P.M. This was the part of his day where he had to get his kids ready for bed.
I feel most stressed out at this time and whenever I could, I would be engrossed with my phone. For example when putting my kids to bed or while feeding them.
What's ironic is we're making a conscious effort to curb screentime for the kids but not for ourselves!
In the last couple of days, not only did I cut out social media completely, including Hive. I practiced mindfulness. I've been trying to identify what the cause of the negative emotion is and it's not always clear. I sometimes feel a sort of emptiness and a feeling of anxiety. I can't really figure out what causes it. Other times it's stress and irritation with an identifiable cause.
I'm so glad I found this video. It's given me a starting point towards improving my mental health and to also help others by sharing knowledge. What I find interesting is that this wasn't picked up during some sessions I had with my company provided counsellor who is a psychotherapist. In our sessions he did pin point some areas that I needed to work on but escapism wasn't really discussed. I will bring it up in our next session and let's see how that goes.
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Some of my Previous Articles
The Power of Patience: How Cultivating this Virtue Can Transform Your Internal Processes
The World as Your Classroom: The Value of Learning Through Travel