You Can’t Escape Your Humanity.

We tend to think we would love to be happy all the time.

I know that thought has crossed my mind. Still does occasionally.

The brain is hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain, including negative emotions.

We hate negative emotions so much that we do anything we can not to feel them.

Avoid, resist, react.

But sometimes we WANT to feel negative emotion.

Do you you really want to feel a positive or even neutral emotion when a loved one dies?

When you read news about tragic things happening to other humans?

When a friend tells you something sad?

When you watch a drama or a scary movie?

When something happens to you that wish hadn’t?

And some experiences that you want just require negative emotion even if you don’t want them to.

For example, growing, changing, and evolving all require discomfort.

Fear.

Embarrassment.

Vulnerability.

Disappointment.

And without negative emotion, your positive emotions would be meaningless.

How could you possibly know you are happy if you aren’t sad sometimes?

How could you possibly know you are calm if you aren’t anxious sometimes?

How could you possibly know you are excited if you aren’t bored sometimes?

If you always felt incredible, you wouldn’t know it was incredible.

And it wouldn’t be incredible.

The very definition of incredible is “difficult to believe” and “extraordinary.”

You are always going to have negative emotions.

The real magic comes in learning how to feel those emotions. Accepting them. Allowing them.

That’s what can make your current human experience better.

How would it change your life to not fear, avoid, resist, or react to having negative emotions?

If you welcomed them?

Even moved toward them some times?

Having negative emotions is part of being human. You can’t get rid of them. But you can change how you experience them and how they impact your life.

What negative emotions do you avoid, resist, or react to the most?

A ❤️ note to you: Emotional granularity, the ability to precisely identify your emotions, is an extremely helpful skill. One that we aren’t really taught. Why? Because your emotions (or your desire to feel or not feel certain emotions) drive EVERYTHING you do. When you understand your emotions, you have so much more control over your life and your own emotional experience. Helping people learn emotional granularity is exactly what I do. To hear more about how you can learn emotional granularity and start creating a life you love, send me a DM or sign up for a call with me at the link in my bio.